That's impressive.

What amazes me about Apple is how it produces products that dazzle many of us over and over again.  When I picked up my iPhone 3Gs last summer I thought - I don't know how the phone could get any better.  But Apple wasn't thinking that at all...they were already working on the iPhone4 (and likely now are reimagining far beyond that).  iPad lovers - be sure the iPad2 is already in development.

What generates innovation?  The threat of decline and extinction can. Dying organizations often try to innovate...but frequently they fail.  Why?  Because a desperate grasping at straws rarely works.  Secondly, a dying organization's goal is often self-preservation.  It isn't truly about innovating or doing something that benefits others.

How do you create a culture where innovation thrives, where no one is satisfied with the status quo?   I love these four principles Mark Federman outlines:

See what isn’t there. • Think what no one else can think. • Do what no one else dares to do. • Multiply your mind by giving it away.

To do that,  you need to create a culture of risk and make failure a distinct possibility.  Many people realize without risk there is no reward.  But fewer of us are fans of the truth that with risk comes the distinct possibility of failure.   You risk potential failure in at least two ways when you innovate:

• You risk failure publicly - the general consensus when the iPad was announced was that it was a dumb idea.  Critics called it big iPhone that doesn't fit in your pocket or make calls.  But selling 2 million units in less than 60 days shut many of them up.
• You embrace failure privately - the public only sees the ideas that get legs.  We can only imagine how many other ideas at Apple got tested and  knocked down before the iPad or iPhone emerged out of the mix.  To truly innovate, you need to embrace a multitude of ideas that don't work before you find the one that might.

I know as the leader of an organization I can be tempted to thwart creativity in favour of what's working.  Bad idea.  So this summer, we're adding a question to our mid-year and year-end reviews of our staff:  What did you try this year so far that failed? If the employee can't name something, we're going to ask them to risk more. You never get to true innovation without failure.

It's hard to actually live on that edge.  But you need to do it if you're going to see what isn't there, think what no one else can think and do what no one else dares to do.  It also means you need to start celebrating purposeful failure when it happens.

At the end of the day, Apple's only about iPhones and other cool things, but many of us have been entrusted with the kingdom of God.  I live in a community where 93% of the population won't be in church this weekend.  When it comes to reaching families, we can do so much better. I think the church should be leading innovation.  We don't need to change the message.  We just need to get so much better at living and sharing it.  Sometimes I think if the church ran Apple, we'd still be trying to build momentum around the first generation iPod we designed over ten years ago...watching the declining market share and blaming consumers for not being as excited as they were about them a decade ago.  We wouldn't have produced any new ideas in the last decade...we'd just have one approach we were counting on to work forever.  That's not innovation.

What do you do that helps you stay innovative?  How well do you embrace failure as a possibility?  What are some of the barriers you see to becoming more innovative? 

]]> http://careynieuwhof.com/2010/06/innovation.html/feed 0 http://careynieuwhof.com/2010/06/seven-questions.html http://careynieuwhof.com/2010/06/seven-questions.html#comments Wed, 16 Jun 2010 00:39:48 +0000 Carey http://careynieuwhof.com/?p=981 It's so easy to become culturally irrelevant.  I don't even need to try.  One day you're doing some awesome worship music, playing Modest Mouse and serving bold coffee, and the next minute it sounds like polka music to the next generation of kids.  It happens so fast.

At Connexus Church, we do a weekly service programming meeting where we plan out our weekend services.  We have a reputation for being 'edgy' as a church.  That's good in our books, because if you're really trying to reach people who don't go to church, using the culture to reach the culture can still be a very effective strategy. And using the culture (in music, messages, media and more) can help people engage what you're saying and apply the message to life far more easily.

Recently it occurred to me that we really haven't done much to specifically engage culture in the last month or two. We've done some songs right off the radio, but beyond that, not much.  That freaked me out.  How could we forget?  It's such a big part of who we are and what we do.

