Once upon a time there was a boy named Phil (he's the one in red shorts). He loved movies and he loved God, so he thought when he grew up he should do something involving both. With that in mind, he set off for Bible College, and then film school. After three semesters of Bible College, though, he was invited not to come back. He had failed chapel. He never made it to film school, either, but instead, ended up back home in Chicago working on corporate training videos for companies like Amoco and Montgomery Ward. While laboring away on animated bar charts and UPS truck loading diagrams, he never stopped trying to find a way to make films for God. As he watched the brand new field of computer animation come to life in the late 1980’s, it occurred to him that very simple characters, animated with this new technology, might be the ticket. So in his spare time he created a cucumber named Larry and a tomato named Bob, with no arms, legs, hair or clothes. (Those were the tricky parts, he figured.) He raised a little money from friends and family members who liked his ideas, and, with the help of his wife Lisa, his friend Mike and two young art school animators named Chris and Robert, he made the first episode of a show about talking vegetables that loved God. His friend Mike suggested they call the show “VeggieTales.”
Phil, Mike, Chris and Robert worked very hard in a small storefront on the north side of Chicago, creating the first episode of VeggieTales. Phil’s church friend Kurt helped out with the music. His wife Lisa helped with scripts and provided the voice for a young asparagus named Junior. Phil took out ads in Christian magazines, hoping to sell their new show directly to parents who might be looking for just such a thing. Phil and his two animators worked around the clock on their one computer in their tiny office, even after the heat was shut off when the comic book shopkeeper next door – whose name was on the gas meter – stopped paying the bill. They worked in parkas with space heaters. They worked like crazy. And when they finished, they loaded 500 copies of “Where’s God When I’m S-scared?” into Robert’s old station wagon and drove to the post office to mail them out to the 500 families who had seen the ads and called to place orders. And even though 500 copies didn’t even pay for the magazine ads, much less the production, Phil was happy, because making films for God was a lot more fun than making them for Montgomery Ward.
Then something weird happened. People liked the new show. A lot. Suddenly Phil was negotiating with big companies who wanted to bring VeggieTales to Christian bookstores. Then he was negotiating with even bigger companies who wanted to bring VeggieTales to Wal-Mart and Target. And little kids and grateful parents were writing letters from as far away as Australia, thanking Phil and his team for making such a big difference in their lives. It was growing so fast, Phil was afraid he wouldn’t know how to run it. He was afraid he would crash this really cool thing that God had dropped in his lap. So he hired executives to help him. And they gave him business books to read. And every book gave Phil more ideas for what he could build and the kind of impact he could have. It would be a big company, with big goals. Like Disney – only, of course, for God.
The executives made forecasts and studied market research. Phil made big plans and 20-year goals. He gave rousing speeches and people applauded. Resumes flooded the small company, and soon it wasn’t small anymore. Soon it was the largest animation studio between the coasts. Phil was in the Wall Street Journal and People Magazine. His “big idea” was a big hit.
And then, without warning, everything started falling apart. The executive’s forecasts were way off. Sales stopped growing. Bankers got worried, and wrote stern letters. Lawyers were engaged. Phil was forced to lay off many of his friends. Even so, it wasn’t enough. Somewhere, it seems, he had gotten horribly off track, and 10 years after he and Lisa and Mike and Chris and Robert had started out in that tiny storefront, Phil found himself sitting alone in the back of a bankruptcy courtroom, watching it all fall apart.
After Phil’s big idea fell apart, he was very confused. Why would God let that happen? They were doing so much good. And then, slowly, as Phil spent day after day alone with his thoughts, his prayers and his Bible, God showed him. He showed him the point where Phil’s work became no longer about God, but about Phil. About Phil’s dreams, hopes and goals. About Phil’s 20-year plans. About business books and sales forecasts and ambition.
Losing his dream hurt like crazy. But it wasn’t the kind of hurt like a car accident – leaving you limping or in a wheelchair for the rest of your life. It was the kind of hurt like a bone being re-broken to be re-set. It was intensely painful, but it was the kind of pain that leads something being set back in place, the way it was meant to be.
Through the experience, Phil realized some interesting things. First, our relationships with God are much more important than our work for God. God doesn’t want us to be “busy,” he wants us to be available. He doesn’t want us to focus on “impact,” he wants us to focus on obedience. If we’re walking with Him, we’ll know when He has something specific for us to do. We don’t need to make stuff up. If we’re so wrapped up in the work we’re doing for God that we can’t even make eye contact with the person bagging our groceries, something in our lives is way out of whack.
Second, to be a Christian is to give Christ “lordship” of our lives. That’s what it means. He’s Lord, we’re not. And if we’ve given Christ lordship of our lives, where we are in 20 years is, frankly, none of our business. Where we are in 5 years is none of our business. What is our business, is what God has told us to do today, and whether or not we’re doing it. That’s it.
Phil’s “big idea” died under the weight of Phil’s own ambition. Even though it was ambition to do “good,” it still amounted to a failure to allow God to lead him on a daily basis. A failure to follow. To submit.
So now Phil is starting again, and he wanted the name for his new company to remind him every day of the lessons he’s learned. So he picked “Jellyfish.” Why? Because jellyfish can’t choose their own course. They can’t locomote. They can go up a little, they can go down a little. But overall, they’re completely dependent on the current to carry them wherever they’re supposed to be. For a jellyfish to make a 20-year plan would be ridiculous. An act of ultimate hubris. And so it is with us. Rather than crafting their little plans and laboring to force things to go “their way,” Phil and his new cohorts at Jellyfish are committed to seeking and following God’s direction, each and every day – committed to staying in the “current” of God’s will, and letting Him carry them where they need to be. No long range plans, unless they come directly from God.
It sounds a bit weird. Practically “un-American.” How do you run a company without long range planning? To be honest, we’re not exactly sure. But that’s the Jellyfish experiment. Stay tuned – we’ll tell you how it goes.
