2008 America's Most Innovative Churches

 

by Tony Morgan

Once again we have turned our attention to new ideas and strategies in hopes of stretching our collective imagination, and enlarging our view of the local church’s evangelistic role. We began the process six months ago by posting an online survey to solicit your nominations for this year’s list of America’s Most Innovative Churches. We hoped to learn about the churches that you perceive as innovative and to uncover the diverse congregations that are doing ministry outside the norm. Your input resulted in 127 different nominations, including ministries like Granite State Baptist Church in Salem, N.H. (gsbc.net), Detroit World Outreach in Redford, Mich. (dwo.org) and The Village Church in Highland Village, Texas (thevillagechurch.net).

After collecting all of those nominations, we convened a panel of 12 people from inside and outside church ministry to select this year’s list of innovative churches. Some are practitioners, in the trenches, serving in local churches. Others are students of the Church—they’re serving in organizations and businesses with a vested interest in seeing the Church remain effective in reaching our communities for Christ. Each came with a unique perspective on what God is doing in ministries throughout the country.

We instructed the panel to submit their individual lists of what they perceived to be America’s 25 most innovative churches. We encouraged them to consider the churches that were nominated through the online survey, but we also gave them the latitude to list churches they were acquainted with from their own experience. Panelists were not allowed to list their home church.

Each panelist ranked the churches they identified. The overall process yielded votes for 122 different churches. The votes were weighted based on individual rankings and totaled to generate the final list of America’s Most Innovative Churches 2008.

This year’s list reflects a diverse regional cross-section of churches representing 16 states and the District of Columbia. The list also features a spectrum of church sizes, ages and denominations. While several nationally known megachurches grabbed spots, you’ll also find smaller, lesser-known congregations. And you’ll discover older churches with long-standing traditions that have transitioned in recent years, like Orchard Valley Community Church (orchardvalleyonline.com) in Aurora, Ill., and relatively new church plants, such as Elevation Church (elevationchurch.org) in Charlotte, N.C. Some congregations are reproducing themselves in metroplexes; others are innovating from one location in smaller communities. Collectively, the ministries on this list illustrate that there’s no single way to “do church.”

Our panelists chose eight congregations that are new to this year’s list. The highest-ranked addition is Flamingo Road Church in Cooper City, Fla. And though the rest of the rankings changed, LifeChurch.tv, based in Edmond, Okla., once again topped the list. Given the church’s new ventures in the last 12 months—including its Second Life Internet campus (p. 63), the creative “Satan’s Sex Ed” message series and YouVersion, a new online Bible tool the church has developed—it really isn’t surprising that this year’s panel overwhelmingly chose LifeChurch.tv as most innovative.

As this list suggests, innovation in ministry doesn’t discriminate. It comes in all shapes and sizes. In fact, several pastors of churches on the list said they believe it’s the smaller congregations—the ones under the radar—that may be in a better position to take new ground for the Kingdom because with fewer resources, they are forced to innovate and find new ways to carry out the Great Commission.

By highlighting the value of innovation and creative thinking in our churches, we hope this report both challenges and encourages you to consider what God has next for your ministry and your community. If it’s just innovation for innovation’s sake, it really has no value in the Church. If the end result is life-transformation through Christ, then the Church needs to be innovative.

Are you ready to do a new thing?  

Tony Morgan is chief strategic officer at NewSpring Church (NewSpring.cc) in Anderson, S.C. NewSpring will host Unleash 2008, a conference to equip and encourage church leaders, in March. To join the conversation about growing strategies, visit Tony’s blog at TonyMorganLive.com.

Meet This Year’s Panel

 

The combined insights of these 12 ministry leaders—some of the leading voices in church innovation today—helped us compile our second annual list of America’s Most Innovative Churches.

Bill Easum. Over the last 20 years, Bill Easum has consulted with thousands of churches and multiple denominations. He is co-founder of Easum, Bandy & Associates
(easumbandy.com), a full-service church consulting group. His latest book, A Second Resurrection (Abingdon), released last year.

