I want to share a story that I sent to marriage ministry leaders as part of an email resource series.
Kirby Ferguson in his popular TEDx talk “Creativity is a Remix” argues that creativity and innovation are misunderstood. Innovation is often thought to be the domain of a select few geniuses, but instead it is actually very accessible and is nothing more that copying, transforming, or combining things or ideas.
Everyone understands the incredible opportunity marriage ministry is in the church. Where there is great opportunity, there is a need for creativity and innovation. Could your church really innovate in your marriage ministry by simply copying, transforming, or combining things or ideas? Here are a few examples that illustrate just how simple innovation really can be:
Brett Kolomyjec noticed two trends. The first was the popularity of monthly subscriptions to physical products delivered to the front door. The second was that couples like to have dating experiences that are fun, different, and worthy of posting on Instagram. He combined those two simple trends and came up the wildly popular datenight box where couples get a creative new date idea delivered to their door every week.
Erik Hanson at First Presbyterian in Boulder observed the wildly popular format of TEDx talks. He copied the format with marriage content and created a new event for the church called WEDx. It proved to be an event that not just church members, but the broader community, were interested in attending.
Watermark Community Church in Dallas noticed the incredible life change that was coming out of Christian recovery ministries. They took some of the best practices and transformed them into re|engage. It is now a core part of the marriage ministry at Watermark and is being used in 150 other churches, both nationally and internationally.
If we think of creativity and innovation as the exclusive domain of the brilliant mad scientist, we don’t bother trying to enter in. When we see it as simply copy, transform, and combine, it becomes as accessible as rearranging your kids’ Legos into endless possible new creations. Innovation in areas like technology can be cool. Innovation in marriage ministry can have eternal impact.
