3. Talk of innovation can easily become a derision to God.
When we over-talk about the power of innovation we are, wordsmithing aside, beginning to tread upon thin ice with God. We come very close to insulting God when we overly trust in our creativity. God is interested in receiving glory and credit for what is accomplished in his church as momentum occurs. His nature is to draw attention to himself. That is worship.
Over-dependence upon pseudo-creativity versus the God-inspired seminal factor looks like this:
When the focus begins to shift onto the style versus the content with our message, we have likely crossed the line of appropriateness.
If we are doing a series built loosely around the TV series Heroes (as thousands of churches have done in the past eighteen months) we need to ask:
“What is the ‘eye roll factor’ present here?” That is, how many are going to groan when they see the elements of the TV show we are inserting each week in this series?
At the end of the day ask, “How many had to choke down the corniness of what we tried to convey, even though we convinced ourselves that this was a culture current metaphor when the most culture-current people present were so embarrassed they stopped bringing their friends during this series?” (This is a real example I am aware of what happened in several churches across the U.S. with series based upon that show)