Shawn McMullen. As director of the Energizing Smaller Churches Network (escnetwork.org), created to encourage leaders and volunteers in smaller churches, Shawn McMullen works with smaller churches nationwide. His book, Releasing the Power of the Smaller Church (Standard), released last July.

Bryan E. Crute. The Founding and Senior Pastor of Destiny Metropolitan Worship Church (destinymetro.org), in Atlanta, Bryan E. Crute is known for his creative leadership and community involvement. In 2002, he launched
the Center for Creative Leadership and Ministry Innovation.

Eric Bryant. Serving as an elder and navigator who oversees the leadership team at Mosaic Church in Los Angeles, Eric Bryant has helped catalyze new worship venues across Los Angeles. He’s also the author of Peppermint-Filled Piñatas (Zondervan) and “The Bryant Blog” ericbryant.org/blog.

Todd Rhoades. As editor and head writer of the blog Mondaymorninginsight.com, Todd Rhoades connects weekly with thousands of church leaders. He also works as director of Leadership Network’s Teaching Church Multiplier Project.

Julie Arnold. Each week Julie Arnold, director of service programming at North Point Community Church in Alpharetta, Ga. (northpoint.org), oversees the development of ideas for the church’s eight worship services, which are known nationally for their creativity and cultural relevance.

Rick McKinley. The founding pastor of Imago Dei Community (imagodeicommunity.com), in Portland, Ore., Rick McKinley also co-founded Love Portland, a citywide initiative designed to engage his church in relationships with its community. He is also the author of This Beautiful Mess (Multnomah).

Kem Meyer. Serving as communications director at Granger Community Church in Granger, Ind., Kem Meyer maintains an outsider’s perspective and a fierce consumer mindset to help churches communicate more effectively.  She blogs about that perspective on Kemmeyer.com.

Sam S. Rainer III. In his role of president of Rainer Research (rainerresearch.com), Sam Rainer helps churches of all sizes track the pulse of culture and Christendom. He is a frequent conference speaker, a columnist and blogger (churchforward.outreachmagazine.com) for Outreach.

Nelson Searcy. As lead pastor of The Journey Church of the City in New York City (journeymetro.com) and founder of Churchleaderinsights.com, Nelson Searcy writes, speaks and coaches thousands of church leaders on innovation in the Church. His new book, Fusion (Regal), releases 2008.

Dave Ferguson. The founder and lead pastor of Community Christian Church in Naperville, Ill., Dave Ferguson also created the international NewThing Network (newthing.org) of reproducing churches. He is the author of The Big Idea (Zondervan/Leadership Network).

Terrell Sanders. With 10-plus years of consulting experience in church technology and communications, Terrell Sanders is executive director of the church communications conference MinistryCOM (ministrycom.org) and the president of an Internet consulting and development company.

Church Forward

 

How are America’s most innovative churches reaching a changing world?

 

By Lindy Lowry

What makes a church innovative?

That may be the question you’re asking as you read this second annual report. To be honest, we’re not sure we have the definitive answer. It depends on your definition of “innovative.” If, like Bobby Gruenewald, innovation pastor of LifeChurch.tv (No. 1), you think of innovative as something new—an idea that’s never been tried before—few churches, including the ones on our America’s Most Innovative Churches list, live up to the description. If, like Granger Community Church (No. 3) Executive Pastor Tim Stevens says, innovation means adapting a proven idea for your environment, then there is evidence for why these churches are called innovative. Of course, you can’t overlook the fact that often churches are defined as innovative because their leader is perceived in that light.

As we researched each church on the list and talked to many of their leaders, several commonalities emerged. We repeatedly heard the terms “core values,” and “ethos”—an indication that these churches approach ministry with a specific purpose and direction. We also began to see that churches were innovating in specific areas to reach the unchurched. Technology is an obvious one, but other categories—including multi-location; non-traditional church experiences; global DNA; communications and media; city/community renewal; church resourcing/partnering; and raising up the next generation of churches—also encompass much of the creative thinking and idea implementation these churches are doing.

