Have you noticed it recently? The shift away from ‘the church’. We sure have.

We have noticed again and again, and heard similar things from our pastor friends, that their people (and even they themselves) have all of a sudden found themselves questioning the way the local church has been operating. And more than that, they’ve been questioning their part in it all. Many are asking if they have given too much, been taken advantage of, or even worse. For some, there’s a sense that they have been manipulated into serving their pastor’s vision. We have so many friends who have been on staff at their church, walked away from that and then are left wondering if any of it was good or “of God.” Were all the years of giving their all worth it?

Surely ministry is not meant to be this way? Not meant to leave you feeling this way? And to answer those questions, I suggest that, while church leadership should be held to a higher standard, it may also be true that some of the hurt and pain could have been avoided with a stronger sense of understanding and commitment to a personal philosophy of ministry.

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It can be overwhelming to be handed a Worship & Creative Team to lead or pastor for the first time or be tasked with the mandate to grow one from scratch. I know because I’ve been in that position…

In 2023, Rich and I started consulting for a number of churches and organisations, using the knowledge we have to help people in our world lead and grow. Through this, over and over we hear this one question;

To help answer that question, I thought I would share my back story with you.

Let me take you back to around 2007, when I had two babies and an HR degree. I had already worked for our Church at the time in an administrative role in the Creative team. I had started our marketing and events departments from scratch. I had dabbled in stage design because we didn’t have that department, and together with Rich, we ran a zone in the youth ministry overseeing teams of teams. Rich had a theology degree and a passion for teaching the Bible, and we had the heart to plant churches.

Before that, we had grown up in a little Baptist Church in Melbourne of maybe 500 people and done everything from kids ministry to youth, to leading worship, to serving tea and coffee, designing programs, communications, and building home groups (funnily enough, Ben Fielding and Reuben Morgan both came from there too!)

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Ministry often comes at inconvenient times and is disguised in all kinds of endeavors.

• God weaves all our experiences together and has a way of surprising us with what He chooses to use.

• Don’t discount your current season because you don’t know what the Lord is training your hands for in the future.

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In high school, I did cadet training. I enjoyed the break from regular classes and the adventure of getting out in nature. Once a year, we’d travel to a place called “Mount Disappointment” and hike around the bush for a week or so. It was a fitting name because those times didn’t always match my expectations. It would rain there a lot, so we’d get wet, cold, and often lost out in the middle of nowhere.

As a result, I learned the art of leaving a breadcrumb trail. Walking along, I’d leave reminders of where I’d been to avoid getting lost.

The real lesson was in learning to look for the breadcrumb trail and not miss it. It wasn’t easy to see unless, of course, you were looking.

Hold that thought.

I’ve always loved the Exodus story, and the older I get, the more I realize it’s because it’s the framework for everything that is to come later in scripture, but also for our lives. It’s the story of bondage and release, finding worship in the wilderness, and traveling to the promised land.

And again, when I was reading Exodus recently, I was struck by that story. But this time, it was because it made me think about the kind of God we have who provides manna in the desert.

In my imagination, I always think of manna as chunks of bread falling from the sky. But the reality is it was probably something different. The closest English translation of the Hebrew for manna is “What is it?” which I find fascinating! Translators have turned that word into “wafers” to make things easier to understand, which gives an entirely different connotation.

So picture this; each morning, when the people of Israel emerged from their tents, the ground was white with manna. In other words, covered in kindness from God, and when they saw it, they would ask, “What is it?”

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Christmas is loud in our house…

Cousins, board games, reunions, and all the feels from a year of commitments. After Boxing Day, cricket games are left lingering, and there is a moment when we struggle to remember the date and try to remember what day it is.

The hours merge when our brains have time to decompress from the year’s tasks, details, and rhythms. The southern hemisphere encounters the heat of Summer, and our northern hemisphere friends snuggle around the fire - winter has found us retreating.

Most of the world takes some time to reset. It is a sacred time of the year if we choose to slow with courage. The hardest part is surrendering to the sabbath that the season offers, making meaning with perspective from the season that has passed.

