“The Hub is where curiosity, entrepreneurship, and leadership together cultivate an environment for innovation”.
Innovation is a word gaining buzz in many circles. It’s used for things that are exciting, new, technologically advanced, or anything wanting to distance itself from the expected or norm in our post-pandemic blueprints, but does this really speak to what innovation is?
In Advanced Math my junior year of High School my class spent a great deal of time early in the semester learning and remembering a series of formulas, like the quadradic, slope, and FOIL formulas that I’m sure you’ve used daily since graduation. Always curious, I considered what other formulas were out there that they weren’t teaching us. Certainly, there are even shorter shortcuts allowing me to skip the arduous monotony of remembering cold, unfeeling formulas.
I found one. After spending excessive time with a calculator, pencil, and paper when I was supposed to be doing something more important, I discovered a formula. If you take a three-digit number where the sum of the digits is less than nine, and divide that number by nine, the answer will always be (move your decimal one spot to the left) the first digit, plus the second digit, plus the third digit repeating. For example, 1.32 divided by nine is .14 666. Try it. It works! I thought I had stumbled upon a hidden secret of the universe, until my teacher said that the formula was basically useless. His emotional precision was inversely proportional to him being correct.
My formula was no great innovation, but that experience set me on a trajectory to find hidden gems folded inside the things right in front of us. Using “innovation” to refer to the new or exciting is too easy. It’s not quite right. It seems, innovation is where creativity and utility meet. If you have creativity lacking utility, you’ve created art. Utility without creativity is efficiency. Art and efficiency are needed, welcome, and beautiful, but innovation is what happens when they collide.
What’s the difference between innovation and inspiration?
Innovation isn’t inspiration. Inspiration is the wind that moves where it will without announcement or apology. Inspiration can come out of nowhere and everywhere all at the same time. It can send us chasing rabbits or keep us still and at peace. Innovation, on the other hand, takes far more blood, sweat, and beers.
There is an equation for innovation. First you need curiosity. Curiosity fuels the desire to explore and ask questions, acting as the spark that ignites the desire to push the boundaries of the known and the possible. When coupled with entrepreneurship, curiosity transforms from thought into actionable ventures. Entrepreneurs, through drive and resilience, are adept at not just recognizing opportunities that arise from curious explorations, but also at harnessing these opportunities to develop solutions. But this isn’t enough. Leadership provides the strategic vision and direction needed to navigate the complex journey from conception to realization. Courageous leaders play a pivotal role in shaping the culture of innovation, fostering an environment where ideas are not only generated but also meticulously cultivated and brought to fruition.
Curiosity, entrepreneurship, and leadership creates a dynamic ecosystem where innovation can thrive.
The Church has been a movement of authorship. The crafting of creeds and doctrines, programs and initiatives has helped to shape and form our thoughts and deeds. This has served disciples well, but maybe there’s transformation needed. There is a new generation coming of age whose production of content far outweighs its desire to consume. The church is built for consumers. It needs them. Church decline isn’t generational apathy or theology that has run amok; rather the church isn’t built for producers. Instead of being the authority in the room, we should maintain the authority of the room. Instead of being the center of content, we should create an environment for producers to produce. The church should be lab, not lecture. In other words, instead of bringing Jesus to the manger, we should craft the manger for the Christ that is already being shared within a generation unimpressed with the size of our steeples.
If the church can hold the space to cultivate the curious to explore, entrepreneurs to investigate, and leaders to strategize. we just might change the world through the creative and practical talent we know as innovation.