Whenever I talk about our BIG IDEA process I tell teaching pastors: “If you would collaborate with other teaching pastors you would get a much better message in a lot less time.” The only evidence I had to back this up was my own experience. When we started collaborating on our teaching it reduced my prep time by half and I know that messages got much better. Well, this week I had a meeting with a brilliant educator and he said something about the power of collaboration that verifies my statement. Here is what he told me: “Dave, it takes the average elementary teacher five years to put together a superior quality lesson plan. But if you take a team of average elementary teachers and have them collaborate together on lesson plans they will have a superior lesson plan their second year.” Wow! Collaboration is a huge value for CCC and NewThing. It’s how we create our BIG IDEA every week. We are considering putting together a BIG IDEA Practicum to help churches create their own BIG IDEA collaborative process. Interested? If you want to read about it – it is a huge part of our new book that you can pre-order: The BIG IDEA: Focus the Message, Multiply the Impact.