While a church may be known for its expertise in one area, in most cases these congregations are making an impact in many. Then there are those innovations that defy the categories—such as Willow Creek Community Church (No. 10) and Perimeter Church (No. 22), currently in the throes of a shift from decentralizing their ministries and transitioning from “doing community in the church” to “doing church in the community” via neighborhood evangelism.

On the next few pages, you’ll get a glimpse of how churches are innovating to live out the Gospel and introduce their local and global communities to the love of Christ. Some of the ideas you may have heard about; others are less high-profile but nonetheless effective. Our hope is that the experiences and creativity of these churches and leaders will inspire you as you endeavor to reach the unchurched in your sphere of influence.

Technology

A year ago in our first annual report on innovative churches [January/February 2007], we called podcasts and blogging innovative. In less than a year, the times have changed dramatically. For example, LifeChurch.tv ventured into the 3-D Second Life world and established a campus there. Each week, more than 100 people “attend” the church to worship and listen to the teaching.

Other churches have leveraged the Internet to introduce users nationwide to their church and ultimately, to Christ. As curious viewers logged on to Mynakedpastor.com, they watched Flamingo Road Baptist Church (No. 4) Senior Pastor Troy Gramling at his home in Cooper City, Fla., in the office, on trips and in hotel rooms via 24-hour Web cameras. The idea—a promotion for Gramling’s message series on authenticity—drew more than 1,000 people to the church, many who were first-time guests to any church. 

“It reinforced to us the idea that there are huge avenues online to build intimate community with people,” Gramling says about the experience. “We’re trying to make people’s steps toward God as small as possible.”

Other churches have used the same strategy. To promote a series on marriage and sex, Granger Community Church built the Web site Mylamesexlife.com and advertised the site on billboards. Similarly, NewSpring Church (No. 12) stirred up local controversy in Anderson, S.C., with Parentsareclueless.com., its confessional Web site for parents and students and the title of a message series.

Other churches like Hawaii’s New Hope Christian Fellowship (No. 19) and Seacoast Church (No. 5) based in Mount Pleasant, S.C., are using the Internet to train and equip their leaders. Last year, iTunes dubbed New Hope the “iChurch” when the church debuted a Web application for the iPhone and personal computers that allows New Hope to train its leaders in churches throughout the Pacific Rim.

“Because traffic is a crazy thing here, we can’t get our leaders back to the church for training,” Cordeiro says. “We e-mail them with a link and in a few minutes I’m teaching our leaders wherever they are.”

Seacoast Church has also decentralized all of its training; 200 to 340 people have been trained online, says Executive Pastor Geoff Surratt, adding that Seacoast is also using the Internet to build virtual small groups.

In every area, including missions the churches on the list have innovatively harnessed technology. Saddleback Church (No. 6) in Lake Forest, Calif., is already positioning itself as a source for a new breed of evangelism. A new full-service $3 million Web site dubbed the P.E.A.C.E. platform will, when completed, offer anyone anywhere in the world the opportunity to be matched to a missionary destination, as well as the necessary training, be that evangelism know-how or country specs (thepeaceplan.com). Although still proprietary, the site composed of hundreds of servers housed in a maximum-security facility in Irvine, Calif., will eventually be open to everyone, without any centralized control.

Multi-location

As churches around the country consider going multi-site, the idea of one church in many locations continues to morph.

While most of the current multi-site strategy is to reproduce sites exactly like the original model, Community Christian Church (No. 13) has turned the concept upside down, moving from multi-site to what Senior Pastor Dave Ferguson calls “poly-site”—different kinds of sites to reach many different kinds of people.

“We asked ourselves: How can we reach the growing senior population, growing ethnic populations, the emerging generation who may never come to a church building?” The church now has sites meeting in a 55-plus golf community and a community with 95% first-generation Spanish-speaking Mexican immigrants.

