SERIES: IT: Finding It, Keeping It, and Sharing It
(freely adapted from Craig Groeschel’s It: How Churches and Leader Can Get it and Keep it)
“YOU’LL DO ANYTHING FOR IT”
OPEN
After taking a break last week to honor our mothers, we’re back into our series – IT: Finding It, Keeping It, and Sharing It. The first message was called, “What Is It?” We defined it this way – “It is what God does through a rare combination of certain qualities found in his people.” Those qualities are: 1. A passion for his presence 2. A deep craving to reach the lost 3. Sincere integrity 4. Spirit-filled faith 5. Down-to-earth humility 6. Brokenness.
Our second message began a study of the traits that marked churches that had it and learn how we can develop those traits in our congregation The first trait was a God-given, God-breathed vision and we said that “You Can See It Clearly.” The second trait was the importance of teamwork and we said that “We Experience It Together.”
We look at a third trait this morning: innovation. Innovation is important because “You’ll Do Anything For It”. Someone said, “Learning and innovation go hand in hand. The arrogance of success is to think that what
you did yesterday will be sufficient for tomorrow.”
Wikipedia defines innovation as the process of making improvements by introducing something new. If there is any group in the world that should be motivated to make improvements by reflecting God’s creative nature, it should be Christians.
The Latin term for expressing the idea that human beings are created in the image of God is Imago Dei. Since we are made in the image of God, who is a creative creator, we too can conceive creative ideas.
Psychologist, physician, and consultant Edward de Bono said, “There is no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource of all. Without creativity, there would be no progress, and we would be forever repeating the same patterns.”
When we are creative, we reflect God. Creativity leads to innovation and innovative churches tend to have it. It is born out of their passion to please God, reach people, and help those in need. Increasing passion produces increasing creativity to reach people.
The apostle Paul obviously had it. And he often did things in new ways. He changed his approach to reach different people. 1 Cor. 9:19-23 – “Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the
law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law.
To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God's law but am
under Christ's law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have
become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the
gospel, that I may share in its blessings.” This morning, let’s take a look together at some principles about innovation.
PASSION CREATES MOTIVATION WHICH LEADS TO INNOVATION
What would you say if I asked you, “Could you come up with a hundred thousand dollars by the end of the week?” Chances are, unless you are mega-rich, you’d probably say, “Whatchu talkin’ ‘bout, Willis?”
Why? Because in your mind, I just asked you to do the impossible. You might be thinking, “There is no way I could come up with that kind of money. I can barely pay my bills.” If that’s your reaction, you’d be like most people.
Let’s do another imaginary exercise. Think about the people you love the most in the world. Your short list might include your spouse, your children, your parents, your grandchildren, and some very close friends. Pick one of those people. Get them in your mind.
Now, suppose I told you that your special loved one is very sick. I’m not talking about the stomach virus kind of sick or even a bad cold kind of sick. I’m talking about the “you’ve got less than a month to live” kind of sick.
Imagine that the doctors are saying that your loved one has no chance of living beyond that month unless you get them a very rare shot by the end of the week. And because the shot is so rare, it’s very expensive. Money just became less of an object. So you ask, “How much is it?” And the sober reply is, “One hundred thousand dollars.”
Remember, just a minute ago, you thought finding a hundred thousand dollars in a few days was impossible and you weren’t even going to try. But now, you’re perspective has changed. Even though it’s going to be extremely difficult, you’re going to work as hard as possible to get the money. You might get a home equity loan. You might call a rich relative. You might sell everything you own. You might even consider knocking off a bank. (I hope not but the thought may have just crossed your mind).
Why are you now willing to go to such extremes? Because you just became motivated. So what changed? In the first situation, there was no incentive. But the life-and-death stakes in the second situation make you want to give it everything you’ve got. The spark of passion ignited the fuel for innovation.
