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2004-08-19T00:00:00-05:00

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The Long-Term Focus of the Innovative Congregation

2008-01-29T00:00:00-05:00

Bud Wrenn

In the past two articles I have written for Next Step, we have made a couple of important points about innovation. First…

Innovation in a congregation is not defined by style of music, the accepted attire for those who attend worship services, or the use of drama, multimedia, etc. in the services. Rather, an innovative approach to ministry has more to do with the way decisions are made, and executed. For example, the innovative congregation will be characterized by a culture that emphasizes staying in touch with external and internal environmental factors, and decision processes that 1) are proactive and 2) allow for timely and effective response to changes in those environmental factors.

Then we established three critical elements in an innovative approach to ministry, most specifically in the local church.:

1) There needs to be an awareness of what is going on inside the church.

2) Church leadership needs a keen awareness of what is going on in and around the community, region, state, etc. in which the church is located.

3) There must be a keen responsiveness of the congregation with regard to these internal and external factors.

Perhaps the best way to establish how a church, or any organization, can operate in an innovative fashion is to contrast the innovative organization with the ‘anti-innovative’ organization, the bureaucracy. I will attempt to do that in the next couple of articles, by relating a story that has some meaning in the innovative organization vs. bureaucracy comparison.

Boats, Bureaucracy and Innovation

While I am certainly not an expert, I enjoy boating. It is about the most enjoyable hobby I can even think of. I love taking my 17” Bayliner out into the ocean and the intercoastal waterway. A couple of summers ago my wife and I, along with another couple, were in some fairly choppy surf near the intersection of the ocean, the intercoastal waterway, and the mouth of the Cape Fear River. As my wife, who is the more cautious one in our relationship, and her friend were talking in the back of the boat, preoccupied in comparing notes about kids and teenagers, I saw in the distance a large freighter, heading down the river and ultimately out to sea. As I noticed that the ladies were engrossed in conversation, I decided to head out toward choppier waters to ride along with the freighter.

As I increased speed to catch up to the freighter, the bumps from the higher waves caught my wife’s attention. As she ‘gently admonished’ me to turn the boat around, I slowed the speed a bit and assured her that we were totally fine.

As it turned out, we were totally fine. We had fun, and got a good close-up of the freighter. The voyage ended in a relatively uneventful fashion as we dropped off our friends at a nearby dock, and trailered the boat for the trip home. Abut as I thought later about this little trip, I noticed some points of comparison between the freighter and my boat, and organizations. This month let’s deal with the first of those.

The Bureaucracy and Comfort Zones

The first thing I noticed was, the exhaust from the engine that made it nearly impossible to ride behind the freighter – a bummer since the water in the wake of the freighter was as smooth as glass compared to the rest of the river. The smoother water in the wake of the freighter’s path was really where I wanted to keep my little boat. After all, my wife was right – the water was pretty rough that day, and in the wake the ride was smooth!

Just as it was quite comfortable riding in the wake of the freighter, it can be pretty comfortable being a part of a bureaucracy. The bureaucracy, for all its lack of flexibility, can provide a great ride for those who desire to work or live in a mode that will require little disturbance. Many who just want to get by, and who don’t care about excellence, can find a home in a bureaucratic organization. They are not likely to get pushed to perform at a level that would challenge the status quo of the organization, or that would challenge their own level of comfort.

The tough side of life in a bureaucracy is that anyone who chooses to be a part of one will have to put up with some unpleasant stuff. For example, I wanted to follow behind the freighter that day, but I could only get so close. The exhaust from the freighter could have asphyxiated my passengers and me. I had to follow at a distance, far enough back where the exhaust couldn’t reach us.

The Bureaucracy and Waste

So, with the smooth ride we had to deal with the exhaust fumes. Like the exhaust represented waste and made our ride quite uncomfortable, in a bureaucracy, there is so much ‘waste’ that comes in the wake of its operation.– waste of time, money, efficiency. The bureaucracy is typically absorbed with perpetuating itself – at nearly any cost.

In a bureaucracy, much of this waste comes from a focus on the wrong measure of success. The measuring stick, or metric, is often one that makes the organization look good right now, with little regard for longer term health of the organization, or those is serves. Having a short-term metric often leads to micromanagement, and often a serious suppression of the organization members’ senses of freedom and creativity.

Churches are quite susceptible to this trap, as congregations are not generally know as havens for good leadership practices. Churches are usually run by volunteer (and very part-time) committees, whose members, with limited time trying to balance all the other demands on their time, often try to just keep things going. This often means doing things the way we have always done them.

The Innovative Organization and the Long Haul

In contrast to the bureaucracy, the innovative organization knows it purpose, and is committed to fulfilling it. Three clear aspects of the innovative organization distinguish it from the bureaucracy.