For the same reason—to reach different groups of people—Mars Hill Church (No. 2) recently bought a nightclub in downtown Seattle with hopes of connecting with urban Seattleites. The church still hosts “Sin Sunday” events popularized by the former venue, Tabella Restaurant & Lounge. And to encourage young urbans to try it out, the church is even offering Doggie Sunday School—a.k.a. petsitting, says Pastor Tim Gaydos who oversees the new venue.

In contrast, National Community Church (No. 11), says Lead Pastor Mark Batterson, employs a long-term vision to stay in the same type of venue—movie theaters. By meeting in these neutral venues in the middle of the marketplace, the church is reaching  unchurched and dechurched young adults. “We don’t view theaters as temporary locations,” Batterson says.

And churches that have mastered the local multi-site method are now reproducing themselves, most through video, beyond state and national boundaries. In summer 2007, Fellowship Church (No. 8) launched Fellowship Miami, with one of its promotions being a direct mail piece that visitors could redeem at the church for a $5 gas card. In the first two services, the church saw 600 people.

Expanding internationally, both Flamingo Road Church and Healing Place Church (No. 15) in Baton Rouge, La., have campuses abroad. In Lima, Peru, Flamingo Road reaches 400 people and has plans for more international sites.

Healing Place Church Mozambique—a partnership with various ministries—launched in 2006. Like all of Healing Place’s sites, the Mozambique campus began as an outreach. “We’ve done everything we can to treat this like all of our campuses,” says Dan Ohlerking, part of the lead pastor team. The church is also looking at establishing a campus in Swaziland as a partnership with the international relief ministry Children’s Cup.

Non-traditional church experiences

In addition to recasting the multi-site picture, the churches on the list seem to be mainstreaming and validating non-traditional church experiences, such as home churches, clusters of small groups and non-conventional venues. 

At North Coast Church (No. 16) in Vista, Calif., people of all ages are checking out a new service called The Canvas, an artist enclave with a shortened version of the message. Each Sunday, participants sit at tables, sip cappuccinos and lattes brewed at the coffee bar inside, and respond to the message using diverse artistic expressions. The church known for its video venues is also equipping members to start a video venue of sorts in their homes through its Church to Go concept.

“Megachurches left and right are finding out they have to get smaller,” says Pastor Chris Mavity, who oversees North Coast’s training division.

Community Christian Church’s Ferguson agrees. This year, the church will introduce 3C Communities—church sites that don’t meet at a church facility and instead will gather in “third places” like offices, health clubs, coffeehouses. The motivation, Ferguson says, is to reach the estimated 35% of Chicago’s current population that will never enter a church. “These 3C Communities will go to them,” he explains.

Seacoast Church continues to expand to multiple states and is now looking at a micro-site approach, asking how small a site can be and still be a church, Surratt says. Informal versions of Seacoast have cropped up in non-traditional sites, including submarines and military bases around the world.

From submarines to a coffeehouse on Capitol Hill—faith is finding new expressions. In Washington, D.C., National Community Church runs the three-story, award-winning (voted AOL’s No. 2 coffeehouse in the D.C. Metroplex) Ebenezers Coffeehouse, allowing the church do ministry in the middle of the marketplace, says Batterson.

“Jesus did not hang out in the synagogue. He hung out at wells,” Batterson says. “Coffeehouses are modern-day wells.”

Irvine, Calif.-based NewSong Church (No. 18) led by Dave Gibbons, has also established non-traditional church environments. After Gibbons returned home from a yearlong sabbatical in Thailand, where converts seemed far more comfortable meeting in living rooms than a church building, a new vision emerged for the church. The multicultural congregation is now made up of a network of 15-plus mini-churches with an average of 12 members each meeting in homes.

Eventually, Gibbons told the Los Angeles Times that he envisions most NewSong members attending house churches with a commensurate decrease in the size of services at the mother church.

