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The Beginner's Perspective

GO BACK TO BEING A BEGINNER TO DISCOVER THE TRUTH.

The Cave

A Parable

The Beginner's Perspective

"In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities; in the expert’s mind there are few."

- Shunryu Suzuki, Japanese Zen teacher

What was the last new thing you learned or tried for the first time? Recently, my wife and I got inspired to do some projects around the house. We ended up with a couple of walls that needed drywall repairs. I am not skilled in construction work and have never dealt with drywall before. But I felt certain I could do it if I tried. However, it was intimidating to realize how much I didn’t know. I had no idea what to do first. I had to buy specific tools and materials I had no clue how to use. I had to learn new terms and watch YouTube tutorials of people demonstrating the process. These people were experts, though, so their work looked much better than my clumsy first attempts. I was really slow at doing the work because the motions were unfamiliar. I had to repeat some things and fix problems I accidentally created. I had lots of questions and had to look at several different resources for instructions. The walls turned out pretty well, by my standards, but the entire experience was valuable in that it made me a beginner again.

We don’t always make time in our lives to do new things, and when we do it can feel pretty uncomfortable. When we approach something new and try it for the first time, we’re forced to really look and listen. We have to slow down to navigate the situation. It takes time to figure out what works. We don’t have any habitual ways of doing this new thing or methods that will ensure success. We might not have any past experience to draw on that will help us. This might feel frustrating, but it is in reality a great thing. It puts us in the position of being a beginner and gives us the opportunity to start fresh as we learn something new.

We have spent our lives naturally building up expertise in various areas. While that is valuable and needed, it can also get in the way of innovation. We often don’t realize the extent to which our past experiences color our expectations. We bring our knowledge and assumptions with us wherever we go. We have developed ways of seeing, thinking, and acting based on what we know of the world. When we face a new problem, we instinctively apply solutions that have worked in the past. But that isn’t always the best approach.

A beginner’s perspective is vital to innovation because it helps us look at the world without the lens we have developed over a lifetime. It allows us to operate in truth and reality. We must see the world as it is, not the way we imagine it to be. We need to see clearly without the filters of our past experiences. Most importantly, we must be aware of how our experiences and expertise shape how we think and act. Otherwise, we are essentially blind—just like the people in The Cave parable.

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There was order and accomplishment in the society within the cave. People were able to make progress, as they understood it, but it was all painfully misguided because their entire foundation of understanding was wrong. The world they thought they were seeing was completely different from their interpretation. Although they watched carefully and tried to understand, they were trapped in darkness and operated blindly.

The beginner’s perspective is a powerful tool to help us avoid making this mistake. Operating in the beginner’s perspective helps us become aware of our assumptions and intentionally choose to set those aside for a time to approach a situation from a new vantage point. Putting ourselves in the position of a beginner is challenging. It takes humility and courage to set aside our hard-earned expertise and let go of what we think we know. This posture requires that we change the way we do things—even change the way we think—to see with fresh eyes.

It will feel unnatural at first. But this work is worth doing so we can live in the light of the truth.

See the World as You Do

You are unique in all the world. Just think about it this way: nobody could take your place for the day and pass themselves off as you. A stranger in your body could not hope to replicate your behavior and mannerisms, knowledge and skills, even your voice and way of speaking. Everyone would see the difference immediately. Your personality and way of thinking along with your past experiences and choices all combine to make you . . . you! Nobody else can see the world the way you do, because nobody has lived the life you have lived.

The calling on your life is also unique. The Bible tells us this in Ephesians 2:10, “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (NIV).

You are God’s special creation and He has special things in mind for you to do. You are uniquely suited to carry out a specific part of God’s mission. He has given you perspectives and experiences that shape the way you see the world. You carry unique burdens and passions. We don’t always know what living out our vision will look like. But as we dream about the future, we can also look back on our lives and see how God has used both our challenges and our opportunities in His story. I want to briefly share my testimony so you can get a glimpse of the experiences that have shaped my view of the world.

In my own life, I have clearly seen how God has worked even when I had no idea how things were going to turn out. I was born into a family of entrepreneurs and creatives, raised by an incredibly hard-working mom who started multiple businesses while I was growing up. Almost every sentence around my house would start with the excited phrase, “I have an idea!” Just saying that to each other seemed to fill the air with energy and enthusiasm. My mom found time to nurture both me and her innovative ideas. Everything from teaching classes on embroidery, to doing costume design for TV, all the while working full-time and even making space to homeschool me for a year in second grade. All this contributed to giving me a strong sense that anything is possible if you work hard and make it happen.

I had lots of ideas for what I wanted to be when I grew up. My mom tells me that once I even said, “I want to be the king of the world.” When she asked why, I replied, “Because I could do things better.” I no longer have the goal of being a king, but I still carry the sense that the world could be better and have a longing to help bring positive change.

When I was a teenager, I realized how different my values were as a Christian from the rest of the world. Most of my friends were not believers, and they were already losing their way to sex, drugs, and alcohol. I cared about them deeply because they were my friends, but I didn’t know how to help them make better choices or how to talk about Jesus with them. After one of my close friends moved to another school and we gradually stopped talking or seeing each other, I realized that the people around me were my friends almost by accident. Had I been born somewhere else, I would have different friends who I would care about and who would need Jesus just as much. I could go anywhere in the world and the people around me would need the Gospel. It was the start of a missional calling on my life.

