My favorite tv show is back on the air: The Great British Bake-Off (or The Great British Baking Show as it’s called in the United States). I do not bake, and I certainly am not making meringues or macarons; half of the desserts they make on the show are things I’ve never even heard of, and I couldn’t begin to fathom what they taste like (a fish pie? Who asked for that?) But even with my negligible first hand experience, I have watched enough hours of this show that I have learned some core lessons of baking, such as:

1. Don’t ice a cake while it’s still hot
2. If you use a genoise sponge for a multi-tiered cake, it will become concertinaed (squished) under the weight and lose its signature fluffy texture. 
3. Kneading the dough is what creates the gluten, which is what holds dough together. 

I’ve been thinking about this third lesson this week. A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to spend some time with some youth and young adult leaders with the Episcopal Church in Connecticut, dreaming up ideas about what ministry to young people and their communities the Holy Spirit may be calling them to. 

I love doing this sort of work, jumping into a group of people, and hearing how God is at work, and helping carve out the space where they can hear the Holy Spirit a little more clearly. Every group is different, from the way they dress, to their punctuality, and, critically, how open they are to being stretched in new ways. I had the opportunity to facilitate that day with Bryant Johnson, the director of the consulting division of Ministry Architects. As he kicked off the day, he said, “how your process of innovation goes will have a lot to do with your relationship with rejection and with failure.” 

Because design thinking, innovation, and the type of work we do involves a sort of risky iteration. It involves trying, honestly listening about what didn’t work, adapting, and trying something else. It involves having your first 30 ideas landing on the cutting room floor, and still trying a 31st. And it often involves doing that process alongside other people. As much as it would be more comfortable to get our bad ideas out in private and come to our team only once we have the kinks ironed out, the reality is that this process of bad idea, try again, bad idea, try again, better idea, try again, good idea, works better and faster as a team. 

Here’s where the gluten comes in. Working with our friends in Connecticut, I noticed that they seemed more open to follow-up questions than I expected. When I gently offered an alternative interpretation, or prodded at an idea, instead of backing down, they rose to the challenge. They offered each other questions, feedback, and the kind of honest engagement that leads to a honestly better answer. They pushed and stretched each other, and seemed comfortable with me pushing and stretching them, and I thought about gluten.

The sticky fibers that hold a loaf of bread together, that make it bouncy and chewy and (assuming you can digest it) even more delicious. Gluten develops from the rhythm of pulling and resting, it doesn’t develop on its own, it’s built by dough being stretched and poked and prodded a bit, then resting, and then being stretched some more. The more you knead it, the more gluten develops, and the more the bread is held together. The process of innovating in a team like this, is the process of building gluten: making us closer and more flexible as we go through the process of being poked and pulled, resting, and then poked and pulled again. 

Watching this group yes-and and play games and cheer one another on as the day ended, I felt like I could see the way that a day of poking, prodding, and stretching had developed some sticky glutenous fibers that held them a bit more tightly together. Our friends in Connecticut will probably need to let the dough rest a bit, to have conversations, sleep on their ideas, but when it’s ready, I’m sure that what they’re baking up is going to be just delicious, and I can’t wait to see it.