So I took out my computer and wrote down seven question I want us to start asking regularly as a team:

1. In what ways have we engaged our culture in the last 30 days?
2. What's current in our culture?
3. What's everyone talking about?
4. What's our target (in our case, a 30ish married couple with kids) talking about?  How would we know?
5. What's funny?
6. What's viral?
7. What's enduring (not trendy) that people still pay attention to?

I think of these questions as a way to ensure that we don't think we're engaging the culture around us when, frankly, we're not.  One hour of swirling around in these questions led to some great creative ideas for the coming months (which I probably shouldn't let out of the bag).

If you're in leadership, what do you do to stay current?  What do you think of the questions?  Got any better ones?

If you have a marketplace job, your life has some definable components: your work, your family and your personal life.   You might get up, spend some time with God, head off to work, come home and hang out with your family. 

In ministry, these worlds get fused.  You wake up, spend time with God. Go to work, which in some ways is spending more time with God and serving God.  Then you go home, and wait - you are a Christian family.  And you attend work with your family. Or hang on, is that work or is that personal or is that family?  

See what I mean.  It gets confusing. 

In my first year in ministry, I found I was tempted to combine my personal spiritual walk with sermon prep.  If I was preaching Exodus anyway, why not hang out in the text during my quiet time?  

I don't know why, but early on that just struck me as unhealthy.  So I decided to adopt a discipline of personal bible reading that had zero to do with "work".  My plan the first year was just this:  read through the Bible in a year.  I did, and it revitalized my devotional life.  Fourteen years later, I'm still reading through the Bible every year. I'd never say everyone should do it.  But for me, it's been awesome.  For whatever reason, it's liberating to be reading through 2 Chronicles and realizing you may never preach on it all year long.  

Naturally, I find things in the Bible I end up preaching on.  But the point is that that wasn't the point.  

I do pray for things that impact our ministry, but I try to spend a lot of time praying about things that I would pray about if I wasn't in ministry.  For me, it's boiled down to a simple, haunting question:

If I stopped ministry tomorrow, what would be left of my spiritual life? 

By cultivating a spiritual walk that has little do do with work, I hope I can answer that question with a resounding "quite a bit."  

This principle has helped my family sort out the thorny question of what to participate in as well.  The rule we adopted early on was that as a family, we would do those things we would normally do if we were just Christians and I wasn't the pastor.  It would be normal for our family to serve in some ministries, but not every ministry. Normal to be out at church a night or two a week, but not every night of the week.  Normal to attend church, but not necessarily multiple services every Sunday just because we hold them.  So my wife and kids serve because they are Christians, not because I'm the pastor.  It's been so healthy. 

We've been fortunate to be part of a community that understands that principle, respects it and even thinks it's healthy.  So grateful for that! 

This is the fourth practice that's helped me stay alive and engaged in ministry more often than not over fifteen years:  to cultivate a spiritual walk that has little to do with "work".

How about you?  What helps you?  If you stopped ministry tomorrow, what would be left of your spiritual life?  If you stopped ministry tomorrow, what would that do to your family's rhythm of service? 

If you've hung around church for any length of time, you might be tempted to say "my church is".

At Connexus where I serve, we've been talking about that recently.   I did a message last month about blame and responsibility that seemed to resonate as deeply as any message we've ever done.  It got me thinking.   Although we're not suffering from this right now, those of us who have led for a while are far too familiar with Christians who hop from church to church every few years, leaving church after church because they didn't grow in their faith.  They leave, blaming the church and church leadership for failing.  I've discussed this for years with other church leaders, and we're all frustrated by it.

Sometimes, churches need to change and admit we are not doing a great job helping people grow.  But honestly, sometimes it's not the church's issue.  The leadership has often done all it can to create environments that help people grow.  I wonder if there's an underlying issue beneath it all  that rarely gets addressed.  It centers on the answer to this question: who is responsible for your spiritual growth?

The truthful answer is: you are.

I am not responsible for your growth.  Your wife isn't.  Your children are not.  Nor is your car mechanic or small group leader.  The elders are not.  Nor is your neighbour across the street.  Who's responsible for your spiritual growth?  You are.  In exactly the same way that I'm responsible for my growth and development.  It would be ludicrous for me to blame you for me not growing spiritually, but that's what people do all the time to their churches.