• How do we reflect on a season that has carried with it brutal global stories?

• How do we make sense of a season that doesn’t make sense?

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Hi, my name is Cass, and I am a recovering fast food addict and adrenaline junkie. A relentlessly paced life once controlled me, caught on the Instagram and social media treadmill, running from one thing to the next, finding myself consumed by the complex and complicated.

Everyone says, “Hi, Cass.”

(And before you cast too many stones, feel free to introduce yourself in the comments below with your vices and weaknesses. Confess your sins one to another 😉)

Until recently, my family had often found ourselves racing from one thing to the next, particularly on Sundays. We would usually grab breakfast from McDonald’s on our way to church to make it on time for rehearsals. We’d drop past the “chicken shop” on the way home for lunch and then, defeated by the clock, pull into the drive-through of McDonald’s again on Sunday night to down a little burger at the day’s end. Then I’d post about everything on social media. After that, spent and exhausted and unprepared for the new week, I’d collapse into bed knowing I would do it all again the following Sunday.

Does any of that sound familiar? Or is it just me?

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( PSST… We are going to reference some tools in this article that will help make your brainstorming all the more enjoyable and effective! All of these tools and diagrams are available for PDF download at the bottom of the article. Happy reading! )

The Question Everyone’s Asking…

As I was writing this article, two separate worship pastors reached out with the same question:

“How do you actually run a brainstorming session that works?”

Pastor (Australia):

“Sometimes we struggle in coming up with creative ideas or inspiring our team to be creative. I loved your session at Renaissance Conference 2025! How do you structure a brainstorm so it’s open, but also realistic?”

Pastor (USA):

“We’ve drifted toward isolated work. How do we get back to authentic, face-to-face creative connection?”

Collaboration is either a creative team’s greatest superpower, or its biggest Achilles’ heel.

Get it right, and you unlock:

• beautiful ideas;

• deep connection;

• and true innovation.

Get it wrong, and you end up with:

• groupthink;

• awkward silences;

• or the same tired ideas on repeat.

Post-COVID, it’s gotten harder. Many teams are still stuck in “isolation mode”… squeezing creativity into 45-minute Zooms or relying on AI prompts instead of real, face-to-face dreaming.

Why Most Brainstorming Sessions Flop

Let’s be honest, most “brainstorms” are just regular meetings with a new name.

• The loudest voices dominate.

• The extroverts too often take the gap.

• The best ideas get shut down too soon.

• People play it safe instead of dreaming big.

This is a crazy fact:

We have found that traditional group brainstorming can actually produce fewer ideas than individuals working alone, unless you add structure and safety.

But when you do, group creativity skyrockets.🚀

Unlock the Secret to Brainstorming Breakthroughs

Over the years, we’ve discovered a simple but powerful method that transforms chaotic, unproductive sessions into spaces of creativity, connection, and real progress. It’s not just theory, it’s a step-by-step process, complete with practical prompts, scripts to handle tough moments, and printable tools to guide your team. When you’re ready to lead brainstorming sessions that actually work, the full “Three Chairs” method and all the bonus resources are waiting for you below.

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I call it the blank page syndrome.

We’ve all been there. You have to write or create something. You can see the deadline approaching. You have the clean, crisp, blank sheet of paper in front of you, yet you can’t quite work out where to start.

Time passes. The more you sit there stressing, the less you feel inspired. And the more the desperation starts to set in.

And this is the reason that the question of…

…comes up again and again when we are working with teams. (Just a little side note: if you would like us to come and work with your team, feel free to contact us for details at rich@thehopefulrhino.com)

How do you stay inspired?

The answer that no one wants to admit is that we all face times when we don’t feel inspired. Yet, some people seem to be continually prolific, which leads us all to believe that other people are constantly inspired and that we’re not.

So what’s their secret?

