Innovation, Adaptation and a Passionate Cry

Innovation, Adaptation and the Christian Gospel

What is innovation? Does the church need it today? Can the church learn from the business world in relation to innovation? Does the Bible challenge followers of Jesus to be innovative and adaptive or is it merely a 21st Century business concept?

Innovation is not just a goal to reach, it is a mindset. Innovative people are on the prowl for breaking new ground. In Fast Thinking Magazine (Autumn 2010), Steve Rust says, 'Innovation isn't something that can be switched on at the beginning of the quarter in an attempt to boost the numbers or suddenly to counter a competitive threat. Innovation is a habit that grows with the organisation and becomes part of it fabric' (: 14). Glenn Wightwick, director of IBM Australia says that Innovation is a part of their company's DNA. The question I ask is not so much whether innovation is important to business but whether innovation is important in the Church today. 

In Fast Thinking Magazine, I recently read, from a business perspective, "There is an explosion in innovation across the board and, importantly, it's not coming from the big companies - most of the activity is now found in the small and medium arena." Why is bigger business struggling to keep up with innovation? Mostly because larger companies have stifling bureaucracies that do not encourage new exploration. They spend their time predominantly maintaining the busyness on products/concepts they have previously innovated! What striking parallelism this has to the Church universal, when we consider stifling bureaucracies, lifeless churches and drawn-out decision making by professional clergy, and our general inability to break new ground around us. 


Euguene Peterson's adapts the words of Paul in 1 Cor 9:19-22 (MSG). He writes, 'Even though I am free of the demands and expectations of everyone, I have voluntarily become a servant to any and all in order to reach a wide range of people: religious, nonreligious, meticulous moralists, loose-living immoralists, the defeated, the demoralized—whoever. I didn't take on their way of life. I kept my bearings in Christ—but I entered their world and tried to experience things from their point of view. I've become just about every sort of servant there is in my attempts to lead those I meet into a God-saved life.'

Paul is innovative and has the ability to adapt to the environment around him. He changes the way he speaks depending on his audience. He adapts the way he shares the message of Jesus so that the differing crowds can understand and connect with his content. Maybe Paul is the first innovative Christian in the beginnings of the Christian Church?

The Salvation Army began under the leadership of William and Catherine Booth. This couple are known for their pioneering work that began a movement that has now spread to over 120 countries and counting. They were innovative and were willing to adapt the methods of preaching the gospel to (initially) their East London audience and then many other provinces and Countries around the world. Catherine Booth writes in Aggressive Christianity of our lack of desire to be adaptable, 'We are so conservative in our relationship by nature. We have such a rooted dislike and almost hatred for anything that would disturb our carefully constructed, comfortable Christianity' (: 66). In reference to adaptation, Catherine writes, 'While the Gospel does not change, we are given complete freedom to adapt the way we bring it to people in the circumstances, times, and conditions in which we live' (: 67). 

I'm calling for the church to be passionately innovative and courageously adaptable to the culture we live in. We by no means undermine or alter the unchanging message of the Gospel, but through the power of the Holy Spirit we become missionaries in our own backyards. We are no longer building ghettos of Christian Hymn Singing, but radical, innovative expressions of Christian faith, that revolutionise the communities we inhabit.

Innovate. Innovate. Innovate. Adapt. Adapt. Adapt again. Change. Try something new.

Who knows... it might just work, and God will get all the glory.

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The cosmological argument for the existence of God

Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225-1274) wrote these words about the existence of God. Philosophers of religion call it the cosmological argument for the existence of God. You may want to read it a few times to grasp some of its content.

"The existence of God can be proved in five ways. The first and most obvious proof is the argument from change. It is clearly the case that some things in this world are in the process of changing. Now everything that is in the process of being changed is changed by something else, since nothing is changed unless it is potentially that towards which it being changed, whereas that which changes is actual. To change something is nothing else than to bring it from potentiality to actuality, and a thing can be brought from potentiality to actuality only by something which is actual.

Thus a fire, which is actually hot, makes wood, which is potentially hot, to be actually hot, thus changing and altering it. Now it is impossible for the same things to be both actual and potential in the same respect, although it may be so in different respects. What is actually hot cannot at the same time be potentially hot, although it is potentially cold. It is therefore impossible that, in the same manner and in the same way, anything should be both the one which effects change and the one that is changed, so that it should change itself.

Whatever is changed must therefore be changed by something else. If, then, whatever is changing it is itself changed, this also must be changed by something else, and this in turn by something else again. But this cannot go on forever, since there would then be no first cause to this process of change, and consequently no other agent of change, because secondary things which change cannot change unless they are changed by a first cause, in the same way as a stick cannot move unless it is moved by the hand. We are therefore bound to arrive at a first cause of change which is not changed by anything, and everyone understands that this is God. " (cited in McGrath, 2001: 247-248)

Ok, breathe!

William Paley (1743-1805) argued about the existence of God, using what is referred to as the teleological argument for the existence of God. He writes about the biological nature of the human heart, saying, "It is evident that it must require the interposition of valves-that the success indeed of its action must depend upon these; for when any one of its cavities contracts, the necessary tendency of the force will be to drive the enclosed blood not only into the mouth of the artery where it ought to go, but also back again into the mouth of the vein from which it flowed" (cited in McGrath, 2001: 252).

Using these kind of biological examples, Paley argues strongly about the existence of a God. This kind of natural theology definitely flies in the face of the evolution argument.

God exists. He created you. He loves you. He wants you to trust in Jesus as your Saviour. Share

Who moved my cheese (Short Review) - Dr. Spencer Johnson

'Who moved my cheese' by Dr. Spencer Johnson is an easy and enjoyable read about dealing with change. Four people are moving through a maze looking for cheese. They find some cheese, and they all enjoy the benefits of the cheese at Cheese Station C. Eventually the cheese at Cheese Station C runs out. Two of them decide quickly to move on and look for more cheese. The other two experience the feelings of disappointment and denial about there ever being more cheese at Cheese Station C. Well, it outlines the feelings many of us have when we are faced with change. Some of us wander around in self-pity wondering when we'll ever get back to the way things were. Others realise the cheese has moved, and so they change to compensate for the changing environment.
(Worth a read - Thanks KM for the headsup!)
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'And you who were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through death, so as to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him...' (Colossians 1:21-22). Holy and blameless. Praise God.
Was looking a little at Leviticus recently. Not a book we touch all that often right? You know the main theme of the book of Leviticus, and referenced 152 times? Holiness. Must be important to God!
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The 21 Irrefutable laws of leadership - Law no. 4 - 'The Law of Navigation' - Anyone can steer the Ship, but it takes a leader to chart the course. It helps to step back occasionally and ask the question, 'Where are we headed?' and 'How are we getting there'. I've found, if you don't ask this question every now and then, you merely DO, DO, DO and you never chart the course. You might end up in a place you never wanted to be. Ask God what his vision is for your church, or for your life. 'Where do you want me to be in 5 years time!?'
'A leader is one who sees more than others see, who sees farther than others see, and who sees before others do' (Leroy Eims)
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Lord, help us to cope with change. To run with it. To embrace it. Help us Jesus to be a holy people. Purified from all sin. Set free from all addictions. Fullness of life.
We also pray God that we will be able to chart the course ahead of us. To not just 'go with the flow', but to consider the future and where you want us to be. We love you Lord, and choose to follow you in all we do. In the name of Jesus. Amen! Share