One of the earliest signs is companies saying, “We’re successful because we do these specific things,” as opposed to the more penetrating understanding and insight: “We’re successful because we understand why we do these specific things and under what conditions they would no longer work.”
This is the foundation for any and all innovation; otherwise, you are simply gathering an assortment of tactics independent of a mission. Biblical fidelity is, hopefully, a given, but once you are confident you are working within those parameters, you must then determine why it is you do anything: What is the foundational nature of your mission? What are you trying to accomplish? Who are you trying to reach?
If you know why you are doing something, you know whether it is effective, and are quick to discard things that no longer work. If you are attempting to evangelize the unchurched, you are not attracted to any and all innovation, or even innovation that may reflect the culture of the unchurched; instead, you are after innovation that is effective at evangelizing the unchurched.
There have been, and will be, some truly “next” churches. But our threshold should be more than rapid growth, a charismatic leader, a niche-market, the latest beneficiary of a growing edge of town, or the migratory flow of believers. Not simply because there may not be anything truly “next” about it beyond that which is cosmetic, but because our appetite for the “next” has us looking to churches that have yet to truly prove themselves, much less their ideas, through the test of time.
Leaders must realize that however exhilarating a new church model may appear, silver bullets do not exist. Leaders must look deeper than the latest model or program, conference or style, and realize that the process inherent within a thriving church has not changed in 2,000 years: you must evangelize the lost, then assimilate those evangelized, then disciple those assimilated, and then unleash those discipled for ministry.
I’m not sure whether this is original to me or if I heard it somewhere else, and the source has been displaced in my memory. But knocking around in my mind for some years has been the idea that we can do ministry from one of three standpoints.
For some, it’s done through memory. Meaning, the way they have seen it done before, were trained to do it, or have seen it done in other settings.
They do what they know to do and little more.
Others do it through mimicry.
They gravitate toward a model of ministry that is attractive to them or exudes levels of success they long to experience. They absorb that approach and mimic it.
The dilemma with doing ministry from memory or mimicry is that it is not “alive.” If you operate solely from memory – the way you’ve always done it before – then you are caught in the past. If done by mimicry, then you are caught in someone else’s snapshot. They are doing ministry in a particular way, at a particular time, and in a particular context. There is value, to be sure, in learning all you can from their snapshot, but it may not be of ongoing value as time goes on. Or it may not translate well to your context.
Solution? Do not do ministry from memory or mimicry, but from imagination.
This means you are the originator, the creator, the one who is fashioning new solutions and opening new vistas. Born through earnest prayer and hard work, it’s what keeps you from trying to chase the next, next thing.
And instead, become the one offering it.
