Hold “What If?” Parties

The Church is looking for innovation.
Or so they say.

Innovation is usually the result of a very few innovators.

The Church tends to be unkind to innovators. Judgmental.

Result: little innovation.

Every few centuries, an innovator makes a difference. It really doesn’t happen very often. Some of them become “official” saints. Some of them just go down in history—like Martin Luther. Often their bold thinking was sparked by the times, like Martin Luther King, Jr.

Or did Dr. King spark the times?

More often, innovators go unrecognized.

In the day-to-day life of the Church, innovation has a different definition. It doesn’t mean change in a significant way. It means finding a way to stay the same, to keep the same statistics up and the bills paid as the odds grow against that kind of success.

Look at the congregations that are viewed as most successful. Their success is often in doing ministry the same way a bit longer than other churches. Worship Sunday morning. Sunday School. Same staff positions and the same list of committees. Same set of service projects. They are successful. No need to innovate!

Innovation will come from smaller churches.

True innovation is rarely pretty at first. It takes experimentation and a willingness to take significant risks. It can be life-threatening. Ask either Martin!

Church leaders encourage innovation, but they are also waiting in the wings to assess your failures. This might be OK, if their judgment resulted in collaboration and help. However, it often results in property and asset grabs and a demoralizing treatment of church leaders and members.

Have you visited a church that was scheduled to close before the grand closing rally? Have you seen the pain of the people? Have you sensed their feeling of despair, isolation and worthlessness. This will be camouflaged when you bring in the big guns for that all-important closing service, designed to make everything seem all right — when it’s not.

Innovation doesn’t happen very often. It’s just too scary. Innovation requires resources. Those resources are needed to keep doing things the same way.

Innovation is not moving the worship time forward or backward by one hour.

Innovation is not offering Holy Communion every week.

That’s just rearranging the same things that have been part of Church in one form or other since Stephen was stoned.

Innovation is doing things differently. Listening to different people. Looking for different sources of funding. Serving a different need in a different way. Structuring your government differently. Emphasizing a different passage from scripture.

What was Martin Luther’s biggest innovation? Telling the gospel story in the native language of the people. Unheard of at the time. An abomination.

Really, not such a big deal.

What was Martin Luther King, Jr.’s innovation? Believing that all races could live together in peace and equality. This was not only unheard of at the time—it was against the law in many places.

Really, not terrible. Kind of nice. Why didn’t we try this sooner?

What sacred cows are we keeping in our pastures that need a bit of freedom? (I’m not going to use the faddy “resurrection” simile. It’s, frankly, offensive and has led to abusive behavior by church leaders. Churches don’t have to die to be reborn.)

Maybe you have an innovator in your community. Are you giving him or her half a chance?

Be aware: innovation often comes from unlikely places. If you think that by calling a certain pastor, you’ll achieve innovation, you are likely to be disappointed. Your innovators might be sitting in the back row. They might be coming only once every few weeks. They might be 80 years old. They might be 10. They may be “lifers.” They may not have joined—yet.

We need leaders who can imagine, who can think outside the sanctuary, who can ask the “what if” question and rally energy and resources to test new strategies and create new alliances.

What If?

Asking “What if?” is the rabbit’s foot of every creative person. Writers use it. Musicians, Visual artists. All creatives in every field.

• What if we create a band without brass—just guitars and a drummer? The Beatles.
• What if break up what we see into dots and strokes of various colors? Impressionism.
• What if we hold a progressive talent contest that lasts 15 weeks instead of just a one-shot deal? What if we let the people vote? American Idol, a host of copycats and the rise of dozens of young artists.
• What if we try a different kind of filament? The light bulb.

Host a quarterly What If? Party, where members can dream and brainstorm. Process the ideas presented. Make no decisions for two weeks, at least. Use that fallow time to let people talk, gripe, advocate, hone an idea. . . whatever they need to do.  

Create opportunities for those in opposition to work together. When people work together, they talk. When people talk, amazing things can result.

A What If? Party should have some kind of ice-breaker activities or exercises. Mix people up. Make it fun.

At Redeemer, we once divided people by birthdays. Four groups. One for each season. We had a small bowl on the table for each group. The bowl held slips of paper with a few ideas for a group activity—like tell some jokes, or write a skit about _____, or sing a song. Hey, it’s work to get a group of people to agree on the same song! In this case, the people had to agree on an activity and then take a few minutes to pull it off.

Then we’d have an impromptu talent show. Fun!

This was our ice breaker. There is power in this silliness. People break out of their comfort zones and work side by side with people they see every Sunday but don’t really know.

We’d follow the icebreaker with discussion on various topics.

This created an environment that influenced our ministry every week when we’d sit down together after worship for coffee and soup—at one big table—the “roundtable” (even though it had corners) where we were all equal.

• What if we ran our own school in our own building?
• What if we started a web site that reached out?
• What if we encouraged our African members to invite their friends?
• What if we found a pastor that spoke Swahili to facilitate this effort?
• What if we used Swahili in our services?
• What if we put the outreach in the hands of the African members?
• What if a youth led the children’s sermon?
• What if we used some of the equity in our property to expand our ministry?

Of course, getting the results takes time and hard work and you can’t always foresee the obstacles but it’s better than gathering dust or locking doors.

Try a What If? Party and see what happens.

Be prepared for failure. Failure is necessary for well-rooted success.