Christian Business Concepts
Christian Business Concepts
God's Wisdom in Action: The Art of Effective Brainstorming
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Creativity isn't just a business buzzword—it's a divine gift that Christ-centered leaders can harness through intentional brainstorming. This episode reveals how biblical wisdom perfectly aligns with effective idea generation techniques that can transform your organization.
Harold Milby unpacks the scriptural foundation for collaborative problem-solving, pointing to powerful examples like Jethro's organizational advice to Moses and Rehoboam's consultation with his advisors. While the term "brainstorming" may not appear in Scripture, the principles of seeking wisdom collectively, valuing diverse perspectives, and prayerfully discerning solutions are deeply embedded in God's Word.
Discover practical techniques for both individual and group brainstorming sessions that honor biblical principles. From mind mapping and free writing to round-robin sharing and brain writing, these approaches create space for the Holy Spirit's guidance while respecting each person's unique contribution. Most importantly, learn how to create an environment where creativity can flourish—starting and ending with prayer, eliminating criticism, and embracing the truth that "plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisors they succeed" (Proverbs 15:22).
This episode equips Christian business leaders with actionable strategies for generating innovative solutions to complex challenges while remaining firmly grounded in faith. Whether you're facing strategic decisions, operational problems, or seeking new market opportunities, these biblically-aligned brainstorming techniques will help your team collaborate more effectively while honoring God's creative design.
Ready to transform how your organization generates ideas and solves problems? Listen now, then share this episode with fellow Christian business leaders who could benefit from bringing their brainstorming processes under the Lordship of Christ. Remember, as Proverbs 16:3 promises, "Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans."
Welcome to the Christian Business Concepts with your host, harold Milby. Christian Business Concepts is dedicated to guiding companies and business owners in becoming effective, efficient and successful through God's Word and godly principles. Now, here's your host, harold Milby.
Speaker 2:Great job, kelly, and welcome everyone to this week's Christian Business Concepts Podcast. I'm your host, harold Milby, and each week we discuss biblical business principles and how that these principles can help you have true godly success. You know, we talk about all of the business topics that are, you know, in the news today and are talked about today, and then how the Word of God has direct principles that can be applied to those business topics. And, as every week, I always pray and ask that you will be encouraged, that you'll be enlightened and that you'll be empowered by what you hear today in this podcast. Now, be sure to help us grow the CBC community by sharing this podcast with four or five other people and be sure to post the link. You can put the link to this podcast on a Facebook page Not a page, but you can post it on your Facebook page and you can post it also on a LinkedIn page that you may have. So if you'd help us do that, help us grow this community. We're excited about the so many people that listen to the podcast every week and it continues to grow, and every week I try to give a big shout out to certain countries or cities. This week I want to give a big shout out to the United Kingdom, you know, because they, across the pond there, have done such a great job of getting the word out. There's so many people that are downloading the podcast in the United Kingdom and we're so thankful for you, we pray for you and we pray for the Christian businesses there in the United Kingdom as well as around the world, because this podcast is downloaded in almost 30 different countries and we're excited about that and humbled by that, I might say, too.
Speaker 2:Now in this week's business spotlight, I want to mention a company. They're an international company. They are in Australia, they're in Canada, they're in South Africa and others but the name of the company is Dayspring Cards Dayspring Cards. They are a greeting cards and gift company. They are a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hallmark, but Dayspring operates with a different mission. They operate with a mission to spread hope and encouragement through what they consider to be Christ-inspired messages in their gifts and in their cards. They were founded in the US, but they have an international distribution network, retail partnerships all over the world, and they sell journals and other gifts with Christian themes, and the products are sold through a lot of bookstores, christian bookstores, non-christian bookstores, online platforms, and a lot of their emphasis is on messages of faith, on messages of love and biblical encouragement. Dayspring collaborates with a lot of local churches and ministries to distribute inspirational material as well. They are partners with Compassion International to support child sponsorship programs through their product sales.