This burden for all the potential friends I could have in the world made me feel completely inadequate to the task. I wanted to be able to share the Gospel well, and so I needed to better understand it myself. I enrolled in Biola University in Los Angeles and pursued an undergraduate degree in Biblical Studies and Theology. I worked multiple jobs to cover the cost of tuition. Some of those jobs gave me the opportunity to refine skills in the areas of graphic design, film production, and web development.

I didn’t know what to do for my career, and my brilliant plan was to buy a one-way ticket to Latin America because I spoke Spanish. I planned to start walking south and share my faith with people I met along the way. I imagined myself in a coat and boots dusty from travel, guitar over my shoulder, a faithful dog at my side, on a mission to share the Gospel. My girlfriend, who later became my wife, didn’t hesitate to tell me what a terrible idea that was and that I’d likely die before I made it through Mexico.

Turns out we did buy one-way plane tickets, not to South America but to South Florida. I made a connection through my university to a seminary that offered me a scholarship. It was God’s perfect next step for me. The only challenge was that I needed to propose, get married, move, and find a new job in a state I had never even visited in just three short months. But when God opens a door, the details fall into place.

We found a place to live through a student at the seminary. One day I got a phone call from a complete stranger asking if I was looking for a job. A professor I had never met had given my resume to someone at OneHope, a ministry I had never heard of. They hired not only me but my wife as well! It has turned out to be a dream job for both of us that leverages and has expanded our gifts, passions, and missional calling. OneHope’s mission is to bring God’s Word to every child, and it is a privilege to be able to work towards that goal every day. I feel incredibly blessed to have found vocational work—a job I both love and feel called to.

I am telling you my testimony not because I am a model for what an innovator should look like. Quite the opposite. My story is my own, and you have a story that is uniquely yours. I could have never imagined how God would take my diverse life experiences and use them for His glory. But God works through every person’s story to bring them into His kingdom and equip them to fulfill the Great Commission. He has created you for work that only you can do. You will be able to better accomplish your work by developing the perspectives described in this book.

Your past experiences and your testimony play a big role in shaping your perspective, but so does your personality. I don’t have children, but parents tell me that their sons and daughters had their own personalities even in the womb. We are seemingly born into this world with a specific way of seeing and reacting that goes even deeper than how we are raised. I have learned a lot about myself through taking personality assessments. One of my favorite frameworks is the Enneagram. It has helped me see some of my blind spots and helped shed light on potential trouble spots with others. After my wife and I took the assessment, we had the obvious, but still surprising, revelation that we don’t see the world exactly the same way. Things that are completely reasonable to her make no sense to me, and the opposite is true too. We have to work every day to navigate our differences.

For some reason, it is easy to think that the way you see the world is the only possible way it can be understood. In reality, my wife and I often have the same experience and interpret it completely differently because of the unique lens we have. I encourage you to take the Enneagram and learn more about yourself and those around you. Most people can identify themselves just by reading the descriptions of the different types, but there are free tests you can take online as well.

The personality types are identified by a number and a name: 1. Reformer, 2. Helper, 3. Achiever, 4. Individualist, 5. Investigator, 6. Loyalist, 7. Enthusiast, 8. Challenger, and 9. Peacemaker (that’s me!).

The Enneagram helps put words to some of your fears and desires. You will learn what motivates you and stresses you. Your inborn personality is a big part of the way you see the world. Each person is different, but there are patterns we can learn about each other that help us build relationships and communicate better.

No two innovators will ever make the same thing. You could stand beside another person today looking at the same problem and come up with vastly different solutions. Both may be good, and both may be needed. What you create will be informed by how you see. Your unique perspective creates strength that others do not have. But your assumptions can also carry weaknesses. It is important to know yourself and what shapes the way you see so that you can respond well to the needs and opportunities God puts in front of you. He has prepared good things for you to do, and He has also prepared you well to do them.

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See the World as Others Do

We all have the lens of our experiences and personality that forms our view of the world. But knowing this is only half of the work we need to do as ministry innovators. We also need to learn to observe the world through other people’s eyes. You have probably heard the saying “Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes.” It is easy to see what someone does, but it is much harder to understand why they do so. This requires us to dig in, to understand their story, to develop empathy, and to extend grace.

We can observe someone’s actions but we might only be able to guess at their motivations. Sometimes, we don’t even try to guess at all. This is a critical failure in ministry innovation. If we don’t understand why people do what they do, how can we share the Gospel with them in a way that is relevant and personal? The beginner’s perspective helps us set aside our assumptions and our own way of seeing the world to glimpse how the world looks from someone else’s viewpoint.

I used to teach the Sunday School class of six-year-olds at my church. Seeing the world from their perspective meant literally getting down to their level. At six, you’re not very tall, so most of what you see are people’s legs. Imagine getting dropped off by your parents and left in a strange room with strange adults towering above you. Are your parents ever going to come back? Maybe they are abandoning you forever. Looking at it from the child’s point of view, it was easy to see why some were afraid or sad. They had no control over the situation, and some didn’t even want to be there. The way they expressed that fear though was through uncontrollable crying or temper tantrums. Children aren’t very good at controlling their emotions, so it was easy to become frustrated by their external behaviors. But it was also an opportunity to develop empathy that allowed me to respond better to what was really going on. Eventually, I became known for having a very orderly Sunday School classroom. It wasn’t because I was strict with the children. Instead, it was because I had empathy for them, which made it possible to create a setting where they could feel comfortable and engage with the lesson.

