Scripture Rooted Innovation
Devotional Reflections on the Innovation & Discernment Process
In our approach to innovation in missions there are three main phases:
Seeking understanding around the complex problem through prayer, interviews, Scripture study, research, and experiential learning
Prayerful reflection on emerging insights and any initial sense of where God might be leading
Discerning new ways forward by designing creative prototype initiatives that lead to further innovative insights and breakthroughs
In addition, there are three key postures that help a group to pursue innovative ways forward in a process of prayerful discernment. An open mind and open heart help us to listen well as we seek understanding. An open will helps us prayerfully reflect with open hands. All three keep us in a humble listening posture as we discern new ways forward.
In each of the following passages of Scripture we see an illustration of a phase of the innovation process or the key postures. For each entry, please read the verses first, noting anything that stands out and considering how it might show the associated phase or posture. Then reflect on the devotional insights and the prayerful invitations with your own challenges in mind as a way of posturing your mind, heart, and will openly before God.
The Innovation & Discernment Process
Jesus asks his disciples, “Do you still not perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes and fail to see? Do you have ears and fail to hear? And do you not remember?” The disciples had seen Jesus feed the crowds of 5,000 and the 4,000, yet in the boat with one loaf of bread they still viewed their situation through a limiting set of assumptions that missed who Jesus is and how he provides.
With any complex challenge, the first step toward discerning innovative ways forward is to seek understanding. Like the disciples, we often only see partially, and our own assumptions and expectations can prevent us from understanding what Jesus wants to do. A shift in our perception may completely change how we understand the challenge or the range of potential ways forward.
As you seek understanding around your challenge, pray for God to give you wisdom, understanding, and fresh insights.
After seeking understanding, we need to bring all of our understanding before Jesus and worship him. We will have better perspective to reflect on the challenge and what he might want to do next if we pause and focus on seeing who he is—God’s beloved Son. It is a reminder that the challenge, our callings, and in fact all of who we are, is in God's hands—not ours. Fruitful ways forward will emerge from God’s presence among us.
Like Peter, we are tempted to build or do things for Jesus for which he is not asking. Seeing Jesus, we may be stirred to take action. Or seeing needs, we may desire to run straight from our understanding of a challenge to designing ways forward. The Father responds, saying, “This is my beloved Son; listen to him!”
Pray for God to continuously and gently remind you to value faithful worship, waiting, and listening in Jesus’ presence over quick action and achievement.
Peter’s journey is far more complex than following a simple set of instructions from God. Each step of the way as God speaks and leads there is also interpretive space for Peter, Cornelius, and others to make sense of what God is doing. Peter’s message in Cornelius’ house reveals careful discernment that brings together what he has heard in a vision, his current context, and his re-interpretation of Scripture. God confirms the message through the pouring out of the Spirit; Peter interprets this confirmation with baptism. It is an interplay of God leading and humans making sense of it and taking the faithful next steps. That is also how prototyping works: we learn and discern in small iterative cycles of faithful steps as we continue to seek God’s direction.
The Jerusalem Council is a pivotal moment of discerning the movement of the Spirit in the world. It demonstrates patterns of listening to voices in the context, gathering feedback on how God was blessing new ministry initiatives (among Gentiles), and reflecting on Scripture and tradition. In response they decided together, with the consent of the whole church, how to take faithful steps to make Gentile inclusion widespread.
Pray for sensitivity to discern how God is already moving and speaking and for wisdom to understand and take faithful next steps as you participate with God and follow His lead.
Three Key Postures: Hearing God and One Another
An open mind is about the ways we see and listen. The disciples were not able to see their present lack of food in light of Jesus’ demonstrated ability to provide for the masses. Their years of experience as people who eat food made it difficult to have an open mind to reconsider everything they thought they knew about provision. In a similar way, our own experience and understanding can limit our own openness to see, hear, and engage with new perspectives.
We want to move past the natural tendency of finding evidence that mainly confirms our biases, expectations, and assumptions about the challenge or ways forward. This is about moving toward generative and prayerful dialogue with openness and faith to see things afresh.
Ask God to give you an open mind filled with faith to see how God is already present and consider many possibilities for ways forward.
The first and second greatest commandments demonstrate an open-hearted posture toward God and people.
First, the command to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength points toward an all-encompassing love. When we love in this way, we not only honor and worship God, but we desire to be shaped by God’s thoughts, feelings, and perspective. Therefore, we seek God’s perspective on challenges through prayer and reflection on Scripture. We first seek to understand God’s perspective, so that we can prayerfully discern ways forward that create space for God to express his character and blessing in the world.
The second commandment, to love your neighbor as yourself, is about considering others’ perspectives and experiences of the challenge. As we seek understanding, we empathize with others’ needs and hopes so that we can better discern how God might be leading us to respond so they experience his blessing.
In prayer, express your love for God and desire to understand God’s heart and perspective. Ask for grace to empathize well with the experiences of our neighbors who are impacted by the challenge.
In the Garden Jesus lays down his will before the Father, choosing to follow God’s leading to bless the world, though it would lead to his own death. For us, an open will is submission to discern God’s will and obediently follow Jesus wherever he leads. It enables us to let go of control and to be open to unforeseen possibilities that could lead toward sustainable innovation.
An open will is reflected in honestly coming before God, asking him to lead us toward new expressions of His blessing in the world. Paradoxically, as we participate in God’s mission with surrendered wills and open hands, he also invites our own creativity and imagination to bear on challenges.
With open hands, express to God your desire to choose and follow his will and vision for blessing.