Dumping false innovation can help grow your church …

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You have great programs at your church:

… small groups are full …

… VBS is packed with kids every summer …

… men and women have great spiritual “highs” at their annual retreats every year …

… there’s plenty of participation and enthusiasm, but you really are not seeing the growth you thought all those great experiences would bring.

Why?

Many churches create and “thrive” off a cycle of false innovation.

Regardless of the constant hype of how great, awesome, terrific, mind-blowing, and life changing things are around your church, many churches are doing the same things over and over and over and over and over again and don’t realize they are doing so.

Often, what church leadership teams take as creativity and innovation is doing the exact same type of programming every year but simply tweaking the content and slapping on a new promo package. The problem is, it’s still the same kind of programming.

For example, you offer VBS every year. This summer, the theme will change, and the promotional materials will change. But you’ll still offer a very similar VBS program.

Another example, you have a group of adult home groups starting new Bible studies. The content is different, the promotional material is different, but they are still the same (perhaps with a few new ones) home groups doing Bible studies.

Yet another example, every year you offer the “spiritual growth powerhouses” of men’s and women’s retreats. The content will be different, maybe a different leader and location, and the promotional materials will change, but they are still men’s and women’s retreats.

What has happened is that you’ve trained your people to do the very same things, over and over and over and over and over again, just with different content. To try to make it appealing, you promote it differently. But because it is “more of the same” every year, you’re not spiritually maturing your people, but rather, teaching them how to have a series of “spiritual highs and lows.”

This is not truly creative and innovative program offerings that move your people forward, it moves them up and down, then back to where they were.

Real innovation and creativity would be scrapping VBS this year to move kids forward the next step in a summer camp at home that includes activities, service projects, etc. In other words, the whole program changes instead of simply the theme and the promotional material. You’ll bring VBS back, but it might be a year … or two, or three … before you do.

The same with small groups, and retreats, and all the things you do. If you really want to be innovative, creative, and effectively move your people forward in a discipleship process, you move on to the next thing, rather than do re-runs that are re-wrapped.

Doing the same things with the same general format but tweaking the content provides these results:

  • No real innovation or creativity (beyond the promo materials and themes).
  • Creates comfort zones because your people know they’ll be doing this year what they did last year … and the year before that, and the year before that, and the year before that …
  • This results in limiting growth.
  • Ministry leaders who slap on new themes and new promo materials become managers who regurgitate the same stuff each year. This isn’t challenging leaders to be genuinely innovative and creative.
  • You’re not using the real talent you believe your leadership team has by simply developing new themes and promotional packages. Your leaders will really have to use their talent, and be more reliant on the Lord, if they have to generate a fresh new program every year.

If you want to offer opportunities for your people (of all ages) to mature, try throwing out your regular schedule of annual events and get truly creative and innovative about what the next step in their development would be. Then offer something new to feed those needs.

For example, why do many churches have a revival as an annual event? If the church was truly “revived” last year, why do you need a revival this year (unless you anticipate spiritual death each year that requires spiritual revival each year)?

If you want to live up to the hype of really awesome, life-changing, mind-bending, heart-transforming things happening at your church, then get real with fresh, creative, innovative opportunities that provide a maturing discipleship process rather than an endless roller coaster of the same stuff to provide the same ‘ol highs and lows you’ve experienced for years.

Scotty