Your church can help.  We try to create great environments that help people grow.  But think of it this way:  a chef can set a spectacular dinner table and cater a great meal, but at the end of the day he can't make you eat or make you have fun.  That's your business.  All he can do is create a great environment conducive to wonderful dining.

I have been tremendously helped by great leadership and great teaching in the church over the years.  But I've also grown under poor leadership, learned from mediocre teachers and even been sharpened in less than ideal community.   In fact, I've always grown the most when I've assumed personal responsibility for my spiritual development and looked for others to help me (not grow me, just help me grow).  I've grown the least when I've slacked off.

I wonder what would happen to the church if Christians took responsibility for their growth?  I wonder what would happen if we pursued a personal walk with the same passion we use when we blame others for our failures?  I wonder what would happen if we helped each other out and prayed for each other but continued to encourage people to take responsibility for their spiritual growth?

What do you think?  Is this an issue you see?  What would happen we collectively re-assumed responsibility for our spiritual growth?

Today I'd love to switch gears and ask: of all the things you've done to reach outsiders, which have been some of the best ideas, and how might they have offended people?

Here's a quick survey with a few things we've tried:

• We meet in  movie theaters (in part its just practical - it fits us for now).  Some Christians left because they can't worship in a movie theater.  Some non-Christians come because it's in a movie theater and not in a church.  For the record, we just keep pointing them all to Jesus.  (It's not about a movie theater.)
• On Easter 2008, we tattooed a person live on stage.  It was to make the point from Acts 17 that all of us - even non-Christians - have a notion of God imprinted on our hearts.  A handful of Christians left our church over it.  Some non-Christians said it made them want to come back.  The tattoo artist himself hadn't been to church for years.  He was very suspicious of church.  He said it was a great experience and impacted him deeply spiritually.  He was surprised a group of Christians accepted invited him in.
• We opened Christmas Eve 09 with Led Zeppelin's Rock and Roll to try to break up the sacharine expectations around Christmas.  No one left. Everybody liked it and thought it was funny.  Clearly not edgy enough. :0)

We've done quite a few other things that have ruffled feathers (some male band members dressed up as Beyonce <not sure we'd do that one again, or would we?>, we gave away Starbucks cards to people who brought their friends <we'll do that again>), all in the desire to see non-churched people move into a growing relationship with Jesus.

What have you done?  Or maybe more interestingly, what do you wish you would have done?  What was the reaction or what feared reaction kept you from doing it?

I'm grateful to be part of a generous community at a time like this.  I love people who pray and act.  Thank you!

- Carey

But then this irony struck me - hard.  We start setting up church before 6 a.m. on a Sunday morning.  Trust me, everyone but our volunteers and a handful of gas station clerks are asleep.  As I drove off of campus after lunch, the world is waking up, the parking lots at malls are filling up.  And we're winding up, putting it all away.  It's like we missed each other.

I'm not suggesting that we should move worship off Sundays or even off Sunday mornings (churches that have tried it rarely see great results).  If unchurched people are going to attend a service, it's probably going to be on Sunday mornings. I'm not even saying we should be open 24/7.  That can often just mean the church becomes a cocoon - a retreat from our friends and neighbours.

What I'm thinking about this morning is that I hope there is plenty of evidence of our faith left on Mondays (and Wednesdays and Saturdays).  What a shame it is if as the world goes to sleep, the church wakes up and as the church goes to sleep, the world wakes up.

What do you think is the most effective way to personally and collectively lead people into a growing relationship with Jesus when the world is alive, awake and fully engaged?

If you do that:

• Your prayer life will grow
• The status quo will get shaken up
• You'll develop a fresh heart for people who don't know Christ
• You will begin to apply what you now know to your life in new ways
• You'll know God more intimately
• You'll better understand what you believe
• You can test what people tell you (including church leaders) for yourself
• You'll get more passionate about sharing your faith with people who don't know Jesus

Here's my current favourite way to read the Bible:  YouVersion. As you start 2010, you can access one of 20 daily reading plans here.  Pick the one that suits you best.  Some will take you through the entire Bible in a year...others through parts of the Bible.  What I love is that this gives people an easy way to make the Bible part of every day life.  If you've never read the Bible before, this could be an easy and do-able first step.