Church planting

When you think of church-planting congregations and leaders known for their passion and commitment to planting churches, no doubt New York City’s Redeemer Presbyterian Church (No. 20) led by Tim Keller and NorthWood Church (No. 17) led by Bob Roberts, Jr., come to mind.

Redeemer planted its first two churches in the city in 1994. In the 13 years since, the church has planted more than 100 churches—the majority non-Presbyterian—through the Redeemer Church Planting Center and continues to plant congregations throughout the world, including New York City.

Northwood Church wields similar impact, having planted 103 documented churches around the world, including Vietnam and 90 churches within nine miles of the Keller, Texas, congregation. But in his upcoming book The Multiplying Church (Zondervan), Roberts is calling for a change in Western thinking about church planting. Instead of starting with the church, he advocates starting with the individual and engaging the domains of society. He foresees a global church planting movement in the next five years and wants the Western world to be part of it.

“A movement is Spirit, not man-driven,” Roberts says. “We’re not going to get a movement out of multi-sites.”

At NorthWood, potential church planters participate in formal mentoring and training and when they’re ready to put down roots, the church heavily resources them.

Communication and Media

“Let It Be Christmas … a story by Matthew, Mark, John, Paul and Ringo.” It was the title of Granger Community Church’s December message series.

“The Beatles gave a voice to a generation of real, deep human longings,” Granger’s Stevens shares. “And Jesus is the answer to the longing the Beatles wrote about. In these services, we explored their lyrics and talked at length about Christ’s birth.”

It’s just one of the culturally savvy message series for which Granger is known. Like many churches on the list, Granger leverages the language of pop culture to create conversations and draw people to Christ.

“We’re listening to songs from mainstream bands like Nickelback, U2, Foo Fighters, and we’re observing the spiritual journey revealed in the lyrics,” Stevens says.

In contrast, Crossover Church (No. 21) led by Tommy Kyllonen, is using music—Christian lyrics set to hip-hop beats—to engage the hip-hop culture in Tampa, Fla., as well as worship music, records, DVDs and magazines. The church runs a hip hop label and publishes SoulMag, a consumer-driven magazine that combines urban design elements with devotional texts and editorials on up-and-coming Christian hip-hop artists.

Across the country, Mosaic Church (No. 7) in Los Angeles also runs a record label, Wide Awake Records, and film company, Awaken Films, through its non-profit ministry, Awaken. The 501C3 affords Mosaic the opportunity to invest in the secular world.

“Awaken allows us to go into schools, the entertainment industry and businesses,” says Eric Bryant, one of Mosaic’s three navigators. “It gives us access to arenas the church isn’t usually invited to.”

Both the record label and film company foster relationships, as the church befriends entertainment executives, writers, musicians, actors and other entertainment industry insiders. “As a result, we have seen people step into our church community, as well as some who have chosen to follow Christ,” Bryant says.

While much of Crossover’s and Mosaic’s communication happens outside church walls, North Point Community Church (No. 9) is deliberate and innovative about communicating—or not communicating—during a weekend worship service.

“In our service, we only point people to the next step for getting connected,” says Julie Arnold, direct of worship programming. She adds that the church limits announcements in the bulletin to those that would affect first-time visitors. North Point does as few announcements as possible during the service. Before it starts, the church runs the “10B4” (taken from movie theaters), which includes commercials for how first-timers can take the first step to Christ; a preview for the upcoming series; or just something fun.

 “We recognize that fun is essential to reaching people,” Arnold says. “So we’re very intentional about making sure people laugh when they’re in church.

Global DNA

While almost every church on the list has the world on its radar, a few congregations are deliberately and creatively building a global DNA into their church body. 

Perhaps most visible, especially at this time, is Saddleback Church, which just held its Third Annual Global Summit on AIDS and the Church, drawing more than 1,500 delegates from around the world. As Rick and Kay Warren have championed the fight against and prevention of AIDS, the Orange County church has seen its congregation—and congregations worldwide—transformed and moved to action by learning about and seeing firsthand the plight and pain of those infected and affected by AIDS.

