daveferguson.org

Google's Innovative Edge

While thinking about innovation I ran across an article by Marissa Mayer, Google's Vice-President of Search Products and User Experiences who shares some rules that give one of the most innovative companies anywhere it's edge in a Fast Company post, 9 Principles of Innovation. 

1. INNOVATION, NOT INSTANT PERFECTION.
2. IDEAS COME FROM EVERYWHERE.
3. A LICENSE TO PURSUE YOUR DREAMS.
4. MORPH PROJECTS DON'T KILL THEM.
5. SHARE AS MUCH INFORMATION AS YOU CAN.
6. USERS, USERS, USERS.
7. DATA IS APOLITICAL.
8. CREATIVITY LOVES CONSTRAINTS.
9. YOU'RE BRILLIANT? WE'RE HIRING.

Why Existing Churches Need New Churches

I have been thinking again about innovation.  Ed Bahler was challenging me with the idea from the Innovators Dilemma (which I have just ordered).  The basic concept is that even the most innovative and best-managed companies (or churches), in spite of their attention to customers and continual investment in new technology, are susceptible to failure because these companies (or churches) tend to continue to do business the way they always have done business.

It seems to me that the only way to break out of that innovators dilemma is to continually surround yourself with innovators and people who are inventing the new tomorrow.  And the best way to do that in the church world is to become a reproducing church.  Start new sites with young emerging leaders and listen to their new ideas.  Start new churches and get close enough to them that you can learn from them and break out of your old paradigms.  Begin a church planting network and find yourself immersed in a conversation of new and innovative thinking about reaching people far from God.  I think we need to be reproducing churches not only so that we can start new sites, churches and networks to help people find their way back to God; we also need to be reproducing churches so that our existing churches remain relevant to an ever-changing world!  Agree?  Disagree?

Outreach Magazine Interview about Innovation (part 3)

Over the last few days I have been posting the Q and A I did with Outreach Magazine as a part of their just released Americas Most Innovative Churches issue.  I would encourage you to not only get this issue but figure out a way to have your staff do research on each of the top 25 most innovative churches and then discuss innovations that would be applicable to your context.  This is the third and final post.  If you want to go back and read the entire interview, here is part 1 and here is part 2.  Enjoy.  In this interview I focused on three particular innovations at Community and directed all my comments toward those three applications.  OK, now back to the interview on the topic of innovation.

 OUTREACH: Do you know of other churches that are following your lead in these areas? How are you intentionally resourcing or teaching other churches in these areas?

• Multi-Site to Poly-Site: We have trained thousands of church leaders in how to become a multi-site church through a variety of conferences, practicum’s, training events and mediums. Most of these churches are reproducing sites exactly like the original site and because you want to build upon successes we encourage churches in this direction for their first off-site. However, there are a growing number of churches that are realizing that we need all kinds of sites to reach all kinds of people – those churches are making the transition to poly-site. Our doors at Community are always open and we allow leaders from other churches to   come and hang watch us. In addition we offer a Multi-site Practicum 3-4 times a year where we work with leadership teams that are preparing to go multi-site. Our commitment is that they will leave with a step-by-step plan for how to go multi-site that fits their context. We also offer a Hitchhikers Guide to Multi-Site where church leadership teams and spend the weekend with us and get a vision of what a reproducing multi-site church looks like.
• Network to Networks: I don’t know of any churches in the western hemisphere that are leading networks where they have made this transition. There may be others, I just don’t know about them…but I would like to know about them!!
• Partnership with under-resourced public schools: Just recently we have begun coaching      another church that is exploring this model of outreach through partnering with public schools.  We have offered workshops at local conferences to share the model with other churches.  We are planning to become more intentional about this, as we receive requests from around the country from churches intrigued by this model.

OUTREACH: In your opinion, what were some of the keys to making these innovations work?

