Monday, February 19, 2007

What is Kingdom Impact?

In the subtitle of our book we talk about "Insights into Practical Innovations Creating Kingdom Impact," so the question is very relevant. What is it?

The parables of Jesus come to mind as we consider this question. Both the parable of the sower and the parable of the talents talk about resources that were at a person's disposal. Some of the resources were used wisely and had great benefit and others were not used wisely and were waisted.

Kingdom Impact is really about the marrying of resources with God-sized results. This means that Kingdom Impact is not something that people can do - it is something that God must do. But God chose to work through us in this world so we have an opportunity to share in that impact.

The question that I consider quite often in the ministry world is this, "How much of our ministry efforts are creating Earthly Impact vs. Kingdom Impact. Every time we roll out an initiative, plant a church, use a new technology, we should be asking this question. Is it being done in our power at our suggestion or is God breathing life into this effort?

Innovation within a Kingdom context is a tricky thing because innovation is all about proactive creativity. It is very easy in that environment to do things that we want to do instead of listening to God and doing things that He wants done.

As innovators we must seek to be intentional about our time with God so that we can discern which of the "cool" ideas we are processing really have "Kingdom Potential."

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