Tomorrow morning, my older daughter cast as the female lead, will compete in her first UIL competitive drama one-act stage performance. The excitement around the house tonight is noticeable in the cadence of conversation and there is much energy for tomorrow might bring.
While we are beginning to grow accustomed to seeing her on stage (this is her fourth stage production this year), the thing I am finding most exciting for her is her experiencing the power of people working together.
Coming home from rehearsal the other night she was beside herself with excitement at the "synergy" she had experienced with her fellow cast members. While the other productions have been good, this one, because of the relatively small number of cast members and the intensity of rehearsals, has really bonded the cast and built an impressive amount of cohesion as a performing unit. Following rehearsal the other night, I think my daughter was surprised by how powerful synergy can be.
By definition, synergy (or synergism) (from the Greek synergos, συνεργός meaning "working together") refers to the phenomenon in which two or more discrete influences or agents acting together create an effect greater than that predicted by knowing only the separate effects of the individual agents. It is originally a scientific term.
Even in her struggling to find words to describe what she experienced, I shared with her a few times I have experienced the same thing. Performing with various music groups, creative teams and ministry experiences, I have been privileged to experience "synergy" with some frequency.
Today, several on our ministry team met to consider a new way of fulfilling our ministry at the church we serve. Utilizing a collaborative creative plan, we are considering how several people can be utilized to speak into the "game plan" and develop the creative "look" of the curriculum, lessons and sermons, rather than simply working in relative isolation (what we have referred to as "silo work"). Today became a highly synergistic environment and we haven't even started. That kind of experience gives me an incredible amount of energy. I'm very hopeful we will adopt this method of creative design.
I'm curious, what experiences you've had with synergy?
While I love the power of music and the solace that comes with making music alone and while I love ministry and seeing God do things way "beyond the human realm," when teaching or preaching, the thing I love the most about either one of those ventures is synergy -- getting to work with others doing some of the things I love. When God brings "discrete agents" together in proximity to accomplish His plans... there is nothing better than that!
As my daughter has experienced for the first time, and hopefully not the last, I hope to share many more experiences with her and continue to testify to God's amazing creative power!
1 comment:
My sons are 13 months apart. They're grown now and have their own kids, but when they were teenagers, the three of us had our own landscaping business. The money we generated went almost entirely to pay their tuition at Dallas Christian.
I shall never forget the feeling we had driving back to the house after mowing, edging, and trimming 20 or so yards on a Saturday. We were totally exhausted - particularly me since I was in my forties at the time. But often we were almost euphoric in spite of the sweat and fatigue. Something about joy of teamwork accomplishing a difficult goal often made us silly and child-like as laughed, joked, and kidded each other.
I don't miss the work, but I miss the feeling. Hard to explain to someone who wasn't riding with us!
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