{"id":33117,"date":"2022-09-10T20:36:20","date_gmt":"2022-09-11T01:36:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/the-moonshot\/"},"modified":"2022-09-10T20:36:20","modified_gmt":"2022-09-11T01:36:20","slug":"the-moonshot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/the-moonshot\/","title":{"rendered":"The Moonshot"},"content":{"rendered":"

In September 1962, on grainy, black-and-white tube televisions allacross the United States, John F. Kennedy threw down a challenge,ending his speech to forty thousand people at Rice Stadium inHouston, Texas on a surprising and awe-inspiring note:We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things,not because they are easy, but because they are hard.As twenty-first-century readers, it\u2019s hard for us to grasp just howoutrageous these words would have sounded to their original listeners.But make no mistake, this was earth-shattering, and Kennedy\u2019s speechcoined the word \u201cMoonshot\u201d\u2014an undertaking of something soambitious, so out of the realm of possibility, that it seems halfway crazy.In many ways, the Moonshot gives us the key to overcoming theCurse of Knowledge: something so audacious, so unlikely, it breaksus out of the cage of our creative thinking.<\/p>\n

The Moonshot defeats the Curse of Knowledge. How? By slayingthe foundational belief that you can do it.<\/p>\n

Why is this important? Because it breaks the glass ceiling that\u2019sbeen holding back our capacity for ideation, our ability to see beyondour own experience and expertise. The point is our current capacityand skills can\u2019t accomplish the Moonshot. So we\u2019re going to have tothink, see, and respond differently.<\/p>\n

This is essential for kingdom innovation, because this very spiritualprocess only becomes possible when we start to remove our pride andself-belief from the equation. You can\u2019t make kingdom innovationhappen. No, really. You can\u2019t. I don\u2019t care how clever or competentyou believe yourself to be. Only Jesus can make it happen. In John 15,Jesus says, \u201capart from me you can do nothing.\u201d Moonshot thinkingputs a hypothetical goal out there that\u2019s so big, so outlandish, thatwe know there is no way it happens without the work of the HolySpirit. The whole process has to be saturated with his presence andsubmitted to his will. It takes us into the deep waters where we can\u2019ttouch the bottom, and we can\u2019t see land.<\/p>\n

And really? There\u2019s no better place to be. It\u2019s why Paul says,But he said to me, \u201cMy grace is sufficient for you, for my power is madeperfect in weakness.\u201d Therefore I will boast all the more gladly aboutmy weaknesses, so that Christ\u2019s power may rest on me. That is why,for Christ\u2019s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, inpersecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.When you realize you can\u2019t do it, when you see that you aren\u2019tenough, it changes the questions you ask. It changes the people youinvolve in the process. It opens up the possibilities, tears down thewalls built by the Curse of Knowledge, and leads to different theoriesof how to get to the Moon.<\/p>\n

Moonshot thinking is foundational to ideation, the second phaseof kingdom innovation. It forces us to come up with new practices,concepts, and ways of thinking that go beyond what we already bringto the table.<\/p>\n

Notice I\u2019m not using the word \u201cbrainstorm\u201d at this point,because brainstorming doesn\u2019t mean what most people think itmeans. Ideation is about walking through a very specific process, inwhich we uncover and discover new ideas that can get us from CapeCanaveral to the Moon. Today, whenever leaders feel stuck withtheir team, they pile drive into a conference room, find a whiteboardand say, \u201cAlright! Let\u2019s brainstorm! We\u2019re not leaving the room untilwe figure this thing out.\u201d Ideation, however, helps us come up withnew ideas and practices we want to test out and experiment, but withthe assumption that what I bring in my head isn\u2019t enough. We needpeople with different experiences and different ways of thinking whoaren\u2019t all suffering from the Curse of Knowledge.<\/p>\n

There is an art and science to effective ideation because it is agenuinely creative process \u2026 the whiteboard brainstorm really isn\u2019twhat it looks like. But the good news is that you can learn. And ifyou\u2019re going to defeat the Curse of Knowledge (thus slaying the greatVillain of our story), then you must.<\/p>\n

We could be forgiven for assuming that creative problem-solvingmeans absolute blue-sky thinking, with no hindrances, fences, orobstacles to hold your mind back. \u201cThat whiteboard is blank andanything could go on it!\u201d But in reality, that\u2019s rarely helpful. Oneparticularly useful concept in helping us learn the skills required forideation is the concept of constraint.<\/p>\n

Though we may not always perceive it as such, constraint is a giftbecause it forces us to focus and see things in new ways. Often, as welead the specific things God has called us to, we lament the areas ofconstraint forced upon us:<\/p>\n