innovation

Yet it’s holding tight to its life-saving information—and its record-breaking profits.

I’m not writing a book on the Gospel According to the Fortune 500 any time soon. Do you know why? Because churches have a much more sustainable business model than businesses do.

This will be the fourth year of UNCO. We’ve gone from a small handful of people who really wanted to meet one another after interacting on Twitter to meeting on two coasts, conconting dreams and implementing creative projects. If you are interested in working toward the future of the church with action that moves beyond hand-wringing and an institutional nostalgia, then by all means, go to UNCO. You’ll find kindred souls there.

Who do you consider to be part of the "new generation"? What do you think draws you to advocate for this new generation? What do you think are some of the greatest challenges this generation faces?

We can't predict the future, but we can look at the interesting things that are happening now, and we can dream about where God might be calling us. When imagining what might be coming, there are a few approaches or attitudes that can orient us. 

Leaders in mainline denominational churches crave creativity, vision and success. We like to learn from other disciplines. But is Steve Jobs the best person to teach us?

Unco is short for Unconference. It’s specifically designed for discussions on the future of the church. It’s a percolator for new ministries and ideas, usually within mainline contexts. 

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you know that we talk a lot
about the future of the church--how we need to move into a time of
innovation as well as transformation. Dennis Sanders recently reflected on this post, and I asked him if I could put his comments here.

As we wander through this desert, where’s the milk and honey? What is God calling us to do, and who is God calling us to be?

It’s scary. Sometimes, we Scrappers have to swallow our pride in order to start working with the institution that turned us away. Often, Scrappers develop autonomy and a certain voice that we fear we'll lose if we move into partnership with an established organization. We worry that the structure will steal our ideas and they'll have the money and power to pull them off—without us.