“The future of the church is not going to be built on implementing Best Practices, but on our willingness to attempt Better Experiments” – Will Mancini
I love this quote and it has stuck with me for over the past 2 years. As a matter of fact, I even added “Better Experiments” to a list of CORE VALUES we have in our church organization. It’s not printed on the wall or stuck on the back of any bulletin – it’s just a core value that guides the WHY WE DO decisions of our organization. I encourage our staff to step out into new directions and take risks as we move ministry forward.
However, this blog post is about the early lessons of adopting this value as an organization. I’ve spoken many times to our church about the freedom of being able to say “We don’t know” and walking into the unknown future with God leading the way – but it takes a certain mindset to be okay with tripping, falling, or even being launched into something bigger than you could possibly imagine with nothing but faith that God knows what He’s doing. For most folks, the loss of control (good or bad) is the loss of stability in an organization. If we live by fear and make decisions that limit our risk in life – then we are not really living.
So, I’ve been praying about the future and about churches in general. I am doing some study on John 4 right now and it has taken me back to when Jesus quotes Isaiah and says “these people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of RULES TAUGHT BY MEN!” (caps added by me)