Faith-based innovation is having a moment. Or at least the start of a moment, one that will likely continue for some time as faith institutions wrestle with questions of how to remain relevant in this day and age and into a future of uncertainty. Faith-based innovation is by no means new, though, as Kenda Creasy Dean, professor at Princeton Theological Seminary and co-founder of Ministry Incubators, points out in her new book, Innovating for Love. And we definitely should not view it merely as a solution to institutional crisis, or a balm for institutional anxiety.
Creasy Dean’s book, subtitled Joining God’s Expedition through Christian Social Innovation, specifically tackles the subject from a Christian theological perspective, focusing on what does (or should) make Christian social innovation distinct. Some of the insights, though, may feel resonant to innovators of other faith traditions and, in truth, to any good social innovator. Rooted in Christian theology, the book speaks quite directly to Christians. In so doing, it also provides a glimpse of the wisdom that faith can bring to social innovation.
“God does not call us to have “great ideas” — God calls us to have great love.”
As the title of the book suggests, Creasy Dean argues that Christian social innovation means, very specifically, innovating on behalf of love. Bill Drayton, founder of the global organization Ashoka and “father” of social entrepreneurship, has often defined changemaking in its most basic terms as “love and respect in action.” When we seek to innovate, to create change, we put into action our deepest longing as humans to love. While not always in evidence in its practitioners, Christian theology—with its defining idea that God loved humanity to the point of sending, sacrificing, and resurrecting the Son of God to save us—has a thing or two to say about love. Profound, transformative, self-giving love.
Creasy Dean’s highly engaging book brings to life the richness of how that theology of love intersects with innovation and why the latter should matter to Christian communities. For those starting on the social innovation side, rather than the Christian side, perhaps it also helps illustrate why love should matter in trying to solve the problems of the world. To Creasy Dean, the Christian theological contribution is ultimately about humility: “we are called to participate in God’s dream, rather than invoke God’s blessing for our own.” In other words, this is not about us. We are “joining in God’s ‘new thing' rather than roping Jesus into ours.”
In addition to pushing us to de-center our egos, to look around us to see where God (or love) is already at work, and to consider how our initiative contributes one piece of a much bigger picture, this perspective also “frees us to be the finite characters: the ones who have flaws, make mistakes, take naps and keep Sabbath.” In other words, it is not up to only us. We don’t have to drive ourselves into the ground making “our” idea happen, as savior, hero, martyr, (fool?). Love is at work even when we are not. That might be the single most liberating thing to hear as an innovator or entrepreneur. This is way bigger than us. One might hope that this perspective also frees us to be more generative and generous as innovators, adding whatever we have to contribute to the grand masterpiece of love in progress, not protecting it as our own.
“If we are to live in the world in a way that relieves suffering, adds meaning, and magnifies joy, innovation matters.”
Innovating for Love offers far more than a theological argument, though. It also provides historical and practical ones. Social innovation used to be par for the course in Christian communities, but it seems “the holier we got, the less useful we became.” Creasy Dean provides several historical morsels on the link between social innovation and the church’s work for the common good, as well as the evolution of the church away from the public square into sanctified religious spaces, a move that ultimately limited “Christianity’s substantial creative energies to what happened behind church doors.” In early Christianity, she notes, ministry focused on the flourishing of the whole community, not just on the followers of the faith.
“Innovation is no longer an extracurricular activity for churches that can “afford” it. We are all innovators now.”
Now, those sanctified spaces we retreated to are struggling. As Creasy Dean articulates it, “change has found us.” As such, the book includes appendices with ten very practical resources to help communities get started on an innovation journey. And featured throughout are the stories of innovative social impact ministries as inspiration.
One of the most important messages of the book surfaces at the end when Creasy Dean identifies what yet remains missing in this emerging field. Faith-based innovation may be having a moment, but the impact remains small: “[these ministries] are more outposts than nerve centers for Jesus.” It is not just circumstances that prevent human flourishing, it is systems, and Creasy Dean points out that “widespread cooperation between faith communities around systemic innovation has not yet captured our ecclesial imaginations.”
Christians believe the love of God to be both personally intimate and universally transcendent. If we root our innovation only in the former, we miss the full potential of what theologian Walter Brueggemann calls “prophetic imagination.” Our innovation must start in the relational love of encounter with our immediate neighbors and community. But there is nothing magical about innovation itself. Any new ministry can fall prey to old vices (the book references briefly the idea of toxic charity). We have pain in our communities that cannot be remedied at that level because bigger systems create it. We must lift our gaze. A major driver of the need for innovation is the growing complexity of the systems that impel outcomes in our lives and communities. The great love at the core of the Christian experience is most certainly big enough to transform systems, if we are willing to follow it there and join in the work.
Buy a copy of Innovating for Love at msb.press/kenda.