Empathy is powerful because people cannot always easily describe the problems they feel. Many times, we can be trapped in believing “this is just the way things have always been” without realizing it could be better. The people in The Cave parable had no complaints about their chains. They didn’t know it was possible to live outside the darkness of the cave. People may accept a broken reality as the way the world is supposed to be. But we bring the Gospel’s powerful message of freedom and light. It is our job to do everything we possibly can to help people receive and accept that Good News. We must look at the world and its challenges from their perspective. To see through someone else’s eyes, we need to stop and be intentional in our focus. We must spend time building the relationship, listening attentively, and coming alongside to share in both their burdens and their joys. You do this naturally with the people you care about in your life. You know how to be a good friend and how to develop new friendships. But sometimes we forget to apply those same practices to our ministry work and to all those we are hoping to reach with the Gospel.

As ministry innovators, we must thoughtfully adopt ways of doing things that build our empathy and understanding of those we are trying to serve. One method that does this well is called Human-Centered Design (HCD), developed by Stanford University’s Design School, and popularized by the organization IDEO.

The first phase of Human-Centered Design (HCD) is called Inspiration, and it focuses on discovering more about who you are trying to reach. There are many ideas for how to do this. For example, you could do some research to find data on the target audience; or ask questions in a one-on-one interview to find out more about their life, goals, and challenges. You could spend time with the person to observe a day in their life. One idea I loved was to give people cameras to take photos of things that are important, interesting, or represent key moments in their day. This idea literally lets you see the world from their perspective.

The key to HCD’s approach is immersing yourself in another person’s reality. Empathy is difficult at a distance. The closer you can be to the people you are trying to serve, the more you can feel what they feel. You don’t just want to imagine their lives, you need to get as close as you can to their experiences and thoughts. You should be overflowing with stories and real examples from the lives of those you are trying to reach. It is like the difference between a photo in black and white or a movie in full color. The more you see through their eyes, the easier it will be to design something they will really want.

I had an opportunity to see this in action when I visited Holy Trinity Brompton Church in London in 2016. This church has worked hard to understand the non-Christian’s perspective of church, and they discovered several critical things. First, they found out that many people felt lonely and isolated but did not see church as a solution for community in their lives. They also discovered that people outside the church don’t really understand Christianity and that churches were not offering ways for interested people to learn more and ask questions. Finally, they determined that the Sunday morning experience didn’t make sense for an outsider.

Just think about it for a minute. You are a non-Christian with only a vague idea what Christianity is about. You show up to a church on Sunday, not sure what to wear or how to act. Everyone seems friendly enough, but pretty soon it gets weird. Everyone is singing songs out loud and raising their hands in the air. They all seem to know the words and melody, but you just feel awkward. You stand up for a while, then sit down because everyone else is and seems to know when they should. Some random guy talks for an hour about some stuff that happened a long time ago, using a really old book that is hard to understand. Everyone takes notes and seems to get it, but you are completely lost. Then they ask you for money, sing some more songs, and everyone socializes for a while afterwards. You don’t know anyone, and no one talks to you, so you quickly leave and never go back.

This is an oversimplification, of course, but you can see how a Sunday morning church service might not be the best first experience for a non-believer. Holy Trinity Brompton responded by starting a program called Alpha. It is specifically designed for seekers and invites anyone in the local community to come to the church for a free dinner and to meet new people. After dinner, they share a message specifically designed for non-Christians that explains Christianity simply and easily for someone hearing about Jesus for the first time. After the message, people are invited to talk about it in small groups with a trained facilitator. There’s no debating and no right or wrong answers, just friendly conversation without judgment. The facilitator encourages everyone to share their questions and experiences with the goal of exploring what Christianity really means. Week after week, people can come back to eat more, learn more, and eventually to pray for themselves and experience the power of the Holy Spirit. Alpha has spread from the UK around the world, and many people have found Jesus through this incredible initiative. Alpha shows the impact of designing with empathy for the person unfamiliar with Christianity. Alpha’s model also demonstrates what can happen when you set aside your assumptions and create environments where everyone can approach faith as a beginner again.

Seeing the world as others do can lead us to unexpected solutions we would never have created otherwise. IDEO shares an example of a healthcare organization that invested millions of dollars to build local health centers in some of the most remote parts of Africa. The centers were built, furnished, and staffed. Everything was ready. There was just one problem—nobody from the community came. The centers remained mostly empty. The company was confused and concerned. Should they build more centers to make them more accessible? Perhaps transport was needed to help people get there? They had some ideas but didn’t really understand the problem. So they invited a human-centered design team to help.

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The team discovered that the challenge was not location or transport or anything the company had guessed. Rather, people were afraid to come to the centers because they didn’t know how much it would cost. They worried treatment would be too expensive and they would have to leave embarrassed. The solution was not another multi-million dollar investment, but something much cheaper: a sign outside each center displaying the services offered and their cost. They made the signs in large print so they could easily be read from the road as people were passing by. The solution was much easier than anyone had imagined, but it was only discovered because the team spent time with the people they were trying to reach. They asked questions, listened to them, and observed their daily lives and needs. They encouraged people to share about their past experiences with doctors and mapped out the whole patient experience from beginning to end. Eventually, they were able to identify the barrier that was keeping the community from coming to the health care centers. Having the beginner’s perspective allowed the team to consider all possibilities and find the problem no one had thought of.

