When it comes to innovation, there seems to be two types of church leaders and two types of church attenders.
- Play-it-safe types. These church leaders hide their creativity and struggle for the status quo. They worry more about making people mad or even losing people than they think about anything else. Appealing to their creative side scares them and they tend to reproduce what they know. You hear them say things like "Yes, but" a lot. They probably were creative and innovative early in their careers but maybe a couple of failures and a stern warning from the boss scared them into playing it safe. They tend to warp the gospel message into what makes them comfortable (what they know) instead of taking much of Jesus’ words literally. You wouldn’t want to start a revolution, would you? They read the Book of Acts and say "that couldn’t happen here." Interestingly, there are loads of people that are perfectly happy with Play-it-safe leaders. They like predictability and innovation isn’t important to them. They want to know what to expect and even if something isn’t working… they are perfectly content with what they know. When this person measures their own performance they are telling themselves… "I never fail."
- Risk-taking types. Let me first say, I think this exists in every leader. And I think that most first generation Christians love the risk-taking church leader because they know that someone took a risk on them. Most people end up in leadership because at some point they stepped out and took a risk, smashed the status quo and got pegged as a leader. These leaders tend to measure things by "is it working?" rather than "is this what my people expect?" Risk takers aren’t stupid… they just aren’t afraid to fail. They understand that failure is part of the innovation process. They read Jesus’ story and the Book of Acts and shudder at the possibilities. Interestingly, there aren’t loads of people who like to be lead by risk takers. Sure…. tons of people love "what’s new" and taking wild chances… but innovators tend to accidentally run people over.
John 6
Both types are broken and messed up. And God needs/uses both types of leaders to lead His church today. Just like God needs people to comfort the Play-it-safe crowd, God needs people who laugh at risk and innovate methods for His sake.
For a long time I’ve been fascinated by the story documented in John 6 about the disciples who quit following Jesus. Relatively early in Jesus’ 3 year ministry he attracted a large following. He was taking big risks and people loved following him. But one day, while Jesus was teaching he looked at this group of… let’s say 100… wanna-be disciples and told them plainly. "Look, following me isn’t all about a bed of roses. There won’t always be miracles and free food. At some point you may have to die because you’re following me. Unless you’re willing to eat my flesh and drink my blood you can’t really follow me anymore." John writes, "From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him." It was more risk than they could bear so they went home.
Out of those left… Jesus chose the twelve. It was this group of 12 to whom Jesus said, "On you I will build my church." Risk takers… status quo busters… innovators and inventors of "church."
Risk takers will always rub people the wrong way. They will always be called failures by the Play-it-safe types, and maybe they will be correct. And yet out of risk taking and innovation comes the best ideas that reach the most people.
I’ve long said that I want to work with people who are stupid enough to think they can make a difference in their community. Right now, I have that. It comes at a cost… but I’m just not a play it safe kind of guy. I love being on a staff of people willing to take "wise risks" for the Kingdom.
And about 15 years ago a wild and crazy young youth pastor took a chance on me by wasting a bunch of time and energy on a lonely and wounded dorky kid. If he had played it safe… where would I be?