First, leaders in the innovative organization do their best to do the right thing for the organization, regardless of politics, public perception, or personal gain. They are willing to make the tough decisions, to do the hard stuff, and to endure inconvenience. In the innovative congregation, this may take the form of a children’s ministry team making a recommendation or a difficult decision that is best for the Children’s ministry, even if it means going against the desires of some of the patriarchs and matriarchs of the congregation.

Second, the innovative organization’s approach is focused on the overall health of the organization and of those it serves. Leaders understand that even if one department or ministry has a great year, the only thing that matters is the success of the entire organization. Department ABC, which may have blown away its goals for the year, isn’t successful at all if the overall organization loses money, or if profitability comes in under target. In the example of an innovative congregation, DeepCreekChurch values evangelism, but they value the healthy integration of converts into the local church body just as well. Deep Creek’s evangelism team, with its eye on a denominational award for baptisms, may forego an opportunity to stage a big-time evangelistic crusade, if it feels that the discipleship department isn’t adequately staffed to handle follow up with potential converts. This being the case, going forward could cause more harm than good, as new converts could become frustrated and turn their backs on the church for its lack of support..

Third, the innovative organization may actually sacrifice short-term ‘numbers’ for long-term health. For example, let’s say an organization is faced with choosing between two options:

a) The organization can bring to market this year three products with marginal profit potential, and in doing so meet its forecasted objective for current year product introduction.

Or,

b) The organization can introduce one of those products this year, and invest its product development funds into two high profit-potential products that will come to market in two to three years. In doing this, the organization will miss its product introduction goal for the current year, but will enhance future profitability – perhaps beyond three years, down the road.

The bureaucracy will likely choose the first option, while the truly innovative organization will choose the second course of action.

In a similar fashion, consider a community characterized by tremendous growth in its Hispanic population, and two churches in community wishing to address this growth with evangelistic initiatives. The more bureaucratic of the two churches may choose to immediately do a door to door blitz in the Hispanic community, inviting them to come to their church. The more innovative church will perhaps develop a more intentional training / educational program to familiarize their congregation with the Hispanic community, and then develop a service-oriented outreach initiative toward the Hispanics.

Innovation? Or Bureaucracy?

Bureaucracies can indeed be a comfortable place to work, but there are significant costs associated with the waste that comes out of bureaucratic operations.. Innovative organizations, on the other hand, are much more concerned with doing the right things, and doing them the right way. Innovative organizations are much better equipped to handle the inconveniences that come with making the tough decisions.

So, what do you think? Does your congregation feel more like innovation? Or bureaucracy?

This article originates from Bud’s book The Church in 4D: Intentional Planning For Your Church’s Future, dueout in early 2009 from Chalice Press

More on the Innovative Congregation

2008-01-01T00:00:00-05:00

Bud Wrenn

In a previous article posted on this website, “What is an Innovative Congregation?” we began to develop a definition of the term innovation as it relates to the church context.. To give a brief review, here are a few things we said…..

An innovative organization…. might be known as one that ….

a) is willing to try new things.

b) encourages its people to come up with new ideas and put them into place.

c) allows experimentation, and

d) doesn’t get overly concerned with ‘failure’.

The innovative organization successfully re-defines ‘failure’ and sees in it the opportunity to learn new things that will enhance chances for success in the future.

And…

The truly innovative congregation will know…

a) when something new is needed

b) how to figure out what is needed

c) what purpose the innovation will serve, and

d) what success with the innovation will look like.

And finally….

Innovation in a congregation is not defined by style of music, the accepted attire for those who attend worship services, or the use of drama, multimedia, etc. in the services.

Rather, an innovative approach to ministry has more to do with the way decisions are made, and executed. For example, the innovative congregation will be characterized by a culture that emphasizes staying in touch with external and internal environmental factors, and decision processes that 1) are proactive and 2) allow for timely and effective response to changes in those environmental factors.

To follow on those key points, let’s talk about a number of things a congregation must key on if it is to be truly innovative.

First, there needs to be an awareness of what is going on inside the church. This much easier said than done. The leadership of the typical congregation has very little first hand exposure to what is really going on in the lives of its members. Members may spend as little as an hour to 1 ½ hours per week with the rest of the congregation. With this relatively small amount of direct contact time, it is difficult to know what is really going on. It is so easy for leaders to misread the state of the congregation, as their assessments are most likely based on what they observe during these times of direct contact.

Second, church leadership needs a keen awareness of what is going on in and around the community, region, state, etc. in which the church is located. These external factors will invariably affect the congregation as a whole, just as they affect the members as individuals. So often, slight shifts in external factors, that have relatively small impact on individual members, can have much more pronounced collective effects on whole congregations. The effects of these shifts are often underestimated, and even go undetected.

