By Mike Klockenbrink
I
remember lying in the grass on my back as a kid, looking up at the clouds in the sky with my best friend Mike, making pictures out of the clouds. Sometimes it was a dog’s face, a rabbit or a cartoon character. But as the winds blew the clouds would change and we had a whole new sky of opportunity in front of us.
In Bill Hybels book “axiom,” Bill calls this “A Blue Sky Day.” The Willow staff would hold meetings for the sole purpose of dreaming. The sky’s the limit.
Maybe you’re a dreamer or have a very creative imagination, or maybe not. Going back to lying in the grass with my friend, Mike would see something and try to point it out, but I couldn’t see it. Sometimes I would have to twist around and squint my eyes or follow his pointing finger to the cloud in question. Then I would shout out, “Oh I see it!” Sometimes we don’t always see what’s right in front of us. Many times, there were several of us looking up into the sky. This would just build into a frenzy of finding the next treasure.
We recently took several staff members out for a blue sky day. This included staff members from all different areas and levels of responsibility. First and foremost they felt honored to be invited and participate in this fun day to dream. We asked a couple of starter questions to get everybody in the right frame of mind and it wasn’t long before the ideas started flowing. It didn’t matter what the idea was, how much would it cost, or if was even humanly possible. The idea was to get outside the box and dream, to dream BIG.
Does your staff see any animals in the clouds? Do you give them time to look for and point them out? Maybe more importantly, do you see any?
Mike Klockenbrink is chief of staff at Lakeside Church, Folsom, CA. [ www.lakesidechurch.com]
