First Idea?

Last week, the Creative Team at Calvary Church set out to brainstorm our next series: Fixable. After hitting a home-run on a relatively easy series title (Behind Enemy Lies), I knew that we'd have to struggle through a set of topics that were quite a bit more vague.
The morning before brainstorming, I kept thinking to myself, "Don't settle for the first idea."
Usually there's nothing "wrong" with your first idea. But we've been taught all our lives as school children that you should always go with your gut instinct on a test; don't over-think yourself out of a right answer.
But successful creators are successful because they force themselves to exercise their creative muscles--to push themselves through and explore many different paths.

So what happened at our meeting? Our first idea was a close adaptation of something we had done before. We knew how to do it. It would "work". So we forced ourselves to brainstorm an entirely different idea from scratch. Then a third. Then even a forth emerged. We brainstormed for two hours, but it was clear to me that our team wasn't really sold on any stage design and didn't fall in love with any of the three logos. We could push for consensus, and leave the room with the box checked.
But we decided to sit on it for a week. In my mind, it was better to find the best answer than settle for a quick one.

Later that week, several guys from the team drew on my board a completely new idea (#5). It was elegant, symbolic and could stand on its own for ten weeks. It was passed around the team. Today the entire creative team approved the design.

Don't ever take your first idea first. Force yourself to brainstorm others--not adaptations of the original. Explore several different paths. In the end, you may select your first idea. But you'll never know if it was the best idea if you have nothing to compare it to.

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