Watching the Olympics, I was reminded of how Dick Fosbury transformed high jump events. He began his career taking the high jump in the traditional way: running at the bar and going over it looking downwards. Anxious to do better, Fosbury invented a revolutionary technique that involved throwing himself face up and backwards over the bar. Initially mocked as the ‘Fosbury Flop’, it allowed him to win gold in the Mexico Olympics of 1968 and is now the almost universal method for the high jump. It’s a brilliant example of that much-needed ability: innovation.
Innovation is applied creativity and it involves three stages. The first is the identification of some problem, challenge or opportunity. The second is the mysterious process in which there is the imagination of a solution. The third is the implementation of that solution. Any successful innovation requires all three steps. We normally think about innovation in terms of technology, but as the Fosbury Flop reminds us, innovation can apply in every area of life. One supremely important aspect is how organisations and individuals conduct their affairs.
Let me suggest that in most areas of life we have a choice of operating in one of two modes. The first is what you might call museum mode. Here the emphasis is on shunning change and continuing to do what you’ve always done. It is to look inwards and backwards and to be focused on the preservation of the past. In this mode, the response to any problem or a challenge is always, ‘How have we traditionally dealt with this?’ Here innovation is either ignored or even treated with suspicion.
The second way of operating is in mission mode. Here the emphasis is on the best way to resolve the problem or the challenge regardless of tradition. It is to look outwards and forwards and to be open to innovation. It is to encourage the sort of ‘out of the box’ thinking that Fosbury had.
The temptation to operate in museum mode is a particular threat for churches, Christian ministries and individuals. After all, we value the past; our faith is based on God’s action in Christ and God’s communication in his Word. Many of us, too, look back to great preachers, missionaries or acts of God in revival. In fact, the powerful and continuing pressure today for us Bible-based Christians to change our views on various matters can encourage us to retreat deeper into museum mode. Yet if the theological basis of our faith cannot be changed, how we express it can – and surely must – change. The irony is that much of what, in museum mode, we cling on to – such as hymns, organs, Sunday schools, even sermons – were themselves once innovations.
I believe that churches have been called to mission mode from the day of Pentecost. Indeed, in reaching out with the good news of Jesus in word and deed, our faith has shown some splendid examples of innovation. Think of the open-air preaching adopted by the Wesleys and Whitfield, the adoption of firstly radio and then the internet in preaching, the use of planes and ships and even such new strategies for reaching the unchurched such as Alpha, Christianity Explored and 321.
I think, too, of Christians who are creatively engaging with science, the arts and the environment as well as communities and individuals with needs.
While we must not fall into the twin traps of seeking innovation for innovation’s sake, or assuming that what is new is always good, we need to be open to innovation; either in doing new things or doing old things in a new way.
On innovation, let me offer some thoughts to consider.
1) Seek opportunities. We should ask questions about what we are doing and whether we can do it better. Are there unmet needs or unreached groups in our communities? What is the best way of being church? How do we build up believers in a digital age?
2) Respect theological or moral limits. No organisation that is truly Christian operates with unlimited freedom. We must all work within the faith that was ‘once for all entrusted to God’s holy people’ (Jude 1:3 NIV). And God’s kingdom is not helped by anything with a dubious ethical basis.
3) Imagine with prayer. The working of imagination is a mystery that borders on the miraculous. Many good innovations in churches have come out of prayer, and all the best ones have been surrounded by it. Pray!
4) Be thoughtful. Innovations may be implemented with ease but withdrawn only with difficulty. Will there be unintended and unforeseen consequences? Will people be hurt?
5) Consult. While some technological innovations may be made by individuals in lonely laboratories, the best innovations in the Christian world are made in collaboration with caring and praying friends who can guide, support and encourage. As Proverbs 27:17 (NIV) says, ‘As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.’
6) Expect opposition. Fosbury was described as looking like ‘a fish flopping in a boat’ and one newspaper captioned his photograph: ‘World’s Laziest High Jumper’. Innovations in the Christian world get away no lighter. When missionary pioneer William Carey first proposed preaching the gospel overseas he received harsh rebukes from church leaders.
7) Be encouraged. At the start of the Bible we read, ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth’ (Genesis 1:1 NIV), and almost at its end, ‘He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!’’’ (Revelation 21:5 NIV). God is the ultimate in innovators and we, made in his image, can surely follow him.
In a world of ever-changing – and seemingly ever growing – physical and spiritual needs, God’s people need to be innovative. We need to ‘think outside the box’. Fosbury didn’t merely think outside of the box; he jumped out of it. There’s a lesson there.
Keep the faith and be innovative!
J.John
Reverend Canon
Image © The Regents of the University of California. Los Angeles Times Photographic Collection. UCLA Library Special Collections. https://digital.library.ucla.edu/catalog/ark:/21198/zz0002vq8n. No changes were made to the original image.