A similar transformation has happened in Keller, Texas, as NorthWood Church’s Bob Roberts continues to talk and write about the potential impact of glocal churches. A result of Roberts’ frequent trips to Vietnam, Northwood regularly sends mission teams to the country and in turn hosts Vietnamese students from Hanoi. Even the church building itself reflects a glocal body; its walls are a gallery of paintings by Vietnamese artists.

Orchard Valley Community Church (No. 24) in Aurora, Ill., has also discovered that a global focus can be a catalyst for transformation. After working with his father to transition the 75-year-old congregation, now known as Orchard Valley Community Church, from an ingrown older congregation to an outwardly focused church of all ages, Senior Pastor Scott Hodges is now looking for ways to inject a missional mindset into the DNA of the church. To that end, each of Orchard Valley’s small groups adopts a global missionary, committing to pray, send financial resources, encourage via mail and online, and serve directly through short-term global outreach trips.

City/community renewal

One of the commonalities amongst the churches on the list is their resolve to serve. But the climate seems to be shifting from random community service projects to a long-term commitment to renew a community, or in some cases, a city.

In North Minneapolis, The Sanctuary Covenant Church (No. 25) led by Efrem Smith continuously works to renew the former beauty of the community through both the local congregation and the church-founded Sanctuary Community Development Corporation. Through its nonprofit, the church provides training to unemployed and underemployed residents, hosts ongoing youth initiatives and offers City Matters, an eight-week course exploring issues of race, faith and justice in the city.

“We live in an ever-increasing multi-ethnic and multicultural society,” Smith says, “and for the Church to be a transforming force, we must be innovative enough to break out of the historic matrix of the segregated church.”

Neighborhood transformation is also happening in Grandeville, Mich., as Mars Hill Bible Church (No. 23) serves the 16% of the city’s population who live in poverty. The church has divided the city into four regional neighborhood networks, allowing church members to reach out to those they share a street with. And in Baton Rouge and New Orleans, Healing Place Church, in cooperation with other churches and its many ministry partners, is focused on the hurting and those who “fall through the cracks,” says Lead Pastor Dino Rizzo. Constructing fourplexes for low-income families, running a mobile dental and medical clinic for anyone without medical insurance, and ministering to prostitutes are only a few of the innovative initiatives transforming the city.

While Healing Place is involved in multiple city renewal initiatives, Community Christian Church has focused on one comprehensive, long-term partnership with under-resourced public schools.

“We have become a church that knows you can’t call yourself a church unless you care about the poor,” says Ferguson.

As a result of the partnership, the church has seen parents empowered to get involved in their children’s school; students make academic progress; and people who at one time saw faith in God as a rigid set of rules start to question what it means to have a personal relationship with Christ.

NewSpring Church has also partnered with an under-resourced school in its Anderson, S.C., community. After learning that the school planned to close its playground due to faulty equipment, the church refurbished it. This Christmas, New Spring gave shoes and a jacket to every student.

“We’re very passionate and intentional about community transformation,” says Senior Pastor Perry Noble.

In Indiana, Granger Community Church recently “moved in” to a downtown neighborhood after serving there for several years. The church purchased an entire city block and is now renovating the structure to be a fully functioning food pantry and educational center.

“We’re dreaming about entire family legacies being transformed,” Granger’s Stevens says.

Church Resourcing/Partnering

Just about every church on the list is intent on teaching and resourcing other churches—a core value for these congregations and leaders. Several host large-scale conferences—Innovate, Unleash, C3, Buzz, Drive, Origins, Awaken, Resurgence, Externally Focused and Multi-Site. Others take a more personal approach and invite church leaders to come in, shadow them and ask questions. 

And as the number of church conferences grows, the willingness of churches to offer their teaching, graphics and video without charge or with minimal fees also continues to flourish.

For example, LifeChurch.tv’s Open allows free online access to videos, artwork files, promotional resources and transcripts, and soon will give other churches the opportunity to release their free resources through the network. Seacoast Church plans to shift its resources to Open, including its leadership training materials.

