For the past couple of months I’ve been trying to apply more of the stuff I know about Design Thinking to my ministry approach.
It has been an interesting journey.
Roughly, Design Thinking is the process through which designers create solutions for problems.
These process involves (according to IDEO):
- Understand
- Observe
- Visualize
- Evaluate/Refine
- Implement
(If you read Wikipedia’s definition of Design Thinking you will see the same process with different names to each step.)
When creating a chair, the designer does not try to design a chair, instead he tries to answer the question: How can I support somebody above the ground?
This opens up a wide range of possibilities. Instead of limiting himself to: How can I create a cool chair?
Innovation only happens when you ask good questions.
This is the first step. To understand/define what you are trying to resolve.
What problem is your/mine ministry trying to resolve?
What questions are you asking that you are trying to answer through a Sunday meeting?
We’ll only find the answers when we ask the right questions.
