Christian Innovation in Uncharted Territory
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“In times of change, learners inherit the earth; while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped for a world that no longer exists.” - Eric Hoffer
The whole word is having to reinvent itself right now, including churches and nonprofits. Who is going to survive what could be the next great depression, and how? And maybe more importantly, which organizations should survive this season?
Fuller Theological Seminary’s De Pree Center for Leadership put on a timely webinar on Christian Innovation in Uncharted Territory. Hosted by the De Pree Center’s Michaela O’Donnell Long, she spoke with Tod Bolsinger, the VP and Chief of Leadership Formation at Fuller as he shared insights from his years of leadership development and innovation experience.
While only an hour long, Bolsinger packed the webinar with a lot of helpful principles and warnings for Christians, whether pastors, non-profit leaders or business professionals, leading in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
The question posed was “how do we lean into the massive changes that have happened in the past few months in innovative ways? What should survive and what should we leave behind?”
Bolsinger, who is set to publish a book soon on how leaders are formed in the crucible of change, shared a number of insights from his 2015 book Canoeing the Mountains, Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory.
While the entire webinar is well worth the hour’s time, one big takeaway for every leader is to ask, “Who are the voices you are listening to?” Do you have voices from the future at the table with you, voices that have been where you’ve yet to go and can speak to terrain you haven’t experienced before?
He gives the example of Lewis and Clark, charged with finding a waterway west to the Pacific Ocean. Halfway through their journey, about to climb to the top of the Lemhi Pass, the pair thought they would surely find the great water route that would lead them to the sea. Instead, they found “immense ranges of high mountains still to the West.” Their guides, their voices from the future, had told them there would be mountains but they were in denial. It was only upon encountering the mountains instead of valleys that they had to drop their canoes and find horses.
The practical applications for this lesson from history are myriad. What questions should you be asking? Whose voices should you be listening to? Are there people, or organizations, on the margins of society that may have a word the Spirit wants you to hear before you move forward in a post-quarantine world? Do you need to humble yourself to become a learner, and maybe then, from the most unlikely of teachers? Who are the diverse, talented voices that need a seat at your table? And, how do you maintain trustworthiness when you are forging unfamiliar terrain?
In addition, there was much discussion about how to determine which services and programming should remain and which ones will be deemed unnecessary or unworthy of donning a mask and social distancing. For financial reasons, safety concerns and more, decisions will need to be made about what really matters. And all of these are questions every leader and team should wrestle with as communities begin to reopen.
You can click here for access to the full webinar: https://youtu.be/NHmujc4UBHw