• Multi-Site to Poly-Site: At Community we not only have a leadership culture, but I believe an entrepreneurial leadership culture. And these entrepreneurial leaders have embraced the following values that foster innovation:
  • Rather fail than not risk something new.
  • Bias for the new over the established.
  • Love the lost more than the found.
  • Prefer the edge over the center.
• Network to Networks:  We are ready to trade our lives for the dream of “being a catalyst for a movement of reproducing churches”.  When we talk about this we ask, “What would it take to impact one billion people?” I believe that kind of commitment to a dream forces you to take risks and re-think how you are doing church. This kind of commitment and re-thinking has led us to reproducing networks.
• Partnership with under-resourced public schools:  A commitment from the senior leadership down to be a church that is intentional about reaching out to people different from themselves is where this starts.   This vision must be cast and recast and recast and recast.  Then it will require weekly messages that continually challenge people to move out of their comfortable life-styles toward a lifestyle of generosity.  However, the pivotal moment came when we had hired a full-time staff person to lead this outreach ministry. And when that person was so passionate that she and her family sold their home in affluen t Naperville and moved to an under-resourced neighborhood in Aurora this innovation really got some momentum.

OUTREACH: Does your church host an annual conference for other churches? If so, what are you communicating that you believe these churches aren't hearing anywhere else?

• Multi-Site to Poly-Site:  We offer a Multi-site Practicum 3-4 times a year where we work with      leadership teams that are preparing to go multi-site. Our commitment is that they will leave with a step-by-step plan for how to go multi-site that fits their context. We also offer a Hitchhikers Guide to Multi-Site where church leadership teams and spend the weekend with us and get a vision of what a reproducing multi-site church looks like. In addition to that, we regularly participate in conferences on the multi-site church. For more information check our NewThing website.  
• Network to Networks: We offer a Reproducing Church Experience several times a year that gives leaders and church planters an understanding of the culture of a reproducing church. This is foundational to understanding how to reproduce artists, leaders, campuses, churches and networks. For more info check our NewThing  website.  I am also serving as the President of the Exponential Conference which is the premier event for church planters and leaders of reproducing churches.    
• Partnership with under-resourced public schools: Hmmm ... not yet!

Outreach Magazine Interview about Innovation (part 2)

In the upcoming issue of Outreach Magazine they interviewed a number of people to discuss innovation in the church.  Since I spent some time answering all these questions and only some of them are in the article, I thought I would go ahead and post my response to their questions in full here.  This is the second part of  the interview.

OUTREACH: Tell me about the impact you've seen/experienced--metrics (if you have them), inspiring anecdotes, personal experience.

DF: In some cases we have seen significant impact and in other cases we are just beginning to see what I believe will be a huge impact from these innovations.  I’ll comment on each:

• Multi-Site to Poly-site:  In addition to the “regular” sites that we have, Community has also reproduced a site that is meeting in a 55+ gated golf community. This site is one of our most healthy locations: we are seeing people become Christ Followers at the age of 75-85. This location is on a good growth curve, and has 20% more people in small groups than at their weekend services! We also have a growing and dynamic site that is in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago; a community that is made up of first generation Spanish-speaking Mexican immigrants. In the coming year we are looking forward to starting another Spanish-speaking site and beginning to experiment with 3C Communities. 3C Communities will be sites of our church that do not meet at a church facility. They will meet in “third places”; offices; health clubs and other locations where our leaders can assemble them. We are estimating that at least 35% of the current population will never under any circumstances enter into a church people. These 3C Communities will go to them. 
• Network to Networks: Two years ago we had four churches in this young church planting network. Last year we had eight churches in the NewThing Network. This year we have doubled again and now have sixteen churches and are going international. As the network continued to expand it was becoming increasingly obvious that a movement will not be made up of a single network. So, this last year we reproduced two more networks and now NewThing has three networks led by apostolic leaders. What is inspiring is seeing the ownership of this network shift from one church and a few leaders to many churches and many high-capacity leaders. All of our new churches have plans to go to multiple sites (many this year) and all are involved in reproducing other new churches
• Partnership with under-resourced public schools: We have become a church that knows you    can’t call yourself a church unless you care about the poor.  We still have a lot of growth to do in this area, but regularly we challenge our congregation to give of their time and resources to be involved in the lives of people different than themselves.  Our relatively resourced and primarily Caucasian church has partnered with the public school system in a neighboring community that is almost 90% Hispanic and where nearly 70% of children are considered low-income. Through the schools, we have built relationships with teachers, administrators, students, and parents.  From the beginning our focus has been on relationship building and “community development” rather than simply providing hand-outs and donations.  We provide such things as tutoring, ESL classes, and community events such as a Christmas Gift Mart, parent mentoring programs, teacher support, and internship opportunities for students.  We have taken the approach of SHOWING the love of Jesus before PREACHING the love of Jesus.  As wedevelop relationships in the community with other churches, non-profit organizations, the city government, and the schools, we are building a base of support for a church or site we will plant in the community.  Before the church opens its doors, it will be seen as a church that is highly invested in the community. We challenge people to start by helping at a big event and then moving to more regular, consistent service, and even to the point of relocating their families to    under-resourced communities . . . to do as Jesus did and live incarnationally among the poor.  We’ve seen parents empowered to get involved in their children’s school, students make academic progress they wouldn’t have made without extra support, people who have seen faith in God as a rigid set of rules start to question what it means to have a personal relationship with Christ.

