SOLVING PROBLEMS WITH IDEAS

Seemingly intractable personal and organizational problems can be solved through inspiring ideas.
About sixty years ago, a young pastor in his twenties was sent to California to start a church by his denominational Headquarters. He (Robert Schuler) later became the very successful and world famous motivational speaker and pastor of the Chrystal Cathedral – all ALL GLASS building that was built earthquake proof in one of the most earthquake prone areas of the world.
But before taking off for California, he had phoned a church official in California asking to help get a hall where he could start services. The church official’s reply was that there was absolutely no available hall in his target city where he could start church services. Robert Schuler said such absolute negativism sounded like the most irresponsible statement he had ever heard. 

He wisely ignored the church official. On his way to California, he stopped over at a café and decided to write down ten possible venues/halls to start church services. That was it. Revolutionary ideas started to flow. He wrote down some unthinkable places to start a church. Eventually, he started his new church at a Drive-in theatre which the negative and cynical church official labeled a “Passion pit”.
But the passion pit was the beginning of a church that would eventually be known all over the world. Oh, the power of ideas.

 If you recollect, Jimoh Ibrahim having conceived the bright idea of organizing seminars for local governments on taxation, encountered a seeming insurmountable mountain. He had no money to post letters to several hundreds of local government offices around Nigeria. But an inspired idea came to his rescue. It suddenly dawned on him that all states in Nigeria had a liaison office in Lagos, Nigeria’s Industrial, commercial, financial and entertainment capital. Pronto, he handed his letters to the liaison offices for onward distribution to the local government offices. Fortunately for him, most of the liaison offices were located in the same part of the city of Lagos.