Are Pastors Innovating or Imitating? Why the Church Must Try New Things Soon.

Are pastors and churches imitating or innovating today?

It’s a critical question, especially given that most churches aren’t growing and the ones that are experiencing a lot of transfer growth.

It’s estimated that only 3-5% of US churches are growing primarily through conversion growth. That’s not nearly enough.

It’s estimated that only 3-5% of US churches are growing primarily through conversion growth. That’s not nearly enough.  Share on X

So what’s going on?

Let’s start with an analogous story: I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there are traffic jams on Mount Everest these days.

A half-century ago, Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first to do what was thought impossible—reach the summit of the tallest mountain in the world.

Fast-forward to today, and there are massive backlogs of climbers on Everest. Literally, hundreds of hikers are waiting in line for their chance to scale the summit, snap a picture, then descend.

Sure, it’s awesome to say you climbed Mt. Everest, but it’s not the epic solo pursuit you may have imagined.

But years after the innovation happens, then what?

The backlog at Everest underscores a principle every leader needs to understand: imitation follows innovation.

Imitation follows innovation.  Share on X

What was once unheard of now results in bottlenecks.

This brings us back to the deeper question for church leaders: are you innovating or imitating?

Most Churches Aren’t Innovating, Even If They Think They Are

For years now, I’ve looked for true innovation in the church. Increasingly, it seems rare.

We’re just doing slight variations of formulas that worked a decade or more ago.

In preparation for this post, I did a very unscientific social media survey asking church leaders how they were innovating or where they saw others breaking ground.

The responses revealed imitation that was posing as innovation more than any true innovation itself:

• Congregational singing
• Street preaching
• Community groups
• Holograms
• Virtual reality (okay… maybe)

To give leaders the benefit of the doubt, I’m sure their new initiatives were new to them, but was it truly innovation? I don’t think so. They are either long-standing practices in church or variations on existing strategies.

Even in 2020, as churches quickly shifted to online worship, that wasn’t innovation as much as adaptation fueled by sheer necessity.

Having pivoted back to in-person services, many churches continue to throttle back their digital presence in an attempt to fuel declining in-person attendance.

That’s understandable, but if everyone you want to reach is online, why not innovate new ways to reach more people?

The reality for the church right now is that most churches aren’t innovating, even if they think they are.

The reality for the church right now is that most churches aren’t innovating, even if they think they are. Share on X

There’s nothing wrong with imitating great practices. But if that’s all you’re doing, is that all that faithfulness, opportunity, and vision require? 

What you’ll find below are three possible reasons innovation has stalled in the church and ten questions that can help you innovate (again).

3 Reasons Church Innovation is Stuck

1. We’re Not Innovating Because We’re Trying to be Faithful

Often, I’ll hear church leaders say that they’re not innovating because they want to be faithful. There’s nothing new to be explored, they say, just get back to basics.

The truth is that the church has always innovated.

Even those churches that admirably try to imitate the New Testament church in many ways look nothing like the New Testament church.

The first-century church didn’t meet in buildings, didn’t feature 40-minute sermons and three worship songs, and didn’t only meet on Sundays. Further, they had no professional clergy or staff. And there were no denominations or associations churches could join. Nor did the first-century church have websites, billboards, social media accounts, or, for that matter, running water or electricity. First-century Christians didn’t get charitable deductions on their income taxes for their tithes either.

Oh, and did I mention that the first-century church didn’t even have Bibles? There’s also that.

So, the argument that “we just want to be faithful to our history rather than innovate” is not convincing.

The church has always innovated, including the writing of new scriptures in the first century that would ultimately be canonized as the Bible we know today, which by the way wasn’t translated into the vernacular for another 1500 years after the New Testament was written. That, too, was an innovation.

No, all of these innovations over the years are part of the reason you still have a church. Without it (and the work of the Holy Spirit), the Christian church wouldn’t be the global movement it is today.

It’s easy to justify a lack of innovation by claiming to be faithful.

But irrelevance isn’t faithfulness. Innovation keeps you faithful. You preserve the mission by changing the methods.

