Innovative Minds: part-2

Church Planter's Blog:

"...if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.  The old has passed away; behold, the new has come."
(The Apostle Paul, as recorded in 2 Corinthians 5:17)

Being irrelevant should be a Christian's worst nightmare.  After all, we have the greatest message of life-blessing power in the history-of-all-history, and to dumb it down or relax it up is unthinkable.  Yet, our faith can often hit the snooze button and a person (or a church) that was relevant 20, 10, or even 1-year ago, can now be irrelevant within the culture.  I've seen it, experienced it, and I bet you have too.

Rick Warren describes irrelevancy in the church as this: "Irrelevance comes when the speed of change in a church is slower than the speed of change in culture."  Of course, that also means the opposite is true--- and that's our hope because the Church is made for Gospel-relevant speed!  Repentant, needful hearts for Jesus will always be changing...making us new creations in Him.  When we are new creations in Christ, we are now world changers!

Remember our friend Martin Luther?  He didn't invent the printing press.  That was accomplished by a fellow German by the name of Johannes Gutenberg.  Luther, however, quickly used the press to innovate the invention.  To innovate is to expand the cause.  Luther's cause was the furthering of God's kingdom presence, so he innovated the printing invention and distributed the printed Bible and other Christian materials to people who had never had such access.  I'm sure Luther would have done the same thing with the invention of radio, television and the internet.  His innovative relevancy is suppose to be the M-O of what it means to be a Lutheran Christian!  Collectively, we are to be a think tank with God's mind to bless and reclaim the world!

Oh, oh....we've been in a pause mode, haven't we?  We are guilty of clinging to our traditions that were innovative in the day, but are no longer relevant.

So what are we to do?  Invent something new?  Maybe...but perhaps more effective would be to innovate something that already exists and reclaim it for God's relevant glory!  In other words,  how about starting by stopping so we can start again?!  Let's stop letting Hollywood do all the story telling, and let's start innovating movies and books and television shows.  Let's stop letting technology be our enemy to our values; and instead, start innovating it to better communicate the Gospel.  Let's stop inventing more government programs to care for people, by starting innovative businesses dedicated to kingdom investment.  Let's stop bowing down to Facebook as people's first choice for relationships, and start innovating face-to-face friendships in our spheres of influence.  Hear me now, I'm not saying the Church should replace those inventions, just be in them to innovate them.  Christians in the marketplace are to become the influencers of culture and the agents of innovative change so the culture desires to follow the speed of Jesus' life changing blessings!

In my last blog I lifted up some simple ideas of what it means to be innovative in a church, and thus lead with Spirit-speed instead of always trying to fix the culture in our flesh.  Therefore, I leave you once again with some faith points to practice: 

1. Think inside the box.  Instead of going outside the box for your innovative answers to solutions, look inside.  In other words, let your church's various restraints foster creativity from inside God!  Ask: how can I/we do a big ministry with a small budget, a small staff, or a small facility?  Instead of looking outside the box for the answer, BE the answer for outside the box.  Yes, it is possible.

2. Fear no failure.  The ideas that are going to best influence our culture are going to involve risk.  So what if something doesn't work the first time!  Ask Gutenberg about that.  There can be no Easter breakthrough without first going through a Good Friday death.

3.  Define who you are.  If your traditions are to run programs, you might be making great consumers.  Trouble is, Jesus calls us to make great disciples.  Be innovative in helping people hear Jesus say, "and teach them to obey everything that I have commanded you."  IN NEXT WEEK'S BLOG, I speak more to that.  For indeed, provision comes when we first learn to obey!

NEWS and NOTES: Destaye Crawford will be ordained on Sunday, March 2nd, at a 5:00 pm service at St. Paul's in Minneapolis.  Destaye is the planter of Every Tribe and Nation, a church aimed at Ethiopians in Minneapolis.  ALSO on March 2nd...Hosanna! of Lakeville, MN is opening up a new satellite campus in Shakopee, MN (about 20-minutes away).  Hosanna! Shakopee is birthed to change the following problem: that Scott County has up to 200,000 unchurched people.  AN EXCELLENT BOOK:  Right Here, Right Now by Alan Hirsch and Lance Ford.  I just finished this book in less than a week's time because it grabbed my attention.  The book is a great inspiration to the importance of developing churches that are biblically missional for today!