A with-it church is filled with people so passionate to know God’s presence and share God’s presence that they become driven to become innovative. A good example is found in Mk. 2:1-5 – “A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. So many gathered that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. Some men came, bringing to him a paralytic, carried by four of them. Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus and, after digging through it, lowered the mat the paralyzed man was lying on. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven.’”
Motivated believers don’t see obstacles. They create opportunities. Instead of saying, “It will never work, “ they say, “What if this does work?” Instead of whining, “We can’t do that,” they exclaim with faith, “We’ll find a way.” While many lament, “We don’t have what it takes to make a difference,” motivated believers say, “God is our provider, we have more than enough.”
Paul says in Phil. 4:19-20 – “And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus. To our God and Father be glory for ever and ever. Amen.”
Craig Groeschel leads a church based in Edmonds, OK that has 13 campuses in 6 states. In 2006 and 2007, the church he leads was named most innovative church in America. Because of that honor, he is sometimes invited to consult and speak on the topic of innovation. He says that the two most common complaints he hears from leaders are: 1. We just don’t have any creative people 2. If we only had more money, we could be really creative.
Groeschel acknowledges that while it is true than an abundance of resources opens up a lot of possibilities,
he believes that these two complaints are simply excuses that keep great ideas from becoming a reality.
Robert Schuller said, “All it takes is one idea to solve an impossible problem.” Passionate belivers commit to find that idea – and usually succeed.
LIMITATIONS OFTEN REVEAL OPPORTUNITIES
Maybe you’ve heard the old adage, “Where God guides, he always provides.” But Craig Groeschel says that the leaders in his church have made up a new saying: “God often guides by what he doesn’t provide.”
Think about that statement: “God often guides by what he doesn’t provide.” Have you ever been up against a wall with no good plan to get past the wall? Have you hit an obstacle that looks to be impenetrable? Maybe God will guide you to see something that you couldn’t have seen if he’d just removed the wall.
There is a great example of this principle in Acts 3:1-10 – “One day Peter and John were going up to the
temple at the time of prayer—at three in the afternoon. Now a man crippled from birth was being carried to the
temple gate called Beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those going into the temple courts. When
he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for money. Peter looked straight at him, as did John. Then
Peter said, ‘Look at us!’ So the man gave them his attention, expecting to get something from them. Then Peter
said, ‘Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.’ Taking him by the right hand, he helped him up, and instantly the man's feet and ankles became strong. He
jumped to his feet and began to walk. Then he went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping,
and praising God. When all the people saw him walking and praising God, they recognized him as the same
man who used to sit begging at the temple gate called Beautiful, and they were filled with wonder and
amazement at what had happened to him.”
Think about that for moment – God used Peter’s limitation (lack of money) – what Peter didn’t have – to guide him. If Peter had a few bucks in his pocket that day, he might have just tossed some money toward the man, nodded politely, and moved on to be on time for the prayer session. But, because Peter didn’t have what the man wanted, he was able to give the man what he needed.
The truth is that we have everything that we need to do what God wants us to do. We just like to complain that we don’t. Be careful with excuses because most of us make them occasionally.
Be truthful this morning. How many of you have thought along these lines: *We could do so much more if only our people gave more. *We could reach more people if we have a bigger, better building. *We could do some awesome things here in Martinsville if we could just afford to hire more staff.
Whenever you’re tempted to whine about what we don’t have, just remember that God has given us everything we need to everything he wants us to do. 2 Pet. 1:3 – “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.”
If we don’t have something you think we need, maybe it’s because God wants you to see something you’ve never seen. Churches that have it recognize that God brings it. It is not found in the things that the eye can see.
FOCUS GETS THE JOB DONE
Leadership expert Peter Drucker said, “An established company which, in an age demanding innovation, is not able to innovate is doomed to decline and extinction.” 3,500 churches close their doors every year in the United States. The problem? They’re not relevant to the needs of the people and they’re not innovative in their plan of outreach. They have forgotten to keep the main thing, the main thing. They’re too worried about trying to meet the criteria of certain people’s opinions. We have to stay on task. We can’t get distracted with little thing or the wrong things.
