#Cultivate 1: Phil Cooke

Phil Cooke – Writer, Filmmaker, Media Consultant. Founder of Cooke Pictures in Burbank, California and co-founder of TWC Films in Santa Monica.

• There’s an enormous amount of media clutter.
• We’re bombarded by 3,000-5,000 ad messages a day.
• There are two results of this…
• First, content has become shorter.  From books to theater to movies to sitcoms to blogs to YouTube to Faceboook and now to 140 character messages at Twitter.
• Second, we are spending less time creating each media.
• Four questions to consider:
• 1) What are you really trying to do? (with your life, your church)
• 2) How do you deal with ambiguity?
• 3) Are you asking the right questions?
• 4) Stop thinking about how much will it cost and When will it be ready?

Discussion

1) What are you really trying to do? (with your life, your church)

• Argh! Lost my notes from this discussion.
• From our group – Trying to make fully devoted followers of Christ, Trying to communicate more effectively, Trying to redesign our website

2) How do you deal with ambiguity?

• I make things up and hope its true later. 😉
• The gospel is the answer. (Yes, but how do we communicate that to the culture)
• From our group – Stick to your guns, get to the point, stay focused, don’t try to do too many things.

4) What are the right questions?

• What do we need to stop doing as a church?  How do we do less things more effectively?
• Who does this glorify? (You, your ministry, or God?)
• How to we lean into what God is already doing?
• How do people want to be communicated with?
• Are we being purposeful with the tools we’re using? (Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should)
• Am I wasting my time doing what I’m doing?

Spend less time on what is urgent and more time on what really matters.