It is critical that we learn to do the same in our work as ministry innovators. We may be very different from the people we are trying to serve, so we cannot assume that what is obvious to us or motivating to us will be the same for someone else. We must take the time to see the world as others do.

How Culture Shapes Your World

Before I joined OneHope, I had never traveled outside the United States. But working for a global ministry quickly changed this. Just a few months into the job, I had the opportunity to go to Chile to meet with our regional team there. I was the only bilingual American on the trip, so I ended up helping with translation. The days were full. We started early in the morning with presentations and training. There was so much new information we wanted to share with them. We talked about research and design and how to make the best Scripture engagement products for their context. We dreamed about the future and problem-solved their current challenges. We didn’t waste a minute of the valuable time, knowing it was short. At the end of each day, we went back to our hotel rooms exhausted, but pleased with what we were accomplishing. At the end of the second day, however, one of the local team members approached me looking sad.

“These past few days weren’t what we were expecting,” he told me in Spanish. “We thought we would get to know you guys. Spend time together and hear about your lives and families. Instead, we spend all day in business meetings.”

It was my first experience of cross-cultural miscommunication. Each side had a different expectation of our time together and what was important to accomplish. We Americans were there to get things done. But the regional team was less interested in the information we brought and more interested in who we were as people. We didn’t realize it, but when we went back to our hotel rooms early every night we signaled that we didn’t care about getting to know them or letting them get to know us.

I didn’t know it at the time, but later I learned that every culture has different ways of building trust. In the United States, trust is highly task-based. You prove you are trustworthy by doing what you say you will do. Relationships are secondary to accomplishing work. But in Latin America, trust is relational. You earn trust by building a relationship with someone, and this should be done first before you try to work together. As Americans, we treated the meeting time as the most important aspect of our trip. But the Latin team perceived our work-focused approach as rude and needed time to get to know us. We were able to adjust our agenda for the rest of the trip to make more time for relationships, and we learned something very important about how everyone sees the world differently.

How we build trust is just one aspect of many that make cultures and the people in them so different from one another. I learned this from the book The Culture Map by Erin Meyer. I didn’t find this book until several years after that trip to Chile, and I now recommend it to everyone working in an international ministry. It would have saved me confusion on other trips and prepared me to enter unfamiliar cultures and navigate them better.

We all have a different perspective on the world that is profoundly shaped by the culture we are a part of. We have expectations of how others should behave, and we interpret their actions through our cultural lens. We might not even know we have these expectations until they conflict with someone else’s, like I experienced in Chile.

In her book, Meyer describes eight dimensions of culture and how they differ in countries around the world. Knowing these dimensions and the spectrum of possible responses is valuable as you interact with people from different cultures through your work. In addition to Trust, which we already examined, there is Communicating, Evaluating, Leading, Deciding, Disagreeing, Scheduling, and Persuading. Let’s look briefly at each of these concepts and how they shape people’s perspectives and responses.

Communicating would seem simple enough, however it is more complex than you might suspect. On one end of the cultural spectrum is low context communication and on the other end is high context communication. In high context cultures, a lot of meaning is communicated “between the lines.” The way something is said and a person’s body language is just as important, or even more important, than the words they use. Things may be hinted at indirectly without being verbalized, but you are expected to pick up on these hidden meanings. Low context cultures are much more direct and emphasize the words that are spoken. It is the attitude that “what you see is what you get.” The United States has a low context culture. Americans traveling overseas can have a reputation for being rude and oblivious because we are very direct in what we say and have trouble recognizing hidden meanings.

Evaluating has to do with how feedback is given. The two ends of the spectrum are direct negative feedback versus indirect negative feedback. Even though Americans generally say what we mean, we tend to be very indirect when correcting someone. My friend Aaron from New Zealand experienced this when he first came to the United States to work in ministry. He was in a meeting and one of his colleagues suggested an idea. Aaron immediately shot back, “That’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard in my life!” and went on to explain why it would never work. Aaron is from a culture where negative feedback is given directly. He treats criticism as a gift to be given freely to help everyone improve and believes it should be given quickly to avoid wasting time. His American co-workers, however, did not see it this way and were offended by his direct approach. I have definitely been in meetings where I’ve heard ideas proposed that I think are terrible. But I am not from New Zealand, so instead I say things like, “That’s so good! I like the direction this is going. Maybe we should just consider adjusting (insert better and completely different idea) to make this even stronger.” Sometimes, the negative feedback I give or receive is phrased so gently you might think it is positive feedback! That is what it means to be indirect, depending on what kind of culture you are from, this either makes total sense or feels completely ridiculous.

Leading is another area where there are huge cultural differences. Some countries are very egalitarian, meaning everyone is treated equally, even the boss. The opposite is hierarchical, where there are clear lines of authority and leaders are expected to be set apart and respected. Most of Africa, Asia, and Latin America tend to be hierarchical, whereas the United States and Europe tend to be egalitarian. One of my co-workers in Nigeria always calls me “boss” as a sign of respect, and it always sounds strange to me. As an American, I treat others casually, even my boss. I don’t worry too much about titles or addressing people in a particular way. I have not yet traveled to Africa, but I know that when I do it will be important for me to be aware of the power dynamics and show respect and deference to those in authority.

Knowing how different cultures expect to be led will be critical for you as a ministry innovator working with people around the world. Meyer points out that a leader in China would never ride his bike to work or dress casually in the office. But in Holland, a suit and chauffeur would be out of place. If you’re leading cross culturally, it may require you to behave in ways that feel unnatural in order to lead your team well. You will need to exercise humility, laying aside your personal preferences to be a servant leader.

