I am blogging from Atlanta, Georgia at the Catalyst 2014 Conference. Serving as a part of the Blogger Team at Catalyst has been a blast. Looking forward to more great content as we roll in to Day 2.
Craig Groeschel led things off. He is the pastor at LifeChurch.tv in Oklahoma and the author of multiple books.
How do we create a culture of innovation?
In the past, the church led the way in creativity and changing culture.
Craig’s church created and gave away the YouVersion Bible app. They have had 155 million free downloads. People are shocked to hear that a church created an app.
We as a church as delegated innovation to Apple and creativity to Hollywood. We’ve handed off relationships to Facebook.
3 Thoughts to Create a Culture of Innovation:
1. Limited Resources 
We often say “we can’t ____, because we don’t _____.”
We’d like to reach more but can’t because don’t have enough money, volunteers, or any other excuse.
God has given you everything you need to reach those He has called you to reach. We don’t need a lot to do what he has called us to do.
Limited resources are often a catalyst to do more than you ever thought possible.
God will give you what you need faster than what you want.
LifeChurch’s limited resources caused them to think outside the box to do church in multiple location. Craig said, “I thank God he didn’t give me what I wanted. It helped me to see what I needed to see.”
It requires a mindset change – We must now say. “We CAN because we Don’t”.
2. Willingness to Fail
Mindset is often that failure is not an option.
We build ministries on not being afraid to fail, but then we get bigger and stop risking. The mindset change comes when we realize failure is a a necessity to learning and growth.
Failure is a tremendous blessing in drawing us closer to God.
LifeChurch has their first video teachings and first two out-of-state locations fail. It was through those they learned the ingredients to what could make it work. The YouVersion Bible app started as a website which failed.
“The pathway to your greatest potential is straight through your greatest fear.”
Who better to preach on the forgiveness and grace than someone who knows it first-hand, someone like Peter?
3. Increasing Passion to share goodness of God
We don’t want to reach people for Christ, we have to.
How many times do our actions as a church tell people essentially, “You can go to Hell?”
The friends of the paralytic in Mark 2 innovated because of the compulsion to share the goodness of God with their paralyzed friend.
The roof would have been made of straw and manure. “Sometimes you have to dig through a little manure to get people to Jesus.”
You are going to have to break some rules to have exponential innovation. If you are not offending some Pharisees you are not doing anything.
These lead to exponential innovation.
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I’ve reviewed Craig’s book Altar Ego here on NoSuperHeroes.com
For more about the Catalyst Conference go to www.catalystconference.com
(Photo by Rob Potvin)