Innovative thinking requires breaking some rules. I’m not talking about breaking with biblical principles and guidelines. The rules that need to be broken are the man-made rules. Thomas Edison said, “There ain’t no rules here. We’re trying to accomplish something.” You see, churches with it tend to do things differently than churches without it. They want to accomplish want God wants them to accomplish.
Did you ever hear the story about what happened with the very first hot air balloon? Listen to how one author describes the event: “On June 4, 1783, at the market square of the French village of Annonay, not far from Paris, a smoky bonfire on a raise platform was fed by wet straw and old wool rags. Tethered above, straining its lines, was a huge taffeta bag thirty-three feet in diameter. In the presence of a respectable assembly and a great many other people, and accompanied by great cheering, the balloon was cut from its moorings and set free to rise majestically into the noon sky. Six thousand feet into the air it went—the first public ascent of a balloon, the first step in the history of human flight. It came to earth several miles away in a field, where it was promptly attacked by pitchfork-waving peasant and torn to pieces as an instrument of evil!”
Know that when you do something different, you will have opposition. People will tell you that your idea will never work. Leadership expert Warren Bennis said, “Innovation … by definition will not be accepted at first. It takes repeated attempts, endless demonstrations, monotonous rehearsals before innovation can be accepted and internalized by an organization. This requires courageous patience.”
A great biblical example is Nehemiah. Nehemiah had a God-given vision – to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem following the period of the Babylonian Captivity. Nehemiah and the people of Jerusalem worked as a team to get the job done and things were progressing quite well.
Neh. 6:1-4 – “When word came to Sanballat, Tobiah, Geshem the Arab and the rest of our enemies that I had
rebuilt the wall and not a gap was left in it—though up to that time I had not set the doors in the gates- Sanballat and Geshem sent me this message: ‘Come, let us meet together in one of the villages on the plain of Ono.’ But they were scheming to harm me; so I sent messengers to them with this reply: ‘I am carrying on a great project
and cannot go down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and go down to you?’ Four times they sent me the same message, and each time I gave them the same answer.”
Every one of us needs to commit Nehemiah’s response to memory for the times the critics and the opposers are against what we’re doing to serve the Lord. We need to tell them, “I’m busy doing the Lord’s work. Why should I stop the work to deal with you?”
Tom Kelley starts his book, The Ten Faces of Innovation with this paragraph: “We’ve all been there. The pivotal meeting where you push forward a new idea or proposal you’re passionate about. A fast-paced discullsion leads to an upswelling of support that seems to reach critical mass. And thenm, in one diasatrous moment, you hopes are dashed when someone weighs in with those fatal words: Let me just play the Devil’s Advocate for a minute…” And after making that seemingly harmless statement, the person feels free to blast the idea to smithereens.
Know that new ideas will face resistance. It may or may not work. But sometimes failure is important to find success. We’ll talk more about that subject next week. Just don’t allow the devil’s advocate to thwart God’s plan.
Larry Ellison, billionaire CEO of the Oracle Corporation said, “When you innovate, you’ve got to be prepared for everyone telling you you’re nuts.” When you have it, you’ll find new ways to spread it. But be prepared for what goes with it – criticism
CLOSE
Jesus is the greatest innovator of all. Remember we earlier defined innovation as the process of making improvements by introducing something new. Jesus fulfilled the old covenant and brought a new covenant. In him we have a new life, a new name, a new attitude, a new song, and a new home in heaven.
Jesus also broke rules – manmade rules. By the standards of the religious leader of Jesus’ day, he was a failure. He was a failure to them because they measured success by their own rules. Jesus was accused of breaking the Sabbath. He hung out with wrong people. His disciples weren’t educated in the Pharisaic schools. To them, Jesus did things upside down and backwards.
Yet, Jesus fulfilled God’s perfect will and he paid the price for our sins. According to the religious leader of his day, Jesus failed. According to God, he was the savior of the world.