The third critical element in an innovative approach has to do with the responsiveness of the congregation with regard to these internal and external factors. While awareness of these factors is a must, it is not nearly enough. The congregation must have the ability to read and assess the impact of shifts, and to act accordingly. In other words, the congregation’s decision-making process must be nimble.

A truly innovative congregation is one that embodies these three qualities. At the other end of the spectrum is the bureaucratic congregation. The purely bureaucratic congregation is one that is much less likely to take into account the state of its people and internal and external environmental factors. The bureaucracy is much more likely to operate in the manner it has always operated. Procedures have been deeply engrained in the organizational structure, and they seldom change. Often, it appears the organization exists for the purpose of self-perpetuation, rather than for the benefit of any customer or client base. As long as the typical bureaucracy can function and perform well enough, it will continue in that mode.

Congregations are just as susceptible to becoming bureaucratic as any company – perhaps more so. As a matter of fact, in an absence of an intentionality toward innovation, a congregation will most likely default into becoming a bureaucracy – likely a far cry from Jesus’ vision for His church.

This article originates from Bud’s book The Church in 4D: Intentional Planning For Your Church’s Future, due out in early 2009 from Chalice Press

What is an Innovative Congregation?

2007-11-05T00:00:00-05:00

Bud Wrenn

Some of the biggest misconceptions in the American church today come as the result of labeling of individual churches. Churches have always been labeled. But those labels primarily have been associated with denominationalism. The church growth movement of the past 30 or so years has led to a broader variety of labels, often associated with worship style. In turn, worship style has come to be equated with musical style.

For example, words such as contemporary and innovative are used to distinguish a church from one that is traditional. The term traditional has come to represent the "benchmark" to determine how contemporary or innovative a church really is. "Traditional" typically characterizes a church that uses hymns, and perhaps instruments such as piano and organ. Any musical style that is characterized by more modern praise choruses (even those that may embody 70's style popular music styles), or uses any other instruments than piano or organ, will always be labeled contemporary by some.

Label Confusion
Labeling in the church is very subjective. The label is defined in the mind of the individual, and is shaped by the preferences, tastes and experiences of the individual. One person's traditional church is another's blended church. One's contemporary church is someone else's cheesy church. One's contemporary church is someone else's traditional church.

Even in the Innovative Church Community, with lots of participants, inconsistency of labeling causes great confusion. We have purposely moved away from even inquiring about types of churches, simply because of the diversity of labels and the meanings behind them. Many see our name, which includes the word Innovative, and assume that participation is only for churches that use upbeat music, or alternative postmodern worship practices.

This confusion of labeling has led to a couple of words coming to be used almost interchangeably. Those words - contemporary and innovative. But these words are simply not the same! In the purest sense, the word contemporary, according to the American Heritage Dictionary, has this meaning:

Defining Innovation
The other word in that interchangeable pair, innovative, has a totally different meaning than contemporary. Again, according to the American Heritage Dictionary, innovation refers to

The act of introducing something new.
Something newly introduced.

Being innovative, then, has more to do with operating in a mode in which new things are regularly being introduced. An innovative organization, then, might be known as one that -

is willing to try new things.
encourages its people to come up with new ideas and put them into place.
allows experimentation, and
doesn't get overly concerned with 'failure'.

The innovative organization successfully re- defines 'failure' and sees in it the opportunity to learn new things that will enhance chances for success in the future.

An innovative congregation, then, is a congregation that is willing to do new things, regardless of whether they may look contemporary, traditional, modern, postmodern, etc. The innovative congregation is one that will do new things because it is the right thing to do. It innovates with purpose and intentionality, not just doing something new for the sake of doing something new. Rather, it has in mind a larger picture, one that innovation will help the congregation move toward. The truly innovative congregation will know-

when something new is needed
how to figure out what is needed
what purpose the innovation will serve, and
what success with the innovation will look like.

So - what is innovation? Innovation in a congregation is not defined by style of music, the accepted attire for those who attend worship services, or the use of drama, multimedia, etc. in the services.

Rather, an innovative approach to ministry has more to do with the way decisions are made, and executed. For example, the innovative congregation will be characterized by a culture that emphasizes staying in touch with external and internal environmental factors, and decision processes that 1) are proactive and 2) allow for timely and effective response to changes in those environmental factors.

So - a church being labeled 'contemporary' doesn't really say a whole lot - simply that it's not traditional. On the other hand, it is important that a church earn the label "innovative", and live up to it. After all, that is what Jesus calls His church to be.