The other night I viewed a Neil Young documentary, which chronicled a concert he performed in Nashville a number of years ago.  I particularly enjoyed watching a song performed I have enjoyed hundreds of times, “Harvest Moon.”  Throughout the tune, there’s a consistent sound occurring every 6 seconds or so, but I’ve never identified the instrument. Upon seeing Young and his band play “Harvest Moon,” I was surprised to find that the sound was a straw broom being swept across a textured material.

Using a common household broom to make professional-quality music.  That’s innovation – a  doable idea that brings value.

Sometimes, the process of innovative thinking results in dissimilar objects or ideas being joined together.  In the case of our church, an example would be worshiping on the beach.  Despite our Midwestern climate (it is frigid 11 degrees as I write), we hold over a third of our worship services each year on the shores of Lake Michigan.  Typically, when people think “worship” they envision a traditionally appointed “church” or “sanctuary” – not a “beach.”  For our church culture, however, they go beautifully together, kind of like the woosh of the sweeping broom accompanying other instruments on “Harvest Moon.”

Last week, we had a church event that brought a number of dissimilar activities together – we held the church Christmas party at a local brewery, which we rented for the day.  Free beer, soft drinks & pizza for everyone.  A Christmas carol sing-a-long, and a performance by the Dancing Bohemian Ukulele Team.  Free frozen yogurt for kids @ Lulu’s, the store next to the Brewery.  “Elf” shown in the real estate office on the other side of Lulu’s.  And, a “Sports Auction” – silent and live – run by the Middle School kids in our church to provide assistance to recent central Illinois tornado victims.

I know, it sounds a little crazy.  But the party – that went from 1:00 p.m. until 6:00 p.m. – was a great success.  The Lake Bluff Brewing Co. was filled with singing, laughing people of all ages, and the auction raised over $7,000 for the tornado victims.  Now, if you were to tell people that you were going to hold the church Christmas party in a brewery and offer free beer & pizza & frozen yogurt, watch “Elf” in a real estate office, have a Christmas carol sing-a-long and listen to a ukulele band – all while holding a sports auction for tornado victims – people might think you were a little wacky.  But you know what?   It worked wonderfully well, primarily because we were connected to one another as part of the same church family.  And those family ties open the door in wonderful ways to do some very fun things.

As is often the case, the innovative Christmas party began with trying to solve a problem – where does a church without a building (like ours) hold a Christmas party?  We answered the question by using spaces that would probably not typically be considered for a church Christmas party.  And it worked out better than we ever could have imagined.

When it comes to innovation at your church, don’t worry so much about whether or not it “makes sense.”  Instead, consider whether it fits your church culture.