I have come to learn that their secret is that we have all fallen for a lie about inspiration…

It is so easy to feel like inspiration is something we innately have built into us (or not built in). Or that ideas just “fall from the heavens”.

But prolific people, those that are inspired by good ideas all the time, treat inspiration differently. They work at the art of being inspired, more like a discipline than a skill anyone possesses innately.

With that in mind, here are some thoughts to help you reshape your thinking regarding inspiration. They will reduce your desperation and increase your imagination about inspiration.

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( PSST… We are going to reference some tools in this article that will help make your team better! All of these tools and diagrams are available for PDF download at the bottom of the article. Happy reading! )

When we were first married, Cass and I didn’t have a lot of furniture. There was the old green sofa that Cass’s family kindly donated to us. And someone gave us an old black-and-white TV that mysteriously turned color one day… That was a good day!

We had very few things that we actually bought ourselves. We were just young, we didn’t have much money, and we were okay with that. And as with many other young, married couples, we purchased a few things from IKEA.

The infamous flatpack.

Some people love them, and other people hate them. And the instructions that come with them are self-explanatory to some people and may as well be in a foreign language for others. I’ve heard countless stories of husbands and wives having trouble assembling IKEA furniture together. It’s a cliche of modern preaching.

But personally, I like the process of putting IKEA furniture together. I like following the instructions. I like finding all the pieces and seeing them all come together step by step. But I realize other people don’t enjoy it. They would rather not use the instructions, don’t follow the steps, and find the whole thing frustrating.

We’re all different and uniquely created, which is a very good thing.

If you are following along with the Academy, you have probably read our article ‘The Creative Process: Why We Need It and Where to Start’ (if not, you so should!!).

To be honest with you all, that is one article I second-guessed even posting. I worried that the thought of “systematizing” creativity may be off-putting for you all.

This self-doubt probably started because I’m the type of person who likes to follow the instructions in IKEA furniture, and knowing full well that others don’t (even some people I share my desk with **cough-cass-cough**). In fact, I’m painfully aware that for some people, the idea of creating a formula or a process for creating things is “anti-art” or even “anti-Holy Spirit.” They, or perhaps you, prefer to go with the flow and see what happens.

We’re all unique and have “a way” of going about the things we do. The reality is you can’t help the way you go about things, and neither can I.

For me, it’s easy to embrace systems and processes and to see how they help get things done and create a predictable outcome. The downside is I sometimes find it more difficult to embrace “going with the flow.”

However, when Cass first read my ‘The Creative Process: Why We Need It and Where to Start’ article, she was basically in the fetal position in the corner. She felt I was risking dumbing down creativity into a four-step machine. Or worse, encouraging people to churn out art, following a process, leaving no room for genuine creativity.

I know I can be too rigid, but on the other hand, Cass can be too fluid. So how do we work together? We can find the perfect blend at the intersection of our strengths. Where my strengths end, and hers begin, and where hers end and mine begin, that’s where the magic happens.

I understand that figurative unicorns exist, but an individual rarely has a complete set of skills and talents that an idea needs. Therefore…

We need each other!

It wasn’t easy when Cass and I started working together, overseeing a creative department. Although our hearts were right, we struggled to embrace each other’s creative process. I was frustrated by the meandering and inefficiency, and Cass was frustrated by the rigidity and what felt like squeezing the life out of her creativity.

Ultimately, we found a way forward by allowing each other to play to our strengths. For example, I tried to change my language and approach to getting things done. Cass agreed that a framework for managing all of the outcomes we had on our plate would be helpful, especially for the people we led and who were often impacted by her lack of process and desire to wait for the right ideas to “drop.”

Cass and I didn’t formalize everything, but we did put some guardrails around our creativity to keep us on the road, heading towards our goals and agreed outcomes.

We named our creative process the I.C.E. Flow.

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It was squeezing the joy out of life.

Like the crushing grip of a giant snake that had silently wrapped itself around its prey.

It all seemed okay until it wasn’t.

Have you ever felt like that?

That overwhelming sense of the world starting to lose its color, where the path ahead is disappearing right before your eyes.