Speaker 2:And so today's spring we say keep up the good work. You're a great example of a Christian not just a Christian-owned, but a Christian-run company, and we appreciate you. Thank you, keep up the good work. Now, you know, as Christian business leaders, we are called to be good stewards of our talents and our resources and we're to be very wise about those things. We need to seek innovative solutions, but not just any solutions, but solutions that are God-centered, faith-centered and that serve others.
Speaker 2:And today I want to talk about brainstorming. Now, I know that brainstorming isn't specifically mentioned in the Bible. I get that, but there are so many principles in the Bible that are used in brainstorming and can be, and it surprises me in business the number of companies that don't practice brainstorming. You know, brainstorming, brainstorming, is a great process to generate a lot of great ideas, either individually or collectively. A lot of the things that I've done over my career and I continue to do that is, I sit down and either I'll have a brainstorming session just myself, or I will have a brainstorming session just myself, or I will have a brainstorming session with people such as board members, other people that are involved in this work and some of the other ministries that we're involved in, and it's a great tool. It's a great tool for problem solving, it helps you to make great plans, it helps you to bring about innovation, but there's just not very many businesses that practice this art of what I would call brainstorming, and it really, if you're a Christian business, you're missing out if you don't incorporate a great brainstorming session from time to time in your operations. There, I think you're missing out.
Speaker 2:And so today we're going to discuss how to first understand the importance of brainstorming in leadership and in business, and next we're going to learn how to learn about these practical techniques for individuals and groups. When we're talking about brainstorming, we're also going to learn how to apply Christian values as we're fostering this creativity, and then we're going to provide some very actionable steps and some activities to begin to implement really good brainstorming in your workplace. So let's get started with laying a biblical foundation. As I said, you know, brainstorming the word brainstorming is not in the Bible and I get that. But brainstorming reflects God's call to seek wisdom and creativity. You know, ephesians 2 and 10 says for we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do. That's Ephesians 2.10. So when we engage our minds and we are collaborating with others, we really honor God's design for creativity and community. So let me just give you a couple of examples right off the bat.
Speaker 2:So in Exodus 18, I really encourage you to read that but this is Jethro, who is Moses' father-in-law. They have left Egypt with all the children of Israel, about 5 million people, and they left Egypt. And so Jethro was really kind of taking an eye and watching Moses and watching how he operates. And so he goes to Jethro. I mean, jethro goes to Moses and he basically tells Moses dude, I've been watching you and you're going to wear yourself out, you're going to burn out because you can't do everything. You cannot be the person that does everything. So Jethro, in my mind, had a brainstorming session.
Speaker 2:So what does he tell Moses to do in Exodus chapter 18? Well, what he said was is he said delegate authority to other capable men. He said find you rulers of tens, rulers of fifties, rulers of hundreds and rulers of thousands, and then let those people take a lot of the things off of your plate and then you only have to deal with those things that only you can deal with. Now I'm paraphrasing. That's not the words the Bible says, but if you read Exodus, chapter 18, that's what he does, that's what he tells Moses, and so that comes along and it really helps Moses that he would have wore himself out because he was trying to do everything.
Speaker 2:I've seen that happen in churches with pastors, you know, because the pastors are doing everything. Big mistake, because eventually, first of all, a pastor, a person, first of all a pastor, a person cannot manage more than about 75 people. So if your church is bigger than 75, you're going to wear your pastor out if he's the only one doing things. So it's very important to understand. But that was a brainstorming session.
Speaker 2:Then you have in 1 Kings 12, after the death of King Solomon, rehoboam was his son and he takes over as king from King Solomon and he goes and gets the advice from both the older, more experienced advisors, and then he gets advice from his younger advisors, younger contemporaries, we can say it that way. And so the old men gave him some really good advice and he told them to be lenient and to serve the people, but the younger men advised him to be harsh and to lay down the law. And so Rehoboam chose to do what the younger crowd was advising him to do the inexperienced people and it led to a big split in the kingdom, in the Israeli kingdom, and so you had Israel, and then you had Judah, and a couple of tribes were following Judah, and that split Israel because he didn't listen. Now, that's not what I want to focus on. What I want to focus on is how that he met with these counselors and they brainstormed and they talked about what they should do, and you had one group saying one thing, one group saying another, and he had to make a choice. But it was a brainstorming session.