OUTREACH: What were the challenges and risks involved in innovating in one of these areas? How did you overcome them?

DF: The risks and challenges almost always involve: fear, finances and finding the right leadership.   Here are the details as they apply to specific innovations:

• Multi-Site to Poly-site: It is definitely a harder work and there is a greater rate of fatality when you start sites that are not the same as the “successful” site you are already operating. We      even had one site that failed. But we have always believed that if we don’t have some sites that fail that merely means that we are not trying enough new things. So you overcome the fear of failure by assuming that part of the price of innovation is failure. And as followers of Jesus we are not called to success, we are called to risk and as a leader that sounds like innovation to me!
• Network to Networks: The greatest challenge in moving from a single network to reproducing networks is relinquishing control and putting your trust in other leaders. We knew that control is really only an illusion and that our dream would never come true if we held onto the illusion of control. And then God sent us some great leaders in Dave Dummit (242 Community Church) and Greg Lee (SunCrest Christian Church) an we asked them to step up and lead one of our networks. We are just beginning to see the benefit of this; but it is clearly the right strategic move if we ever hope to see a movement of reproducing churches. 
• Partnership with under-resourced public schools: The biggest challenge we faced was      people’s fear: fear of working with people that speak a different language; fear of physical safety; fear of committing time and money to such a needy area; fear of moving out of      comfort zones.  We have had to provide people with lots of different opportunities to get involved at all different levels.  We make it very easy for people just starting out on this journey of working with the poor and culturally different to just show up and experience an activity      in a large group.  Making that first step is the hardest and then we have lay leaders whose primary role is to coach and guide people as they want to move deeper and deeper into a serving life-style.

(more to come...)

Outreach Magazine Interview about Innovation (part 1)

I did an interview with Outreach Magazine for their January/February issue on America's Most Innovative Churches. I got an advance copy of the magazine and there is some great stuff in this issue.  I also got to be on the panel that helped nominate churches for America's Most Innovative Churches list.  That was fun, and much more challenging than I thought.  I really tried to find innovations that were occurring in churches that no one had ever heard of and nominate them.  But if there is cool stuff happening out there, chances are someone has heard about it already. Anyway, that is another post for another day.  Some of the interview they used in their cover story and some of it they edited out.  So, over the next couple days I will post some of the Q & A from that interview.

OUTREACH: If you think of innovation as something new--something that hasn't been done before--what would you say are three of the most innovative initiatives/strategies your church is doing currently in the context of outreach or you're doing through your church?

DF:  There are a number of innovations in the works at Community, but three that seem to be gaining traction are the following:

• Multi-Site to Poly-Site: Our vision at Community is no longer just to be multi-site, but is to be poly-site and to reach out to more people and more different kinds of people. A Poly-site church reproduces not just sites, but many kinds of sites to reach many kinds of people.
• Network to Networks Community’s NewThing Network is now NewThing Networks.  NewThing is not only reproducing new churches but has made a shift to reproducing networks. It is the reproducing of networks that will allow us to be a catalyst for a movement of new churches.
• Partnership with under-resourced public schools. Community’s partnership with under-resourced public schools is helping transform a neighborhood, our church and provide outreach opportunities beyond our imagination!

OUTREACH: What prompted you to try these initiatives/strategies?  What was your motivation?

