Prayerful Brainstorming

“Prayerful Brainstorming” is an tool I developed to help my coaching clients solve problems in Christian life and calling. I also regularly use Prayerful Brainstorming myself.

In this blog:

• When to Prayerfully Brainstorm
• When Not to Prayerfully Brainstorm
• Examples of Prayerful Brainstorming
• How to Prayerfully Brainstorm
• Results of Prayerful Brainstorming

When to Prayerfully Brainstorm

It might not seem right to brainstorm and choose among our own ideas for solving problems in Christian life and calling. After all, shouldn’t we just ask God what to do, and then do what He says?

Yes.

But more often than we might prefer, God doesn’t always tell us how to solve our problems.

And that bothers us. When God doesn't tell us what to do, we might think we need to pray more. Or we might think our sin is standing in the way.

And of course, God sometimes does indeed call us into deeper prayer, or even into fasting. For more info about that, click this blog: The Power of Prayer and Fasting.

It is also true that persistent sin can hinder our relationship with God:

• If I had not confessed the sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. (Psalm 66:18)

Therefore, we certainly need to confess and repent (turn away) from persistent sin in order to hear God clearly.

But often, the reason God remains silent when we ask Him how to solve a problem is that He wants to grow us by solving the problem ourselves.

As we mature in our Christian life and calling, God gives us more freedom to choose, more wisdom to decide, and more self-confidence to act.

If God always told us exactly what to do and how to do it, we would remain baby Christians. Just as a parent increasingly gives a child more freedom and responsibility to learn, grow, and fly, so does God!

When Not to Prayerfully Brainstorm

Prayerful Brainstorming is not always a wise approach. Below are a couple of caveats.

1. Before you Prayerfully Brainstorm, ask God if He wants to give you His solution to your problem.

If God wants to give you His solution, He will tell you in His time. If God is silent, He might want you to come up with a solution yourself, probably in order to grow you. But it’s important to ask Him before you start Prayerfully Brainstorming possible solutions. Ask God if He might even want you to pray and fast for clarity about the problem—click this blog for info about that: Prayer and Fasting.

2. If you do Prayerfully Brainstorm for possible solutions to a problem, and God doesn’t give you peace about any of them, then don’t act.

In this case, it might not yet be God’s timing to act. For tips about how to discern God’s timing, click this blog: Act Now or Wait on God?

Examples of Prayerful Brainstorming

Brainstorming works best for questions that could have dozens of answers.

Examples of problems in Christian life or calling:

• God calls me to blog (or perhaps to write, podcast, video, preach, or speak), but sometimes He says nothing about topics.
• God calls me to help refugees (or the homeless, abused, developmentally challenged, etc.), but He doesn’t give direction about how to start.
• God gives me, as an entrepreneur, the passion to start a particular new business, but I don't have any idea how to get the startup money.
• God wants me to grow in a particular area personally or professionally, but I don’t know how to do it.
• I need ideas for how to share Christ in ways that fit me.
• I want to lose weight.
• I need to find some ways to bring in more money.
• I don’t know how to respond to a difficult person or situation.
• I want to regain more joy and fun in life.
• I want to find some fun things to do on vacation during the pandemic.

How to Prayerfully Brainstorm

1. Trust God to work.

Ask God to work through your Prayerful Brainstorming, and then trust Him to do so.

Example:

“God, I believe you want me to grow by figuring out how to solve this problem myself, instead of you telling me how to do it. I trust that you are right here with me as I Prayerfully Brainstorm. If at any time you want to stop me and tell me what to do, I trust you to do that too. Thank you! Let’s go!”

2. Consider a one-two punch.

First, consider brainstorming methods for getting ideas for solving your problem. Second, use one of those methods to brainstorm solutions to the problem.

Here’s an example:

• First, I brainstormed methods for solving my problem: “How can I get ideas for blog topics?” One of the methods was to write blogs based on techniques I’ve designed for my coaching clients.
• Second, I used that method to brainstorm solutions: “What techniques that I’ve designed for my coaching clients can I blog about?”
• The technique I decided to blog about was Prayerful Brainstorming, which is the blog you are currently reading!

3. Write the problem.

Write the problem you want to solve in the form of a question.

Examples:

• How can I help the homeless?
• How can I get ideas to help the homeless?
• Where can I find innovative ideas for making additional money?
• How can I solve this problem at work?
• How can I deal with this difficult person?
• How can I find out how to build a website?
• How can I talk with my spouse about this important matter?
• How can I grow in this particular area?
• How can I develop in this new skill?
• How can I get more ideas for losing weight?
• Where can I find ideas for sharing Christ in ways that work for me?
• How can I have more fun in life?
• How can I stay emotionally healthy?
• What can I do on vacation during the pandemic?

4. Write 20 ideas.

Write 20 ideas for solving your problem—as rapidly as you can, without overthinking. Stopping to evaluate can squelch the creative process.

Your first 10 ideas might come easily, but you might agonize to get the last 5. However, if you get 20 ideas quickly, then keep going to 30! The point is to stretch well beyond the obvious ideas.

To get as many ideas as possible, consider the following:

• Ideas similar to ones I’ve already written.
• Ideas opposite to ones I’ve already written.
• How would someone else approach this problem?
• Ideas that would be impossible to do, but might prompt creativity.
• Ideas I would never do or might even be wrong, but might prompt creativity.
• What phrases could I Google to get more ideas?
• Whom could I ask for ideas?
• What ideas would an expert in this particular topic have?
• What questions would help me come up with more ideas?
• Break the problem down into parts. What ideas can I brainstorm for each part?
• Draw or color images, sing, etc.
• Organize some of your ideas into categories. What additional ideas can I think of for each category?
• Would searching the table of contents of relevant Amazon books give me additional ideas?
• Could I use a mind map to get more ideas? (Click this Wikipedia article for what mind mapping is and to see examples: Mind Map.)

5. Do 20 x 5.

Prayerfully Brainstorm your first 20 ideas. Then wait a day, write 20 more, and keep doing that, until you get 100 ideas in 5 days!

Yes it’s possible! And it really gives results!

For example, I recently used the 20 x 5 technique to brainstorm a total of 114 ways to get ideas for blogs. Click the button below to see them.