Howard Hendricks once told of a church that hired him to come in as a consultant and help figure out why their church wasn’t growing. It didn’t take him long to analyze the problem and come up with a solution. He told them to simply put up a white picket fence around the church and charge admission at the gate for people to come in on a Sunday morning and see how church was done back in 1942! Needless to say, he was not invited back.
Sometimes we ask, “If it isn't broken, why fix it?” But what if a better question might be, “If it isn't right, or not working well anymore, shouldn't we change it?”
Sometimes we think we need to preserve the honor of a former leader by keeping his systems and processes in place. But isn't it better to celebrate those past successes and move on to something better now that the context (or technology, ______) has changed? Wouldn't that honor the former's leader's intentions?
Erwin McManus in his book, An Unstoppable Force, points out that “Traditions are not only roadblocks for change; they can become roadblocks for dreams. Traditions that become treasured memories can be the catalyst for new dreams and new experiences. But when they trap us in the past, they stifle the imagination, bring an end to creativity, and make innovation impossible. Where there are no dreams, there is no hope. And when there is no hope, there is no future.”
McManus goes on to say: “While we are to remember the past, we are not to remain in the past. Our memories of God’s activity in our lives are to move us into the future.”
I believe we were made in God's image to create and innovate. Consider Genesis 1:2 where God moves over the dark waters of chaos and creates beauty, or 2 Corinthians 5:17 where he remakes humanity into a new creation, or Revelation 3:12 where he hands out new names, or 21:5 where he makes everything new. While God is unchanging, he changes things in our world for the better. How much more should we—made in his image—bring beauty out of chaos or introduce light where there's darkness? We can only do that when we embrace creativity, innovation, and change.