Deciding is something you might expect would match up with a culture’s leadership style. It would make sense for hierarchical cultures to make decisions at the top that are then handed down and obeyed. Conversely, in an egalitarian culture it makes sense that decisions would be made by consensus, with everyone having a chance to give input. Sometimes these do match up this way, but not always. The United States is oddly inverted, preferring top-down decision making even though we are not hierarchical. In Japan, it is the opposite. Japanese culture is very hierarchical but decisions are consensual. Some businesses have an entire process around gathering feedback and input on a decision before it is proposed up to the next level of the hierarchy. By the time it reaches the CEO, all the details have been worked out and everyone is in agreement so there is no possibility for conflict when the leader signs off. You can probably determine whether your culture is top-down or consensual simply by thinking about your own experience. Are you often asked for your opinion by your leadership, or are you expected to wait for a decision to be made and then follow it? Both are valid ways of reaching decisions, they are just very different, and leading a diverse team that represents a mix of decision-making backgrounds requires sensitivity to how each person wants to be engaged.

Disagreeing is something you probably do every day, without thinking about exactly how you do it. Disagreement deals both with information at hand and with the relationships at stake. Some cultures are confrontational while others avoid confrontation. A confrontational approach puts the focus on the subject rather than the individual and separates information from relationships. Some cultures, such as the French, are famous for arguing passionately when they disagree, but they can laugh together a few moments later with no hurt feelings. Disagreeing with an idea is separate from disapproving of the person behind the idea.

Cultures that avoid confrontation are more sensitive to criticism and take it more personally. Disagreement is carefully worded to avoid sounding negative. In extreme cases, even asking what someone thinks could be seen as confrontational. It is important to be able to foster good discussion in a multicultural room, but you also want to be considerate of those who may be uncomfortable with disagreeing or might feel attacked by direct feedback.

Scheduling is another area where cultures see the world very differently and people behave in ways that are sometimes mysterious to others. The two ends of the spectrum are linear time versus flexible time. In linear time cultures, time is seen as limited and valuable. In the United States we have the saying “time is money,” because we think about time as a resource we spend. Everyone is expected to be in place for a meeting at the exact time it is scheduled to start, and if someone is late it costs everyone else precious time. We are very strict about schedules. I remember even as a child synchronizing my watch with the school’s bells so I would be on time to classes.

In contrast, you might have heard people say, “Oh, we’re on Latin time,” or “We’re on island time,” as an excuse when they are late. They may indeed be in a different time zone, but what they are really saying is that they have a flexible view of time. Flexible time cultures see time as an almost endless resource. There will always be more tomorrow, so it is okay if something doesn’t get done today. Schedules are secondary to relationships, so you wouldn’t cut a great conversation short just because you might be late to the next thing. It can be almost disorienting to realize that people can see something as fundamental as time very differently based on their culture.

Persuading is the final aspect of culture mapping, and it is a critical one. As we think about the work of ministry innovation, we need to be able to present information and champion our ideas persuasively. But what people will find convincing depends a lot on the culture they are from. The two approaches are principles first or applications first. The United States is application first, so we always start with our “so what.” We begin by telling others why our idea matters and how it will affect them. Only after we have convinced our audience that they should care do we explain the details. In a principles-first culture it is the opposite. Your audience won’t be convinced of anything until you show the process that led to your results. The conclusion is less important than the way you arrived at that conclusion. You must show the evidence that supports your idea.

I personally found this fascinating because I had never even questioned what was natural to me. All my life, I have heard application-first argumentation and learned that this is the way to present information. I believed this was the only way. This was a powerful lesson in seeing the world as others do and learning to adjust the way I behave to better fit my intended audience. The next time you are preparing a presentation, make sure you check the culture of your audience to find out if you should focus on the “so what?” or take the approach, “Here was my process.”

These eight dimensions help us understand cultural diversity in simple and practical ways. Across all of these dimensions, you should look at where your country falls relative to the culture you are interacting with. Even if you are on the same end of the spectrum, there will still be differences that matter. Scheduling is a good example. The United States, Germany, and Switzerland are all on the linear-time end of the spectrum, but in slightly different spots. So to Germans, Americans seem perpetually late; but to the Swiss, both Germans and Americans always run late. None of us are flexible-time cultures, yet the differences are still felt between us.

Cultural intelligence and the ability to understand people are critical to the work of ministry innovation. Innovation requires patience and empathy to lead others into a new way of seeing the world. Like the prisoners in The Cave parable, some of the people we work with and minister to may find it difficult to accept a truth that conflicts with what they believe. Having the beginner’s perspective helps us put our own experiences to the side and approach people with a willingness to see the world as they do. Only then are we equipped to help people take the first steps out of the darkness and towards the light.

See the World as It Is

There is a woman living in my neighborhood who is 106 years old! Just think about how much the world has changed in her one lifetime. She has lived through the invention of movies, microwave ovens, electric guitars, and nuclear bombs. Transportation evolved from having your own horse to having your own car and then being able to fly around the world on airplanes. Think about the impact of the Internet, GPS, mobile phones, and solar power. Everyday things like touch screens, bar codes, refrigerators, and smart light bulbs would have been unimaginable. In contrast to whatever she did as a child, kids today learn about the world on YouTube. Her grandkids are playing video games and uploading content to social media.