Speaker 2:So what's the importance of brainstorming? Let's look at a few things. I think that brainstorming is essential for innovation because I think it generates a lot of creative solutions. We talk about a lot of challenges in business today and in the world today, but at the same time, I think good brainstorming will help you innovate. I think it's good for problem solving. You know, that's how I solve most problems that I've had in my career whether it has been as a vice president, whether it has been as a regional sales representative over the years, whatever it may have been when I run into some complex problems, complex issues, even ethical dilemmas or financial constraints, because those things come into play. But when you begin to get people together and you have brainstorming sessions, you begin to have ways to solve those problems.
Speaker 2:Another thing I think it does is it helps to build teams. It really helps to create this unity, this feeling of collaboration. It really reflects the biblical principle that you find in Proverbs 27, 17, where it says iron sharpens iron, and so another man sharpens another man's countenance. But that's what you're doing. You're trying to sharpen the edge a little bit and I think when you have people around you and you guys have brainstorming events, it really does help sharpen the blade, so to speak. Right, it also helps you with a lot of strategic planning. It helps you set goals, it helps you plan events, it helps you to design different things that's needed. And then it also creates a lot of spiritual growth as well. You know, it encourages a lot of prayerful discernment. You know, because, what you want to do is make sure that the ideas that you come up with in these brainstorming things that they align, that they align with God's purpose. So you want to make sure of that.
Speaker 2:You know the guy who started Domino's Pizza, tom Monaghan. You know he said one time he said I sometimes compare my brainstorming on paper to the drilling of oil wells. The only way to strike oil is to drill a lot of wells. So he's talking about getting a lot of ideas when you're doing brainstorming. So you have individual brainstorming right, and when you do that, that gives you the opportunity to really go deep and have a lot of focused reflection. It's great for personal vision setting. You know, getting that vision detailed out. It gives you a lot of opportunity for really just some initial ideas. It helps you to generate those initial ideas.
Speaker 2:It also enables a lot of leaders to seek God's guidance in the quietness and the solitude you get alone, as Jesus used to do. He would get alone in prayer a lot more than what you realize when you read the Gospels. You'll see it, look for it and you'll see it. But a good example of that is Mark 1, and around verse 35, you can look that up and it's really good to have individual brainstorming, especially when there's maybe some time constraints and it really kind of limits your timing of having a big group brainstorming session. But then when you do have group brainstorming sessions, that gives you the opportunity to get a lot of different perspectives. It really fosters a lot of creativity, a lot of creativity. You get a lot of collective wisdom, creativity, a lot of creativity. You get a lot of collective wisdom. And the Bible talks about that in 1 Corinthians 12, verses 12 through 14. It really builds team cohesion and I've seen that in my career. It encourages people to contribute and it helps you to keep everybody focused on servant leadership. And it's really if you've got some complex problems or complex projects, you want to have a group brainstorming session. You know it's just like organizing. You know a new product category or whatever it may be, but you want to be able to do that as a group.
Speaker 2:So let's talk about a few techniques for individual brainstorming. So why again do we need individual brainstorming? Because it allows you again to deeply reflect. You get free from all the external influences and you get to seek God's wisdom alone. So it's really good, as I said, for generating the initial ideas. But it also helps you to clarify your goals, and maybe you've got some leadership challenges and so you can't have this collectively with your leadership team.
Speaker 2:So what are some of those techniques? Well, first of all, this one I have used many, many times. It's called mind mapping. Let I have used many, many times. It's called mind mapping. Let me say it again mind mapping. So what is that? Well, it kind of helps you to create this visual diagram. That kind of helps you to organize your thoughts around a singular creative idea or a singular idea. So you have the one idea right, and so what you're going to do, we'll kind of look at that as it would be like you put in the very center of your paper, you'd put that central idea and write it in that circle, and then you begin to draw branches out from that, lines out from that with smaller circles that have related ideas to that. It has related ideas, and then you can even have branches out from that to have even more detailed ideas and sub-related ideas to those ideas, and you can just branch off. It looks like a big family tree and that's a great way to brainstorm, because you can put these ideas, circle them and then draw a line to where they fall and where they should be. And you can use colors, you can use symbols to highlight priorities, but I would always encourage you to begin with prayer. Ask God for a lot of creativity. Lord, inspire me with ideas to serve you. So that's one way of doing that.