It’s easy to justify a lack of innovation by claiming to be faithful. But irrelevance isn’t faithfulness. Innovation keeps you faithful. You preserve the mission by changing the methods.  Share on X

2. We’re Not Innovating Because We’re Afraid of the Criticism We’ll Get

“You can tell the pioneers. They’re the ones with the arrows in their back,” or so the saying goes. 

Innovation almost always brings criticism. Almost every invention you take for granted today was ridiculed or dismissed when it was first introduced.

For example, movies had no sound for the first few decades— the Silent Era prevailed. Then, in the 1920s, ‘talkies’ introduced dialogue to film. You would think this would be universally applauded, it wasn’t.

United Artists president Joseph Schenck said in 1928 that “talking doesn’t belong in pictures”. Hollywood actress Mary Astor wrote in the 1960s that many artists of the era considered The Jazz Singer (the first talking picture)  a box-office gimmick, believing sound movies would “drive audiences from the theaters”.

Famously, Blockbuster resisted streaming, thought Netflix was wrong about going all in on digital, and even laughed about the threat.

Innovators are always criticized, largely by people doing nothing and going nowhere.

Innovators are always criticized, largely by people doing nothing and going nowhere.  Share on X

If you really start experimenting, you’ll get a few things wrong. Perhaps a lot of things wrong. And you’ll get a few things right. Or, perhaps, just one absolutely critical thing right.

Innovators will be misunderstood, criticized and even ridiculed. Until they aren’t. Then, one day, innovators will find others imitating them.

3. Social Media Has Made It Too Easy to Imitate

There was a time when copying another church was difficult. You had to know someone… or buy a cassette tape to listen to new ideas… or read a book about new ideas… or jump in your car or get on a plane and attend a conference to be exposed to innovative thinking.

In other words, it was time-consuming and cost money.

In some ways, that kind of scarcity made those insights seem more valuable, and you were more likely to try something new because you were invested.

Whatever you tried was likely to be more novel because, well, pre-internet, information was scarce, and chances are no one around you was doing what you were trying.

These days, you’re swimming in new ideas and comparisons. So is everyone.

This helps explain the incredible uniformity we see in most churches now. They have the same 10 songs, the same stage/lights/graphics, the same programming, and the same model.

All of that is good, except for the fact that the vast majority of churches aren’t growing and those that are are mostly growing through transfer growth.

What that says is that the eco-sytem we’ve created isn’t truly reaching new people.

And, as Craig Groeschel often says, to reach people no one is reaching you need to do things that no one is doing.

Embracing that spirit, Life.Church has also ushered in some true innovations. It was an early pioneer of video-teaching. Pioneered church online, a mobile bible app (YouVersion) has has broken ground in VR, AR and metaverse church (as far back as SecondLife, when that was a thing).

So the question becomes, what are you willing to do—short of sin—to reach people no one is reaching?

10 Questions to Help You Spark Church Innovation

In an era in which the church is experiencing a lot of traffic jams on Everest, here are some questions to get you thinking more innovatively.

The best way to innovate is to experiment. That can mean trying something on the side. Doing something for a limited time. Or even setting a trial period with evaluation to follow.

Whatever you choose to do to break the mold, here are 10 questions that can help you leave the imitation game so you can start innovating.

1. What do we keep doing that is getting us diminishing returns?
2. What have we blindly copied without even praying about it?
3. What assumptions do we hold that need to be challenged? 
4. What kind of gap is there between the culture and expectations of the community we serve and the status quo we’ve created in our church?
5. What great idea do I secretly have that I worry could get me fired if we tried it? 
6. If we were starting over again today, what would we do differently?
7. If the next generation was redesigning our church, what would they do (hint: this might be a good thing to give them input on this, if not control over it). 
8. Are we looking for guaranteed results? If so, why? 
9. If we weren’t worried about criticism, what would we do? 
10. What might God be calling us to try that we don’t have the faith for? 

Start asking questions like this, and innovation becomes inevitable.

Innovation isn’t just an option; it’s essential for the future of the church. You can’t lead effectively if all you’re doing is copying.

Start experimenting. Try something bold. And remember, true faithfulness requires the courage to try new things. By experimenting with the methods, you preserve the mission.