“Innovation Cultivation” by Larry Boatright

eric posted on October 28, 2009

I had an interesting conversation with a young lady in our church a few months ago. She asked to meet with me to talk about a new ministry initiative that aimed to meet the needs of teenage moms, and to show them the love of Jesus. She came to my office, did her spiel, and I’ll be honest: I kept waiting for the catch. When would she ask me to recruit volunteers? To give x amount of money? To recruit a staff person to lead this ministry? To promote and strategize and plan this and that?

I waited for the ball to drop. But it never did. The only thing she wanted from me? To use one room in our building (that sits empty most of the week) one night of the week. That’s it? Surely not!

She saw a need, she came up with a plan to meet that need, and she is planning on moving forward. BOOM! That’s innovation!

I think a pretty dramatic shift is occurring regarding innovation and the church. For so long, the conversation has centered around the church creating a new program, ministry, or innovative initiative to meet needs. There’s been an unhealthy culture of dependence on the “professionals” to drive innovation. We find a need, we design a plan, we allocate funding and resources, find a leader, and move on to the next innovative task. But I think that’s changing. More and more followers of Jesus are heeding the call to make a difference, to demonstrate the love of Christ themselves rather than depending on the church to do it all. And this, honestly, sets pastors up to make a pretty dramatic shift as well.

So many pastors are simply exhausted from being the CEO of an organization that drives and creates innovation. They signed up to shepherd a people, to reach a community, but lay in bed at night feeling like they are pimping a product, trapped in a cycle that is dependent on their ability to create, create, create. What if pastors made a dramatic shift in the way they did things?

What if they shifted from being drivers of innovation to being cultivators of innovators.

Think about it. Your church is filled with people with unique gifting and passions. If they are followers of Jesus, they are being led by the Holy Spirit the same as you are. They are spread all throughout the local community, with their eyes and ears open to every need imaginable. What if you shifted from having to think of every creative initiative, from driving every ounce of innovation in your organization, to cultivating the hearts, ambitions, and talents of the innovators in your church community? Whoa! Sound refreshing? Sure it does! Could this happen? Absolutely!

Sometimes the most beautiful innovation comes from the person who recognizes a need, thinks of a plan to meet that need, and merely lacks the resources to get it done. Let me let you in on a little secret: The truth is, they will get it done. It may take a while, but their passion and raw innovation will lead to transformation. What if you learned to cultivate innovation in others? What if you funneled resources to these people and their dreams, and helped them get more done quicker? What would happen to your church community? To your community at large? To the people who have the greatest needs? These are the types of questions I think we owe to our communities to wrestle with in the days, weeks, months, and years to come.

I believe that a shift is happening, and I dream of a community of believers where people are seeing needs, coming up with innovative ways of meeting those needs, and our job as leaders is to resource them, equip them, pray for them, shepherd them, develop them, and help them go farther than they ever dreamed possible. I’m dreaming of a day when I’m overwhelmed with people in our church community sharing ideas they have for reaching out, for making a difference. It’s starting to happen. And we want to develop fertile ground for it to continue to happen.

Trust me: you’re not the best at everything. It’s important for you to drive innovation. But that can’t be your primary gig. It’s too exhausting, and I think it robs people from fulfilling what God is doing in their hearts. And when you begin to cultivate what God is doing in other people, you’ll experience a feeling of accomplishment unlike any innovative initiative you’ve ever been a part of. You’ll be equipping others to succeed. It’s a great feeling.

And that’s a little bit biblical, too!

By Larry Boatright of The Orchard in Aurora, IL