In addition to resourcing, the churches on the list recognize the value and benefits of partnering. Through networks and affiliations, many are partnering with each other to host conferences, lead workshops and expand internationally. But few are teaming up with diverse churches for impact.

Enter Elevation Church (No. 14) in Charlotte, N.C. The youngest church on the list, Elevation led by 27-year-old Steven Furtick (the youngest pastor on the list), partnered with a church vastly different from itself for citywide impact. Elevation and the predominately black congregation of New Birth Charlotte plan to host “Presence,” a joint Christmas worship experience in Charlotte’s 10,000-seat Cricket Arena.

Furtick writes about it in his blog: “We just thought it would be fun to have one big service in partnership with a church that is very different from Elevation stylistically and culturally, but in harmony missionally.”

Raising Up the Next Generation

Reaching, educating and discipling the next generation is strong value for many of the churches on the list. Several are making creative and unprecedented strides to accomplish that goal.

As part of its Third Annual Global Summit on AIDS and the Church, Saddleback Church recently hosted the first-ever Youth Summit on AIDS. More than 1,000 students, in addition to the 4,100 others who joined in by satellite uplink, were challenged to initiate (begin a relationship with Christ for the first time); educate themselves and their friends about HIV; donate time, money or themselves to address HIV/AIDS; participate in a missions trip or local project to address HIV/AIDS; and pray for those infected and affected by HIV.

Other churches are offering ongoing youth-focused programs as an agent of change in the local community. Perimeter Church mentors Atlanta’s youth, as well as runs the Academy of the Arts where students pursue ballet, fine arts, music and theater.

In January, Northwood Church will also offer classes to teach high school students about church planting and community engagement.

“Our teens are going to Vietnam for missions, and they’re coming back saying, ‘I want to plant a church.’ So we decided to start a class that gives them a head start,” says Roberts.

Healing Place Church places strong emphasis on the next generation, even holding a “sub-30” staff meeting for 40 of its 105 paid staff.

Similarly, Mosaic Church in Los Angeles is also intentional about raising up the next generation of communicators and leaders to impact the unchurched community, Bryant says.

But being a leader at Mosaic requires more than just a checked box on an information card or verbal “yes.” Anyone who joins Mosaic’s volunteer staff must first be mentored and trained by one of the church’s 120 trained leaders. At the end of their training, they are formally commissioned at a monthly event called Elements where they’re anointed with oil and given a Bible to pass on to an unchurched friend.

“We commission the next generation to be missionaries abroad and in Los Angeles,” Bryant says. “What we’re asking of people is really what every church should be asking of their leaders, but they aren’t. When people feel invested in and empowered to share and show Christ, the potential impact is dangerous.”

Lindy Lowry is editor of Outreach magazine. Warren Bird assisted with this report

The Round Table

 

A panel of practitioners and experts discusses the potential risks and minefields of innovation.

While innovation may be a buzzword in culture today, as well as a general theme for numerous church conferences, it doesn’t come easily. New methods to tell people about Christ are often scrutinized by church members, the community at large and other churches. And innovation does bring its own set of dangers—such as church cloning and losing the message of the Gospel in our attempts to be culturally relevant. At the 2007 National Outreach Convention in November, we assembled a panel of practitioners and experts moderated by Ed Stetzer, director of research for LifeWay, to discuss the potential risks and minefields of innovation. Listen in as they share insights and sometimes personal wounds resulting from their attempts to do something new.

Ed Stetzer: Michael, we’re talking about innovation in the Church. Get us started by talking about innovation and creativity in a general context. How is creativity different from innovation, and why does that matter?

Michael Lindsay: Creativity is the building of new, useful ideas. Innovation is the implementation of those ideas. Creativity in and of itself doesn’t get us anywhere. You actually have to innovate to bring about change. So it means that you’ve got to create a culture that allows for the implementation of new ideas and not just focus on the newest, greatest idea.