Speaker 2:As far as for an individual brainstorming session, then there's something called free writing. Free writing it's where you just write continuously. Give yourself 15 minutes, for example. Give yourself 15 minutes and, without taking the time to really edit anything, you just start writing down ideas. Don't worry about if it's spelled ideas, don't worry about if it's spelled right, Don't worry about if you articulate it exactly right. You want to get the general concept of the idea. The key is that you flow in your thoughts and you're just writing furiously. You just write everything. Write everything that comes to mind as you're dealing with whatever it is that the subject is, and then I would really reflect on the Word of God, reflect on Scripture, like Psalms 32 and 8 talks about.
Speaker 2:Before writing, before you start this idea session with just what we call free writing, and then, after you get this done, then you start to review and highlight, take a highlighter and highlight certain things that you've written down. Now I use the computer so I type it all out. I'm not the fastest typer in the world, I'm not the slowest, I type pretty well, but I just type it out and then I go back and highlight it, maybe change the color of the font or put it in bullet points. But first I just start with free writing and so I do that from time to time. And then there's something called the scamper method and I've not really dealt with that too much.
Speaker 2:It is one of the methods that some people use, but it just kind of you use prompts, if I can say that. But you use prompts if I can say that you want to put words down like substitute, combine, adapt, modify. You know, put the word eliminate, put the word reverse and use these as prompts to come up with these ideas in your brainstorming session. And you know it works really good with a topic, a specific topic, and you can do that. So you choose a topic and then you provide these or apply these scamper questions, what we call scamper questions. For example, can we substitute? There's the word substitute Can we substitute a guest speaker with maybe a member-led devotional if we're talking about a nonprofit organization. Can we combine meetings with other projects? And you list ideas for each of those prompts, but you start with the word that you use to create the question and you just need to pray for discernment to make sure that your ideas align.
Speaker 2:And then, of course, you need to spend time in prayerful reflection. We've talked about this. Find your quiet space, pray, pray for wisdom, write down ideas that the Lord begins to share with you. I've had my wife have the Lord wake her up in the middle of the night To write down ideas that God plants in her. She has, I know, in one case in particular, god woke her up at 3 am. I was struggling, I was trying to figure out how to handle a situation and it was with the owner of the company, my boss, the CEO, and God gave my wife the exact words to say and those were the exact words I used and it really created a breakthrough for me. But if you have prayerful reflection, god will speak to you.
Speaker 2:So you want to make sure that you set a clear goal, to make sure you define the problem, define what the objective is before you start brainstorming, and you can do that. Get specific and then eliminate any kind of distractions, get a quiet place, go somewhere. A lot of you could utilize your library. The Free Public Library is great in the US there's many of them that are really nice and they have study rooms where you can get alone and be quiet. Sometimes, get away out of the office and just do that. I've been places where I go to the park and I sit there in the park and I have a notebook and a notepad and I just jot down ideas and then you just want to refine those ideas as you go along.
Speaker 2:Now, what about group? What about group brainstorming? Because that really harnesses these really diverse kind of perspectives. It gives you a lot of opportunity for collaboration and it really kind of reflects this biblical principle of unity in the body of Christ that you find in 1 Corinthians 12, around verse 12. And it's great for planning big events. It's great for solving complex problems or developing really competitive situations or projects. Proverbs 15.22 says plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisors they succeed. So that's very important to understand. That's a great principle.
Speaker 2:So what can we do? Well, there's classic brainstorming, where you just get a group of people and then you just start letting the ideas flow, just let them flow, let them flow. You have five to ten people. You write down everything. Make sure beforehand you set a clear goal here's what we're trying to do and make sure you set these rules. No criticism. Every idea is welcome and you build or springboard I like to use the word springboard off of other ideas, because sometimes you get a bad idea, but that bad idea gives you a springboard into some really good ideas. So you don't want to judge people, you don't want to criticize, you want it to just flow freely. Use either a big whiteboard. They also make these big tablets. They're huge but they're like sticky notes and you can just peel them off and stick them on the wall, and I kind of like that method.
