6 Greatest Great Ideas – 2021-2022
As a welcome gift to ConNext Summit 2022, The Ministry Lab is happy to share our picks of the Greatest Great Ideas from the past 12 months. We chose these particular Great Ideas based on the sub-themes of this year’s Summit.
You can find our full offering of Great Ideas here.
We would love to share your Great Idea with others. You can tell us all about it here.
GRACIOUS IDLENESS
SPIRITUAL PRACTICES PERMISSION SLIP
Give yourself and others permission to take time for spiritual renewal and bodily refreshment with whatever spiritual practices is life-giving to you.
ILLUSTRATE-YOUR-OWN CHRISTMAS SERMONS
Allow yourself a little break in the Christmas Season: invite the entire congregation to illustrate the verses of one of our rhyming meter offerings, and you’ll have a storybook sermon you can share in-person or online.
SCRAPPY TRANSFORMATION
MAKING MEANING & COMMUNITY WITH PODCASTS
Let each member of your congregation share their story – then listen to them together with new appreciation for the diversity, complexity, and humanity represented in your particular community.
We cannot live into God’s desired future working in a vacuum. “Siloing” ourselves only increases divisiveness and isolation. Schools are natural partners in our care for children, youth, and families. Developing partnerships with them strengthens community bonds, deepens compassion, and increases social optimism – not to mention meets some needs of folx we are called to serve.
RADICAL BELONGING
Too many families have been explicitly told not to return to Christian community because their children are ‘too disruptive’. Creating a safe, nurturing environment for children with different needs takes intentionality, training, and commitment. Adaptive VBS simultaneously prepares a congregation to embrace folx with different needs and offers a container in which families from the community can find their welcome.
The arts have a way of bringing community together like little else. With the right intentions, art can help communities explore their history, repair relationships, and develop lasting commitments to healthier futures for all.
BONUS GREAT IDEA
We wanted to keep things sleek for the postcard, but this Great Idea has so many off-shoot possibilities – and would be so fun! – that we can’t resist sharing it:
Not a typo: that word really is “BREADFEST”. Your spell-check may not like it, but you will! Explore history, culture, geography, family traditions, and local diversity all in one go. Invite the entire community to participate. Make it an annual thing. Let the feasting begin – and enjoy discovering the beauty of your neighbors.