I’d had dark times before, but this was different.

I’m probably over-dramatizing it, but all this describes the way I felt at the time.

It was a real sense of hopelessness.

At the time, I didn’t know that’s what it was. But I do now.

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The Exodus has always been one of my favourite stories in the Bible, especially the part where Israel has made their way to the edge of the Red Sea. A sea of water confronts them, and an obstacle in the shape of the armies of Egypt is coming after them.

God had orchestrated for them to stage the biggest heist in history – to plunder Egypt’s gold before they fled, but now here they are on the edge of the Red Sea, and they have all of Egypt’s gold with them, and they are on the run. Israel is going to worship God in the desert according to what He has told them, but now, instead, they are fearing for their lives at the sight of the Red Sea.

So they start complaining to Moses.

And he replies in Exodus 14:13,

Since I was a teenager, I have sought to practice this.

To become still enough to hear His voice or to rest in his ability to deliver me. It has been a wrestle, but I have come to appreciate what is created and transformed in me as I wait for Him.

But as I read those verses more recently, I saw something different – something I had never noticed.

In the verse straight after Moses has told the people to be still in Exodus 14:15, it says that the Lord asks Moses;

I was taken aback; surely, when we find ourselves in desert places, under threat, or in a challenge, it is good that we would be still and let God fight and cry out to him for help. But God tells them to:

Stop crying out.

Walk forward.

Move on.

And it is then that you realize that the only thing in front of them is something capable of drowning them. A gigantic sea!!!

And yet God is clear:

Stop crying out and move on.

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Do you believe that there are places where heaven feels just a breath away?

Where the veil between the seen and unseen grows wears away, and we sense the nearness of God? I’ve felt it, have you?

The ancient Celts called these places the “thin places.” They were sacred spaces where the distance between heaven and earth almost seemed to collapse in on itself. The Celts believed these places, windswept cliffs, quiet monasteries, and towering cathedrals, were charged with the presence of the Creator. The New York Times even wrote an article on them.

But is it just a mystical thought, or is there something more to it?

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Let’s talk about “following your gut”… not your physical “gut,” but the Holy Spirit kind.

I’m talking about that inner “yes” or “no” you feel in your chest… the nudge that says, “Reach out,” or “Try again,” or “Not that way!!!” 🤣

Call it a holy hunch, a whisper, a spark… whatever language you use, those nudges matter.

Looking around, it seems many of us have either never learned to listen to the Holy Spirit in this way or have gotten out of the habit. If that’s you, let us help you change that today.

I’ll never forget what our old Pastor, Alan Nunn, used to say:

The more we pay attention to Him, the sharper our spiritual senses become. But it works in reverse, too… the more we ignore those inner convictions, the duller our awareness of God’s voice gets.

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adjective

1. needing much effort or skill to accomplish, deal with, or understand.

2. (of a person) not easy to please or satisfy; awkward.

   “Jane could be difficult.”

Where there are people, there are difficult situations.

It doesn’t matter which church, worship, or creative team you choose; we all have people with unique personalities and idiosyncrasies. This is all well and good, but what do you actually do with these people?

How do you deal with them?

Over the years, it seems I’ve become a magnet for difficult people. You know the ones. You have them in your church, too. They’re the people that most of your team ignore, try to avoid, or talk about behind their back.

Sometimes these people are complex and intentionally challenging; other times, and I would say mostly, they have no idea they’re doing it. Then again, sometimes they’re nasty, and at different times they’re stubborn and unwilling to play as a team member.

Some people are complex because of trauma, abuse, or difficult life circumstances. We need wisdom to know how to deal with the different scenarios and not create more chaos than we can handle.

Some of the most brutal experiences of my life have been times when I’ve had the responsibility to come alongside and pastor difficult people. Having said that, they have also been ranked as some of the most encouraging when the situations have turned around. I’m sure you can relate.

