The church as we know it is calibrated for a world that no longer exists. The world has changed and we are out of step with the questions that animate our people. So, we will need to recalibrate – and that will take innovation. But there is a problem. The secular literature on innovation tells us that the best way to innovate is to abandon the past. “Burn the boats,” they say, “Cut the ties.” But we Christians cannot abandon the past. We will never stop reading Second Corinthians and we will never stop saying, “Jesus is Lord.” We cannot abandon the past.

So the question of innovation is this, “How do we maintain a rock-solid commitment to the unchanging Christian gospel, while at the same time create innovative ways to express that gospel to an ever-changing world?”