Stetzer: Tony, you’ll be focusing on innovation and creativity at your Unleash conference coming up this March. Why do you invite people to come in to learn the way you do church?

Tony Morgan: We’ll be sharing what’s working for us. But I’d acknowledge that just because something is working in Anderson,  S.C., does not necessarily mean it will work somewhere else. I think that’s the challenge. One of the things we as leaders need to be about is looking at how we reach the unique cultures we’re in.

Stetzer: Dave, how does your multicultural context in Los Angeles, as well as throughout the world where you’re planting churches and sites, empower people to find God’s unique vision for their church?

Dave Gibbons: I think a lot of it is understanding that as Western people, we tend to impose things on others. So we have to come with an understanding that we’re called to flow with what God is already doing. We recognize in the Bible that God is about marginal people. He loves the misfits, the outsiders, and we have to adjust very creatively to reach the fringe.

Lindsay: And some of the most creative people I know are misfits. I describe them as cosmopolitan. They’re rubbing shoulders with different types of people, and because of their diverse experiences, they have an edge. That’s what we’ve got to do in the Church—help people not be so inwardly focused, where we tend to all look the same, but actually help them engage in many different sectors.

Stetzer: Jonathan, how are you seeking to innovate at Thomas Road Baptist?

Jonathan Falwell: We have a desire to reach this next generation—the people who carry iPods 24/7—while not leaving the last generation behind. For me, that means focusing on the fact that creativity and innovation come from Christ. And when we go deep in our relationship with Christ, He opens our eyes to new things we can do, things we can use, to reach this culture.

Meyer: I’d add to that. I watch a lot of churches with hearts beating in the right place. They want to meet the culture where they’re at. They want to reach the guy with the iPod, so they call it “Godpod” to be holy. You can be holy and still call it iPod. You don’t have to put a Christian label on it.

Falwell: I agree 100%. I just finished a series, and for it we had a working nine-foot iPod standing behind me. Many times, the Church tries to take something that’s in the culture and make it ours. And that just makes us look cheesy and irrelevant.

Stetzer: One of the dangers in innovation is losing the message of the Gospel in our methods. How do we make sure that doesn’t happen in the process of innovating?

Gibbons: For me, I think a lot of it has to be rooted in our motive, which comes from authentically understanding the need of people. If you really see the need, to me it’s like the Nehemiah principle—once you see the destruction, the vision emerges. But if you don’t really feel the need and the suffering deeply, I think it turns out very inauthentic.

Stetzer: What’s the motive at your church for innovation, Dave?

Gibbons: I think the greatest danger and impediment to the flow of the Gospel in our day is that we’re doing a bait and switch—kind of like an Amway presentation. We love people and are nice to them—and then we take them to a sales presentation. People aren’t stupid. The motivation for me is not simply winning people to Christ. That’s there—it’s always there. But it seems to me that my call is not to change a person. That’s the Holy Spirit’s role; my role is just to love people without any strings.

Stetzer: The reality is that most of our churches are pretty resistant to these new methods. What is it about innovation that frightens so many churches? How do we overcome that?

Meyer: I think churches get stuck. It’s scary to be innovative. When you’re innovating and engaging the culture, it’s messy and you’re out of your comfort zone. So it’s easier to just stick with what you know.

Falwell: Here’s how you sell it to people who are resistant: When they see lives being changed, people affirm that.

Morgan: You’ve not come to my church then. I trust that’s the case in your ministry. But honestly, if you’re pushing the edge of the culture, even if lives are being changed, people are still going to attack your method if it looks different than someone else’s. It’s just the reality.

In the Church, we look at other churches that do things differently than us, and we think it’s wrong. I think we need to get to the place where we have lots of freedom in the methods that we use. I think we can trust a sovereign God to continue to guide our ministry as we rely on His Word and the Holy Spirit to direct us.  

-Excerpted from Outreach magazine, "Features," Jan/Feb 2008

 

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