DF:  I don't mean to sound hyper-spiritual, but we really believe that these things are promptings by God's Spirit...God-things!  And our motivation is always to "help people find their way back to God" and to accomplish the mission of Jesus.  Here is some more on each of these innovations:

• Multi-Site to Poly-Site:  Most of the current thinking and application amongst multi-site churches is to reproduce new sites exactly like all the rest. At Community we currently have eight locations in Chicago  and our dream is to have two hundred sites. The dream forced us to ask ourselves, “how can we reach the growing senior population; how can we reach the growing ethnic populations; and how can we reach the emerging generation who may never come to a church facility?" Those questions and subsequent opportunities brought these initiatives. And our motivation is always: “helping people find their way back to God”.
• Network to Networks Our motivation comes from NewThing’s dream: “to be a catalyst for a movement of reproducing churches.”  This dream requires that we move from a single network of reproducing churches to reproducing networks of reproducing churches!
• Partnership with under-resourced public schools. After over a decade of strategically focusing our outreach on people like us, we knew it was time to expand our focus beyond people like us and into places that were culturally and economically different from our own community.  We knew we needed to help our congregation live out the 3,000 versus in the Bible that talk about poverty and injustice and our responsibility as Christ-followers to do something about that.  Our motivation was a commitment to live out the whole gospel and serve and reach people in a wholistic way---by meeting physical, relational, economic and spiritual needs.

(more to come...)

Innovative Networks: The Source of New Ideas

I have always said that the best stuff on this blog is found in the comments. (Actually, I haven't always said that - but I did say it once and now I'm saying it again!) I have been thinking about innovation lately and it has shown up on the last two posts.  Kathy left an important comment  about innovation when she said: "It may be equally important to look within your own church body...at the edges...to see what innovation God is driving close to home."  I agree.  There are innovative edges within (most) local churches and there are the innovative edges within the body of Christ as a whole.  Then I  got an e-mail from Paul who pointed me toward an article from Knowledge@Wharton titled Innovation Networks:  Looking for Ideas Outside the Company  The article pulls it all together and says, "Innovation networks are people, institutions and companies that are outside the firm -- they can also be inside the firm... They are intellectual assets that companies can link up with to solve problems and find ideas, while beginning to think about those assets as an extended part of their organization. From a competitive-advantage standpoint, yes, I think it's going to be a really big deal...the companies that identify those assets outside and begin to build relationships with them have a real shot at building a competitive advantage and preferential relationships." If you want to read the whole article, click HERE.

When I talk about innovation, I'm talking about new things that the Spirit of God is doing to better accomplish His mission on this planet.  And innovative networks are an effort to intentionally build community within the body of Christ for sharing what God is doing and challenging each other to take Spirit-led risks. So, where do you find those kind of innovative networks to help you discern the new things that God is doing?

Innovative Ideas & iPods

Do you know where Apple got the innovative idea for the iPod?

Yesterday I today I posted about how innovation comes from the edges and for churches one of the best connection with the edge is to be connected with church planters and new churches.  This morning I ran across a brief, but great article in Fast Company on innovation lessons from Apple. 
The article gives five lessons that Apple learned about innovation.  It begins like this:  "Ten years or so ago Apple Computer was almost bankrupt. Fast forward and Apple is now regularly cited as the most innovative company in the world. So what can we learn from the comeback kid?" Then the article lays out the lessons and tells us, "Ideas can come from anywhere, including outside the company. For example, the iPod was originally dreamt up by a consultant and most of its parts were off the shelf."  Just another example of how innovation most often comes from the edges.  All five lessons are solid and applicable to church leaders; click HERE and learn. 

Innovation Comes from the Edges

Where does innovation most often occur?  Innovation most often happens on the edges and because of that we need to stay close to those on the cutting edge.

Our NewThing Networks has gone from one network to three networks and doubled the number of churches  in the last year.  And because of our investment in resources and staff we get lots of kudos for thinking beyond Chicago.  At Community we get lots of credit for being "Kingdom minded" because of our commitment to church planting.  While everyone likes to hear a compliment, I think we need to be in relationship with new churches.  Even though Community is probably five times bigger than any of the new churches in NewThing I'm convinced that we need to be connected to these new church plants.  I also believe that I need to have relationships with other leaders who are doing new ministry on the edges. 