Best yet, you can access YouVersion off your desktop or your smartphone.  My daily bible reading has been off my phone for the last year and I love it.

Hope you find this to be a great new way to encounter God's Word in a fresh way.

PS.  I'm doing the M'Cheyne reading plan this year.

So what did we do (many of you were asking)?

• We opened the service with Led Zeppelin's Rock and Roll.  The band did a great job, and people hung in the tension of liking what they were hearing but realizing this really wasn't Christmas music.
• We had a 'producer' interrupt the band two minutes in the song and tell them they couldn't play it because people had come for Christmas.
• The band then regrouped, and starting playing Rock and Roll again, only this time subbing in Christmas lyrics.
• I got up, cut them off and told them they had to play real Christmas music (at one of the services, people started calling out for more Zeppelin)...welcomed everyone and launched into some Christmas tunes.
• Musically, we then did some rearranged Christmas carols (like Chris Tomlin's version of Angels We Have Heard on High).  We brought out some dancers who did a couple of kid versions of some Christmas songs to actions, and closed the service with Robbie Seay Band's Go Outside and O Holy Night.
• The message was simple and fairly short (20 minutes).  Everyone got an invitation that was handwritten by someone at Connexus.  It simply said "My name is _______ and I want you to know that you are invited to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ".  My message was simply that Christmas is the greatest interruption in human history accompanied by the greatest invitation in human history.  We invited people to respond to the invitation.

What I loved about the service this year was how the opener surprised people, caught them off guard and got them engaged in the first few minutes.  It was a bridge for people with little church background, and in many ways, modeled the message.  We interrupted the song...God interrupted history... we handed out a personal invitation...so did God.  We hoped it would work, but as usual, you don't know until it's all happening live.  I loved the kids' dance too because it helped the kids stay engaged and gave the younger kids music they loved.  Plus it helped families see that we sink some significant time and resources into families.

I was so thrilled with our community...we asked people to invite friends and family and they did.  Being a portable church is hard and when you can't even meet where you normally meet for Christmas services, it makes it even more difficult for a crowd to find you Christmas eve.  But our Christmas eve attendance has doubled in the last two years and was up 50% from last year alone - all because people told their friends.  We'll plan for over 1000 attenders next year.

So that was Christmas.  If you were at Connexus, what did you think?  If you weren't, please share some thoughts or share what your church did.  We're always learning and would love to hear.

That creates an interesting problem for those of who plan church services.  Let me explain.  Almost everyone kind of knows the Christmas story, and almost everyone expects to hear it at Christmas at church.  And herein lies the dilemma. If you merely tell the Christmas story and play into people's expectations, my feeling is the power of the story gets lost.  But if you don't play into expectations (sing some familiar carols and tell at least some aspect of the Christmas story), people disconnect from what you are doing.

We have this phrase that we use when planning our services:  discerning what people want, delivery what people need.  It's hardest to fulfill that intention at Christmas.

Put simply:  there are certain things most church leaders feel like we have to do to make it a Christmas service, but if we do them, Christmas may lose it's punch. If all the service is is a few songs people want to sing and a familiar message, people walk away completely unchanged.   Does that make sense?

Our team struggles every year to present Christmas in a powerful, meaningful, relevant way.  We try to tell the story without losing the power of the story.  How do you help people get over what they want so they can get what they need?

If you are a fan of Christmas services, how do you manage that tension?

We do a few things.  We try to use surprise as an element in the service (wait till you hear the Christmas Eve opener on Thursday).  If we catch people off guard, they listen better.  When we do use traditional songs, we rock them up (a lot).  I try to find an angle on the Christmas message that is a little less common but still gets to the essence of Christmas.

What are some things you've done, thought about, or seen that are great ways to cut through this dilemma?