The speed of information and the access we have to it is overwhelming compared to 100 years ago. We know the world is changing quickly, but I don’t think we fully realize the impact of those changes on society and ministry. Having a beginner’s perspective means we take time to examine the world and see it as it truly is. You might be surprised at how different it is from the last time you looked!

We tend to assume that things will generally stay the same, but that is not the case. We must continually check our assumptions against reality. We must think deeply about what new things mean and how they might change our lives. Pick any item from the list above and think about the impact it has had on the world. It might be easy to think of the obvious ones like the Internet or smartphones, but consider electric guitars. This instrument birthed entirely new genres of music that have shaped culture and generations around the world. What about airplanes? Not only do they give us access to places faster than before, but this new industry has given entire nations the opportunity to shape their economy around tourism and foreign travel. These countries have developed in unexpected directions because of this one invention.

It is impossible to predict the full impact of any change. But it is critical for ministry innovators to be alert to changes and their potential effects. Peter Drucker, often referred to as the father of modern business management, says that we must identify the “future that has already happened.” In other words, the new realities that are here but no one has responded to yet. The world is changing even when we are not paying attention. Innovators have eyes to see those changes and recognize what is needed because of them. This starts with the humility to admit that we don’t know everything and constantly need to update our views and understanding. If we don’t, we put ourselves and our ministries in danger of becoming irrelevant. This happens more quickly than we might expect.

A clear example of this comes from the business world. Every year, Fortune Magazine publishes their list of the 500 most profitable U.S. corporations. Making the Fortune 500 list means you are a business success. But here’s the interesting thing about the list. Only around 50 companies that appeared on the first list in 1955 are still in business today. That’s just 10 percent who have managed to survive. Businesses open and shut down every day with increasing frequency. The average lifespan of businesses on the list is going down, and you will outlive most major companies.

What does that tell us? It points to how much the world around us is constantly changing. Competition is fierce, and there is always another business ready to take your place. The thing that made you successful originally may not be enough to sustain you into the future. In business, as well as in ministry, we must constantly pursue an accurate view of the world and be willing to learn and change in response to what we discover. Reality does not wait for us to catch up. The Fortune 500 list is a cutting reminder of that. There are a lot of very successful people in the world who have everything going their way today but will eventually lose it all overnight or over time. Recognizing how the world is changing around us can help our ministries avoid the same outcome.

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Take a moment to think: What cultural shifts are taking place in your local area? What demographic shifts are happening within your audience or community? What realities are different today than when you first started in ministry? Regularly asking questions like this opens us to seeing the world as it really is. It puts us on the leading edge. You will have the ability to see things others do not because they are not looking.

People see what they expect to see. In research, this is called confirmation bias. You might have an idea of how you think the world works, so you carry that assumption into your research. You are more likely to find things that confirm your existing belief and discount things that contradict it. This is very natural and very human. Seeing what we expect to see can have an even deeper influence on our lives than we know. Our experiences shape what we know and our knowledge shapes our beliefs. Beliefs can become core to our identity. Suddenly, we find ourselves unwilling to change our beliefs based on new experiences because it threatens our understanding of ourselves and the world. Again, this is natural and human, which is why we have to be intentional as ministry innovators to fight this tendency. We have to remember to go outside our caves.

Not every belief becomes core to your identity, of course. There are plenty of things we are wrong about all the time, and we are happy to correct ourselves when we discover them. I regularly mix up days of the week. When I find out it is Wednesday instead of Tuesday, I quickly embrace this new reality. It’s great news after all—I am one day closer to the weekend than I thought! Mistaking the day of the week is not reality-shattering for me. But the closer to my core a belief has become, the less likely I am to let go of it. For example, it would be extremely difficult for someone to convince me I should no longer have faith in God, since that belief is central to how I interpret the events of my life.

As kingdom innovators, I want you to be very aware of your natural disposition to resist change. We too often assume we already know how something works and dismiss new information and evidence of change. To effectively spread the Gospel, we must constantly re-examine and re-learn the things we hold to be true. We must look to see the world as it really is so we know how to properly respond.

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We are only human, so we cannot predict the full impact of changes. Unexpected events surprise us and leave us scrambling to catch up. What did you think would happen in 2020? Many ministries had ambitious goals and Vision 2020 statements of things they intended to accomplish. No one could have foreseen that we would instead be dealing with a global pandemic that challenged every part of the way we lived and did ministry. It took time for the implications of our new reality to settle in and for us to adjust our lives in response.

Events like COVID push us to innovate out of necessity. Prior to COVID-19, the Church had access to digital platforms and live-streaming, but few had incorporated these technologies into their programming because they saw no need to. The typical Sunday morning experience at most churches was working well. Who could have imagined that something would happen to prevent people from gathering in person? It was not until COVID made gathering in groups dangerous that churches began to leverage digital as an alternative way to gather. But it was difficult to figure out at first, and many ministries struggled to make it through the pandemic. The churches and individuals who were thinking ahead in that space were better prepared to adapt and transition to being fully online. They were able to lead and thrive amidst this massive change that proved to be the downfall for others.

The interesting thing is that digital was not new. These tools already existed. We could have been live-streaming Sunday services and using Zoom to convene Bible studies at any time. Digital was a present reality, but we failed to respond to it until a time of crisis demanded that we must.