Why?  You see, there is a reciprocity that comes with being involved in church planting.  There is a huge benefit that comes back to me by being connected to church planters.  Church planters are the entrepreneurs in God's Kingdom and they are the one's who if they don't make it, they don't eat.  Leaders who are involved in the task of planting new churches are risking the most for the mission of Jesus.  And because they are involved in starting something new and risking it all in a win or lose proposition it is the most likely place for innovation to occur.  I'm convinced that most innovation happens on the edges and if we want Community to continue to be innovative we need to stay close to church planting.

When I was in Kansas City a month ago visiting Troy McMahon who is launching Restore Christian Church I came back with and great idea about "repay cards" which we are already using.  We are going to start our ninth location in Plainfield on March 2nd and we expect that it will be our largest launch to date.  Know where our CCC-Plainfield team was two weeks ago looking for new ideas?  They were visiting 242 Community; one of our new church plants in our NewThing Network.  Our team came back with a couple pages of ideas and two or three things that they are going to implement immediately.  At the beginning of the month we brought all our NewThing Network churches together in Boston and in the middle of having a great time I also left with a page full of ideas that came from these new churches.

Innovation most often happens on the edges.  What are you doing to stay close to the edge?

Reflections on Onnuri Community Church in Seoul

This is a picture of Seoul that I took from where I sat every morning while having breakfast. Right now I'm sitting in the Incheon International Airport waiting for my flight back to Chicago.  It has been a great trip. I hope I was a positive influence on the thousands of church leaders that gathered here from all over the world.  But I know that being at Onnuri Community Church has been a tremendously positive influence on me. Here are a couple things that I will take away from this trip about this amazing church:

1. They work hard and they pray hard.  After my first trip I kind of dismissed the daily early prayer meetings as a reason for their huge impact.  Why?  Because they work so hard that I came away thinking that the real reason for their remarkable growth is that every staff person literally works over 12 hours a day and never takes a full-day off. And while the work ethic is remarkable (and unhealthy), this time I couldn't help but take note that they started this year with 40 days of prayer.  And prayer is integral to everything they do.  And of course there are the daily early prayer meetings that thousands of people attend.  So, I'm taking back that we need to keep working hard (but still take time off!) and we need to start praying even harder.
2. The vision is big and broad.  It is astounding the breadth of arenas this church is involved:  church planting, community betterment, publishing, broadcasting, crusades, artist development, outreach to influential leaders and personalities, ministry to all ages and multiple languages.  Just when you think you have a lot going on, you run into somebody who has ten times as much going on.  When Pastor Ha was asked about how does he lead and provide vision to so many different causes and organizations he said, "When I'm with the publishing group I turn off all the other switches and turn on only the publishing group switch...which ever ministry I working with, I think only about that one."  Interesting.  I'm not sure how this will play out at CCC / NewThing, but it is inspiring.

Cultural Trends That Will Impact the Church

One of the more interesting conversations I had while at the National Outreach Convention came during the Leaders 100 Dinner hosted by Outreach on Wednesday night.  I was talking with Dave Browning of Christ The King, Lynne Marian of Outreach Magazine and Chris Brown from North Coast Church. The topic of conversation was about cultural trends that will impact the church in the next five years. Here are the two trends that seemed to rise to the top:

The Age Wave.  We are just about at the point where there are more people who are over the age of 65 than there are children under the age of 12.  With the aging of the baby boomers this will bring an unprecedented number of seniors who have discretionary time and resources.  It seems as though there will be a shift from primarily reaching out to young families with children to reaching out to the growing senior population.  Our Carillon Campus is a glimpse of what more and more churches will be doing in the next few years.

The Bono Effect.  I would rather call it the Jesus effect, but it was Bono's name that was used when referring to a renewed interest in social justice and meeting the physical needs of people.  This perfectly paves the way for us to force churches out of the dichotomy between evangelism and social justice and focus on accomplishing the Jesus mission of reaching whole people with the whole gospel.  Those churches that only focus on "saving souls" will become obsolete.  Those churches that reach out to whole people will see whole communities find their way back to God! Our Community 4:12 ministry is an example of what more churches will be doing in the future.