Speaker 2:You can do round-robin brainstorming where each person individually contributes one idea and then it goes to another person. They get another turn, they give an idea, go to the next person, and then you can just keep going around, going around and going around and do that same thing. So you just sit in a circle and again you state the goal what's the goal here? And then each person shares one idea each time it comes around to them, and you want to do that three to five times. You know, go around there and you know I would begin in those sessions with like a devotional. You know the Bible talks about in Galatians, chapter 5, it says serve one another humbly in love. So you want to encourage people, to encourage others. So, anyway, the next is what we call brain writing. You know, members basically write ideas individually and then they share with the team and they build on them. And it's really good for people who are a little bit more quiet. They're afraid to really speak out, so let them do it in private and then bring it to a meeting so you can do that. The other is make sure that you use again the brain mapping. That's still a great tool. It's a good way to do it.
Speaker 2:So what are some tips for success, for brainstorming? Well, first of all, make sure you create a safe space. Again, I can't say this enough Don't criticize. Don't criticize the ideas and don't let anybody on your team. We don't laugh at people, you know. We just take the idea.
Speaker 2:The whole idea of brainstorming is get as many ideas as you can on paper or on a whiteboard or wherever you're doing this to a computer. Get as many ideas as you can on paper or on a whiteboard or wherever you're doing this to a computer Get as many ideas as you can and then go back and refine them, add to it, springboard off of them. And then you want to make sure you have a facilitator. You need one person that leads. It could be you, maybe you want to use a vice president or a department head, whatever but you need somebody to be the facilitator. Make sure everybody keeps on time, make sure you enforce the rules, guide that session along, because if not, you'll get into a lot of rabbit trails. Don't allow that to happen. And then begin and end your sessions with prayer. That's key because you want to seek God's guidance and unity and use as many visual tools as you can Whiteboards, the big sticky notepads I said any kind of digital platforms. There's tons of those out there.
Speaker 2:So I just want to encourage you to do brainstorming. It is truly, truly a tremendous way to do things within your organization or your business to help you get through a lot of issues that come up in any organization. You know, another book I would encourage you to read would be the Creative Leader by Ed Young, or another book is Think Better by Tim Herson. He'll give you some additional strategies on top of that. Two good books there, by two good authors.
Speaker 2:So you know, brainstorming, I believe, is a gift of God. I believe it enables us to co-create solutions that really reflect his wisdom. And, as Christian business leaders, we need to approach brainstorming with humility and prayer and a heart to serve. You know, proverbs 16, 3 reminds us commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans. Let your ideas that you come up with in these brainstorming sessions really shine. Shine out for his glory. Lord, we come before you right now in the name of Jesus.
Speaker 2:Lord, we thank you for everyone that's listened to this podcast. Now, lord, they're all at different levels, different levels of leadership, different levels of business or organizations, but they're not all the same. They're all different. But, lord, help them to see the power of brainstorming. Help them to see that, lord, you are a creative God, you're a God of wisdom and, lord, we see so many examples throughout the Word of God of how people use brainstorming techniques, though they didn't call it brainstorming, but, lord, that's what it was. And, lord, help those who are listening to this podcast to begin to develop and utilize the principles that we've talked about today, to help them to brainstorm, to bring them into a better situation, whether it be a complex problem they have, or whether it is some kind of a marketing issue or a management issue. It could be an HR issue. Whatever it may be, lord, you know what they need. Help them to have a good, productive Lord brainstorming session.
Speaker 2:Lord and Lord, we thank you for it. We ask your blessings upon these people, lord, that are listening to this podcast. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen and amen. Well, again, thanks again so much for listening to this week's Christian Business Concepts podcast, and again I just want to thank you so much for being a part and helping us to grow the CBC community. Help us to grow it. We've got a lot more to do. There's a lot more things coming. I've got some things I want to share with you in the future, very near future, and so continue to pray for us, and we really appreciate that and appreciate your prayers and your support. And that's about all the time we have for this week, and so until next time, I just want you to remember that Jesus is Lord and he wants you blessed.