This is an extreme and obvious example, but this pattern happens all the time in our ministries. There are new possibilities we have not yet responded to that could bear much fruit for our ministry. Why do we so often choose to ignore the way the world is changing and carry on doing things as we have always done? We all do it, so we can all answer. Think about what it might be for you. Maybe you lack time or resources. It may be inconvenient, or you don’t see the immediate benefit of making a change. Perhaps you are satisfied with the way your ministry is going and see no need to do things in new ways. Each of these mindsets is fatal to ministry innovation. Apathy, pride, or fear will not set us up to see the world as it really is and make the changes we must to navigate the future well.

Understanding change and responding well takes time. But it is something we need to do if we hope to remain relevant. There is no reason the Church should have to lag behind instead of leading the way in innovation. We can learn to observe and be open to new connections, ideas, and inspiration. We have resources that Fortune 500 companies will never have. We have the voice of the Holy Spirit guiding us into all truth. God can give us eyes to see both the physical and spiritual realities at work. Ask Him for wisdom and He is glad to give it.

Making Sense of It All

I know almost nothing about keeping bees. Here is the sum of all my knowledge in this area:

Beekeepers use a smoke can (mysteriously) to calm the bees. Beekeepers wear mesh clothes to protect themselves. Bees produce honey from flower nectar, and the honey is harvested (maybe using the smoke can?) and sold. Finally, the entire process of what bees do is a vital part of pollinating crops that produce the food to keep humans alive. Apparently bees are dying off and in high demand.

My knowledge in this area was acquired accidentally from random people I have talked to or from TV documentaries. If I were to begin beekeeping tomorrow, I would need to learn. I don’t know where to acquire the tools and the bees, how to harvest honey, identify the queen, or keep myself safe if the bees should get mad at me. I don’t know what makes bees get mad at you. I know nothing. My success would depend on how well I can learn, practice, and apply new information and skills. But I’m not ashamed of my lack of knowledge in this area. I am a beginner and I know it. If I truly wanted to succeed, I would attempt to fill myself with as much knowledge as I could find. I would happily submit myself to any teaching, new experiences, advice, correction, or opportunities to grow. This is the beginner’s perspective at work.

It can be easy to have the beginner’s perspective for a subject we know close to nothing about (like beekeeping). However, we also need to embrace the beginner’s perspective in areas where it is not easy: the areas where we are already highly skilled and we no longer consider ourselves beginners.

The world changes constantly, so even what we know may not be useful anymore. The areas where we desire to have the greatest impact are the same areas in which we must continue to explore and grow. When you are full of knowledge, you believe there is nothing else to be gained, nothing else you need to improve, and nothing anyone else can teach you. That is when you are most likely to become obsolete and ineffective. When you feel that you are the expert, you are tempted to stop learning, and that makes you vulnerable.

God knows this about us, and He gives us kingdom values to pursue. God values humility and elevates the humble. God hates the proud and opposes them (Proverbs 3:34, NIV). Being willing to defer to others, to learn, to relearn, and to continually empty ourselves so we can be refilled is a practice that helps remove pridefulness—a major stumbling block in our work as innovators.

We must always leave room for God to be the one who opens our minds and helps us to see. One startling example of this in the Bible was on the road to Emmaus after Jesus’s death and resurrection. Luke chapter 24 describes how some of the disciples met and walked with the resurrected Jesus but did not even recognize Him. They were talking about Him while He was right there with them! Afterwards, they asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:32, NIV). Their hearts were burning, but it was as if their eyes were closed. They were sure that Jesus was dead. They had seen Him on the cross. Their minds were closed to new information, full of the knowledge and experiences of the past few days. They were unable to consider the possibility that Jesus was alive until He opened their eyes to recognize the new reality.

It can be the same for us in our ministries. There are new realities we have yet to see and understand. The world is changing all around us. How do we make sense of it? There is a lot of information to process, but don’t be overwhelmed. The beginner’s perspective is the place to start. It puts us in a posture of humility. The best way I have found to practice the beginner’s perspective is to not try too hard. Go into exploring mode. Seek out new knowledge. Don’t worry if you don’t understand it all or know the implications right away. Your brain is incredibly talented at categorizing and identifying patterns. Simply set aside time to interact with new information and let your brain do what it does best. Look for trends, patterns, and connections. If something is interesting to you, learn more about it. Be willing to take detours and go deep.

Opportunities for innovation depend on how well we are able to recognize and respond to change. Peter Drucker describes seven sources of innovation. We will look at each one a little closer as part of our journey towards the beginner’s perspective.

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The Unexpected: When something unexpected happens, whether good or bad, it is an excellent indication that there is a new or unexplored opportunity in front of you. Growing up, my mom taught a Sunday School class at our church. She is an artist and incorporated many creative ideas into teaching the Bible lessons. At the end of the year, children didn’t want to graduate to the next teacher’s class because they loved her so much. This was unexpected! Kids normally move from one teacher to the next without too much complaint. Instead, children were crying on Sunday and trying to go back to her class. This was a perfect opportunity for the children’s pastor to find out what my mom was doing differently. She was invited to lead a workshop for the other Sunday School teachers, sharing her innovative ideas so they could also make their classes creative and enjoyable. Things that are unexpected point to opportunities for innovation.

Incongruity: This is a big word, but it simply means “something that doesn’t make sense.” Anything that seems illogical. The word literally means “does not follow.” Imagine a line of baby ducks following a mother duck, except one of the baby ducks is actually a kitten. That is an incongruity, and it should make us pay attention. In ministry, an incongruity could be when something is growing that we did not expect to. Or perhaps when something is failing that should have been a success.