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It’s never too early to start dreaming about Christmas, right?! I’ve been known to begin pinning away on my Christmas Pinterest board year-round, and it’s constantly overflowing with inspiration! Festive tables, wild color combos, and a few ideas that might just be a little too crazy… or maybe just crazy enough.

But here’s the truth:

The best ideas never happen alone. Collaboration is the secret sauce that turns good into great and brings everyone along for the ride. You need a “dream team” if you’re truly going to do something incredible.

So, let us help motivate you today to create or reshape your dream team this week.

3 Ways to Invite People to Dream With You

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She sat across from me at the café, hands wrapped around her coffee, frustrated and full of doubt. For 45 minutes, she poured out her heart, her struggles, her disappointments, her fears. And finally, she asked the real question that every leader asks at some stage:

“Am I just the wrong person for the job?”

The Leadership Crisis We All Face

If you’ve ever led anything, a team, a ministry, even a family, then you’ve probably felt like this. You try to inspire, to cast vision, to encourage, but it feels like standing on a cliff, shouting into the wind. You start to wonder if you’re the problem. You begin to say things like:

“They just don’t seem to want to follow, and there is no one following them!

I can say the same thing over and over, but no one is doing it.”

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When I started out as a young worship and creative leader, I didn’t know what I didn’t know. In fact, I thought I knew it all, which makes me laugh as I think about it now. But back then, it made me confident in myself, even though I had no real reason for such confidence. I thought that if people weren’t following me, that was on them, and definitely not due to my poor leadership.

As the years went on, I began to see the areas in my life that needed work. It turned out that some things take time and attention in order to learn and gain skills. At other times, I realized I had the technical ability to perform certain tasks, but my confidence was lacking. It took work and attention to grow the confidence to step into all God had placed in my hands to do.

As it turns out, good leadership is a combination of high levels of skill and experience, combined with well-grounded confidence.

Where do you find yourself?

In order to help others not to meander their own way through their creative leadership/confidence journey, we have developed a model for self-assessment and development.

We call the model the Everest Ascendancy.

Imagine Mount Everest, the tallest mountain in the world. Leadership development can feel like a huge mountain to climb. It’s not an easy task. It takes intention, partnership, and a great deal of learning. If you want to reach the summit, you can’t do it alone. You won’t do it without a true combination of expertise and confidence.

So the question is; Where do you currently find yourself?

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The room was a buzz.

It was conference time again.

I was reviewing all the last-minute details before the service began when, out of nowhere, Steven Furtick, the guest speaker, walked in with his team from Elevation Church.

I can still feel the moment.

I was excited to meet them all and was really looking forward to what God had in store for the coming days.

Then Wade Joye introduced himself, Elevation’s Worship and Creative Pastor at the time, and I knew I had just made a friend for life.

It was an unexpected surprise!

You know when you meet people you just like instantly - and who you just get? Wade is one of those people.

During lunch that day, I learned he was on a quest to love the Lord, His church, his family, and everyone who came across his path.

He is a true creative, one who understands all the moving parts. Yet, he sees the people amongst it all. He understands the demands and dreams, yet he’s passionate about putting Jesus first. He’s warm and generous with his time.

Over the last few years, we’ve found him to be a pioneer and risk-taker. Someone dissatisfied with the status quo and willing to get out of the boat and attempt to walk on water if that is where the Lord is leading.

And that’s why we asked him to contribute to the Academy. Because he is our kind of person, and we knew he would encourage you.

So, meet Wade… we know you will find his writing below encouraging and empowering.

Your dream loves to lie to you.

No matter how pure and good the dream may seem, it will lie to you again and again without you even realizing it, and it will repeat the lie until you believe it.

And that lie is this: Your dream defines you.

In our culture, not just outside the church but even within it, we have let this lie creep into our worldview and theology, and it is leading us further into worry, discouragement, and depression and away from Jesus and the lives he intends for us.

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As a kid, my parents took me to Disneyland, and we rode Star Tours. I remember being enamored by R2-D2, one of the iconic robots from the Star Wars franchise.

