Medici

MEDICI

I’m not sure where I read it.  I think it might have been THE MEDICI EFFECT.  The theme was innovation and what I found fascinating was that the most creative centers were city sections where the city blocks were not long and had a mixture of business tenants.  By mixture what they meant was that some were in little, tiny offices and some were in big, giant ones; some were established and had been there for several years and others were new and had been there only several months.  Some did high end business and some did low end.  Some did art.  Some, food.  Some, computers. 

Because of the mix and layout, people walked.  The people who walked were different – wearing suits, wearing t-shirts, business comfortable, business hungry, and so on.  They passed each other’s stores.  They stood at the traffic lights together.  They chatted together at the hot-dog vendor. 

With long blocks people didn’t walk.  When the tenants were all big law firms they just wore suits and nobody went to the hot-dog vendor.  When the tenants were all start-ups in storefronts there wasn’t really much cash floating around.  What the mix and layout did was bring new and old, lean and fat, this outlook and that expertise, this need and that asset all together. 

How could churches get this cross pollination going?  If most of the members have belonged for three years or more, there's not much pollination.  If most of the leadership is what it was five years ago, there's not much pollination.  But diagnosing "not much pollination" or prescribing "pollination" is not as easy as saying how it happens.  How can it happen in churches?  Let's talk.