Been reading Who's Your City (not to be confused with Who's Your Daddy.) This book feels like it is going to be considered a benchmark type work. It explores the continuing value of "place" (where you live) in the wired, connected, globalized, supposedly "flat" world we live in . I'm already wearing out the highlighter and I'm only on page 66. (I commented on this book and the idea of Mega Regions a few weeks back.)
Richard Florida's discusses a powerful concept in chapter 4 called the Clustering Force:
When people--especially talented and creative ones--come together, ideas flow more freely, and as a result individual and aggregate talents increase exponentially: the end result amounts to more than the sum of the parts. This clustering makes each of us more productive, which in turn makes the place we inhabit even more so--and our collective creativity and economic wealth grow accordingly. This in a nutshell is the clustering force.
Florida's application of the clustering force is economic. But what excites me is accessing the power of the Clustering Force in the increasing the church's spiritual influence capital. I'm convinced that the church's spiritual influence capital can be increased when the artists, musicians and creatives hanging around in the church begin to cluster and create.
I want to see the creative force of the people of God released in a new way. I'm becoming convinced that it is the key that unlocks the door to our next season.
I've had conversations with several folk over the last month who have deep creative urges (BTW, is there treatment for that?) and who want to cluster with others with similar passion and talent to dream, pray and create. I'm convinced its time to create intentional space for creative clustering, invite participation and see what God stirs up.
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