If you’re not a fan, here’s a quick recap…

In Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, R2-D2 carried the crucial Death Star plans in his “rusty innards,” as described by C3P0 (another great robot sidekick). The Rebel Alliance fought valiantly, with Luke, Leia, Han Solo, and others risking their lives to prevent the Empire from getting their hands on the plans. The good guys had to keep R2-D2 hidden from the Empire, who relentlessly pursued him.

R2-D2 was the MacGuffin of the story.

“What is a MacGuffin?” I hear you ask.

A MacGuffin is a popular plot device in storytelling, particularly in films. It refers to an object or goal that drives the narrative and motivates the characters to take action, but ultimately holds little significance to the story. A MacGuffin is simply a means to an end, a device used to move the plot forward and create tension and excitement for the audience.

Another well-known example of a MacGuffin is the “Grail Diary” in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Side note: The actual diary from the movie was sold by Christie’s back in 2012 for an unbelievable GBP 18,750 (or about USD 23,365.78). But, of course, if you’re really keen, you can make your own - here’s a link to a fan on Instructables who did just that.

MacGuffins are how filmmakers and storytellers keep their audiences engaged and the plot moving in the right direction. They encourage action. They create a level of interest of excitement, and as Alfred Hitchcock famously said;

MacGuffins are meant to help alleviate boredom.

So why am I telling you this, and what does a MacGuffin have to do with anything?

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There’s nothing like the opportunity to reinvent yourself. Pop stars do it all the time.

But for us “normal” people, we don’t tend to take the opportunities that life presents us to start over, reinvent, or do things differently.

It's silly, but for as long as I can remember, Cass has had the same hairstyle. Come to think of it, so have I. Oh, except for that Covid beard… Check it out below!

And in a season of new beginnings, our hair didn’t change. But we recognised we needed God’s help with internal, spiritual reinvention.

So for reinvention to happen, Cass and I felt we needed to get away and seek God. We realized that if we took the time to pray and reflect on what God had taught us over the course of our lives and in our previous seasons, we could build on the past rather than just repeating things and not going anywhere new.

I love the coincidences of God!

Incredibly, the day before we left for our retreat, Amanda Viviers sent us her workbook called “Begin Again.” It arrived in the mail as a gift at just the right time. It’s an “end-of-season guided journal.” So we packed the car with all we needed, including Amanda’s workbook, and embarked towards the seaside, on the process of self-reflection and rediscovery.

(Fun Fact: Did you know that the word “coincidence” only appears once in the Bible? Jesus used it in the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:31)

The time away was filled with sunshine and wide, sandy beaches. The landscape was so peaceful that I was convinced we no longer needed to do any reflecting after all. Despite this, Cass was committed. I tried everything to avoid the process, urging her to “go for one more swim.” She wouldn’t let me get away with it, so, with the sun on our faces and the soundtrack of the sea, we opened up the workbook and our journals and started.

Journaling is hard work!

I don’t know if you journal, but I find it difficult when I do. However, once I start and the words begin to flow, it is definitely a freeing experience.

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Who comes to mind when you read this quote?

Perhaps Marco Polo, Da Vinci, Einstein, Edison, Marie Curie, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Kanye, or Taylor Swift?

But innovation isn't limited to individuals; companies like Google, Netflix, and Apple, and restaurants like Noma, embody it too.

Forbes cites the world's most innovative companies in their article of the same name.

How about churches?

Names like Saints, Passion, Hillsong, and St Aldates, or individuals like Erwin McManus, Louie Giglio, Frances Chan, John Mark Comer, Eugene Pettersen, and NT Wright all spring to mind.

What do they have in common?

Maybe it's:

A willingness to go against the flow,

To try new things,

To dream,

To take risks,

To be bold,

And to value the unconventional.

So here’s the real question…

Is God innovative?

We’ve been asking ourselves this question recently.

God must be innovative, right? Or is ‘innovation’ a 21st-century concept?

If there is nothing new under the sun, then where is God’s innovation?

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