Innovation?

For the past year, Asbury has been part of a “Learning Community” with the Leadership Network. Twice a year a team from Asbury gathers with 8 other similar sized  churches (mostly, non-denominational) for the purpose of conversation and brainstorming on how to create a culture of generosity in our churches.

Here is an example of one idea that came out of our conversations from one of our partner churches:

I have to admit there has been a good deal of jealousy in my mind directed towards churches that can create this kind of buzz. I kept thinking how “innovative” these churches were for being able to get away from some very traditional thinking. The strange thing that happened this time at our gathering was churches coming back and saying that their “innovative” ideas had not done much to foster systemic generosity in their churches. One leader even said of their church “We do needs based giving very well, and we’ve found needs-based giving to be like crack. It gives the giver a rush, because the giver is getting something out of giving to a specific need at a specific time. But we’re struggling to create disciplined generous givers.” Wow.

I tend to follow after the appearance of innovation, but just because something might be loud and create attention and a stir doesn’t mean it is really accomplishing all that much. This is a big leadership lesson for me. Innovation is not the big flashy ideas but the ideas that lead to disciplined living because its here that real change starts to occur.