Critical thinking. For some people even the mention of it makes their brain hurt. But I’ve found it to be essential since I started working for BASIC. I’m certainly no pro at it, but I’ve realized just how useful it can be when you come across a problem or idea that seems hard to work through.
Soon after I started working for BASIC my boss, Todd, came up with the idea of holding a spontaneous water baptism at our upcoming conference. While the idea seemed great, there were a number of obstacles in the way. Questions were tossed around like, How will sponsoring churches feel about us doing water baptisms? How will we get baptism tanks into a hotel ballroom and fill them with water? How will we cover the cost of supplies so students have no excuse not to be baptized?
These were just a few of the questions and it seemed like as we got further in the process even more were raised. Through prayer and determination, Todd decided we wouldn’t give up unless we ran into an obstacle that was completely unavoidable. It took a ton of time and effort on our part, but we were able to answer all the questions and pull it off.
In the end, over 40 students were water baptized. That service was one of the most powerful moments I’ve experienced in my walk with the Lord thus far. A year and a half later we decided to do it again (even with new challenges and working with a new hotel) and this time over 110 students were baptized. Our staff came away from that first experience feeling like we could accomplish anything if we committed ourselves to plenty of prayer and critical thinking.
From that moment on I determined to never get used to the idea that something can’t be done.
I decided that can’t isn’t a solution. We’re working through a challenge right now in which we’ve been tempted to say it can’t be done and walk away. We may end up needing to do just that, but I’ll make sure that we exhaust every single option first.
Next week I’ll cover some practical steps to take that will help you to think critically, but until then I’d like you to consider some questions. In what areas have you said ‘can’t’ too soon? What ideas have you written off instead of taking the time to think through them critically?