My Innovation Ended Up Where?

So you come up with an idea, find your gang of co-conspiritors and launch it. Soon it is a huge success and you are off and running. But that isn't the end of the story. What you birthed could end up leading to many things that you would never expect or dare to imagine. Are you ready for that?

A great example is a wonderfully documented article by Christianity Today about the diffusion of innovation that happened as a result of launching Kiva.org. For those of you who haven't experienced Kiva, it is a site that brings microenterprise down to the individual level allowing people to make loans to individuals around the world through qualified partners. In short, it crowdsources relief and development work and allows individual people to be a part of the global solution in a personal and transformational way.

Well, the article shows how a variety of international development ministries have now started similar projects or joined Kiva's network in order to harness the innovation that Kiva identified. 20 years ago the idea of individuals doing something as complex as lending money to a shoe maker in Guatemala would have been unthinkable. But the founders of Kiva saw how the Internet was democratizing everything and acted on that major change in the area of microfinance.

Their innovation has made many new efforts possible that the founders could never have imagined. Here are a few of them:

• Opportunity International
• World Vision

So now lets turn to your idea. What are you working on? What have you rolled out that is changing your area of minsitry? Are you ready for that innovation to spread?

One of the keys to being ready is to hold it lightly. So many times when we invest so much in a new idea and an innovative project, we close our hands around it and tell everyone to back off. But the rules today require the opposite. The power of your idea and its impact will depend largely on your ability to hold it loosely.

Matthew 6:20 commands us to store up our treasures in Heaven and avoid the great mistake of putting our hope and trust in things that will disappear in the face of Eternity. This means that we will have to hold our efforts loosely. But what does that look like?

Holding your innovation loosely means:

1. Mentoring those who want to learn from your work
2. Giving others access to your ideas is wise and sustainable ways
3. Supporting new applications of your innovation
4. Being generous in your encouragement of those who enter your arena
5. Defining your success based on obedience to Christ not in the metrics of finance, fame or personal enjoyment

I know many in the ministry world who have failed to do this and it is important to consider what happens to the innovation. Those that hold their hands tightly closed see the innovations shrivel up just as the innovator becomes old and frail. They see their whole area of ministry become competitive and focused on success and notoriety. They foster all the things that might look successful in earthly terms but lead to isolation, greed and selfishness.

So you can choose how you will handle your innovation and that may make all the difference in how God will use it for His Kingdom.