When I first joined OneHope, there was a huge innovation project to create a virtual world Bible game for churches. It was a large investment of time and resources, and it seemed like such a good idea. Children love games, and churches need a way to stay connected to families throughout the week. We believed in the project, and it seemed to have everything going for it. We expected it to be an incredible success to help us reach millions of children. Instead, it was a major failure. The team was confused and disappointed. But there were things to learn from this too. We realized we had made some incorrect assumptions about what churches wanted and needed. We had also invested in a technology that didn’t allow us to make quick changes in response to feedback. However, there was an opportunity for innovation in this painful incongruity. Later, we made the Bible App for Kids, which has been a huge success worldwide. The app accomplished a similar purpose as our original project: to engage kids with Scripture in a fun gamified way. But instead of going through churches to do this, we went straight to parents, and they loved it. The incongruity of our first failure pointed us towards the real opportunity for innovation.

Process Need: The moment you think, “There must be a better way!” is an indication of a process need. For example, think about the way tithes are collected in churches. There was a time not that long ago when you could only give through cash or check. Physical money was required to put in the offering plate as it passed by. But many people don’t carry cash, so they couldn’t give even if they wanted to. Some entrepreneurial people thought, “There must be a better way!” So they developed the idea of a text-to-give system. People always have their phones! Now you can simply send a text message to the church’s number with the dollar amount you want to tithe. Your bank processes the request, and the money is transferred. You can give right away while you are thinking about it. This was a significant innovation in response to a process need. Many people had probably encountered this barrier, but finally someone took action.

Market Structure: Many factors, such as new or growing businesses, can change demand for products in related areas. For example, consider Uber. This mobile app allows individuals to use their personal vehicle as a taxi service. Airbnb is another example. This online platform allows people to use their home or spare bedroom as a hotel alternative for travelers. These apps changed the market structure in their industries. Uber dramatically shifted the need for taxis, rental cars, buses, trains, and other transportation services. Airbnb similarly disrupted the hotel industry including not only traditional lodging, but travel agencies, tour companies, and more. Uber and Airbnb as businesses are innovative themselves, but they also create new opportunities for innovation because of the way they restructure the market. The balance of supply and demand is now different, which changes people’s needs in a ripple effect. For example, if more people are driving their own cars as taxis, then the demand for car maintenance might rise. Similarly, if people are renting out their homes, cleaning services will probably become more popular. Pay attention to how the market is changing, and you will find many ways to innovate in response.

Demographics: Opportunities for innovation also arise because people themselves are changing in some way. The continent of Africa currently has the world’s youngest population, is rapidly growing, and also has the highest percentage of Christians. By 2060, Africa is predicted to become the global center of Christianity. Six of the ten countries with the largest Christian populations will be located in Africa. OneHope’s regional leaders in Africa recognize that this moment in history is an innovative opportunity. They intend to work between now and the year 2060 to prepare the African Church to respond well to this new reality. One of the things they want to change is to transform the mindset from a receiving Church to a generous, sending Church. They are also working to invest in the next generation, because today’s children are tomorrow’s leaders. Imagine a world where culture is led by committed Christians and missionaries are going from Africa to every nation to spread the Gospel. I love their vision! Our team is demonstrating wisdom in reading the times and responding to them.

Changes in Meaning: When the way people think about something changes, that is an opportunity. We saw this happen during the COVID-19 pandemic. Almost overnight, we found ourselves living in a very different world. In many of our countries, it would have been unusual to see someone wearing a face mask. It might have been unsettling to see someone with their face covered. But during the pandemic, face masks were preferred for protection. It was unsettling to see someone without one. The meaning around social gatherings changed too. Meeting in person shifted from normal to something to be feared. The world and the Church witnessed many changes in behaviors and choices as we reassigned meaning around in-person interactions. But opportunities for innovation abounded in the digital space. People still need other people; they just need a different way to connect to them. Organizations and businesses that were able to recognize the changes in meaning and adapt to them found the greatest success.

New Knowledge: Remember, the world is always changing. Discoveries are being made daily, and humanity has access to more information than ever before. Are we paying attention to this new knowledge? Innovation is not invention. You don’t have to create something entirely new that the world has never seen before. Instead, you can build on what already exists or respond in new ways. Innovation creates value through new combinations of existing knowledge or solutions. Apple is praised as innovative in its design of the iPhone, and this is a good example. Apple didn’t invent phones, palm-sized computers, cameras, touch screens, or Internet browsers, but it did innovate by putting them all together in one device. We all have access to new knowledge, but we don’t always do something about it.

These are Drucker’s sources of innovation, but they are certainly not the only ones. The beginner’s perspective helps us recognize these opportunities and respond to them well. We must learn to slow down and really see. As you practice this, let experiences and input come to you without immediately trying to sort and evaluate them. It is okay if you don’t understand everything perfectly right away. Someone who is a beginner is not highly skilled from the start. Everything is new and unfamiliar. We must be intentional to set aside our expertise and experiences to be a beginner once again.

We should even be a beginner when it comes to the Gospel. There is so much joy in rediscovering the incredible Good News of Christ as our Savior. Each day in our faith is a new beginning; a new chance to depend on God and experience His undeserved grace in our lives. “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning” (Lamentations 3:22–23). Never forget the wonder of the Gospel as you minister to others.

Storyteller