The Faster Horse
"If I would have asked them, they would have wanted a faster horse."
-Henry Ford
In 1894, DeeDee Chandler took two pieces of wood and screwed them together with a hinge. He then added a metallic arm to one end thus creating the first bass drum pedal thus enabling one person to play multiple percussion instruments at the same time. Before Chandler, one person played the snare drum while another person played the bass drum and yet another held the cymbals. Not only did this make it cheaper for band leaders to only pay one person rather than three, it had an unexpected side benefit ... it lead to the creation of the backbeat and groove which is the spine of almost all modern music. Who would have guessed that two slabs of wood in New Orleans would lead to such a revolution?
In the 1880's, Nikola Tesla was a true electric pioneer who dreamed of a world that wirelessly sent current through the air. Had he not been blackballed out of the market by a rival and former mentor (Thomas Edison), rather than miles and miles of cables strung from utility pole to pole, our highways might be less cluttered. Tesla also invented a way to wirelessly send a charge that lead to the wirelessly powered cell phones you are likely carrying in your pocket right now.
In 1936, Alan Turing wrote a paper "On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem" in which he described a universal machine capable of computing anything that is computable. During WWII, he assisted the British Empire to decode the seemingly unbreakable enigma code machine of the Nazi's by building such a universal machine. Today, these "Turing Machines" are simply known as "personal computers" - maybe you've heard of them.
These are just three stories of three different innovators. Each of them is an example of someone who took a problem and dreamed of a better future with their solutions. As we emerge from the latest pandemic, we find ourselves in a post-Covid reality where the notion of physically attending a church service has come into question. 50 years ago, such a notion seemed ridiculous to most faithful Christians. Even now, I keep hearing about some Christians anxious to return to "normal."
We also sit at the forefront of a whole new era, the next Reformation of the Church has begun as many of us don't realize it. No, Covid didn't jump start this next era...if anything, it was an accelerant. I believe that the beginnings of the next Reformation began at least twenty years ago as the center of Christendom began to shift out of the United States and into the Global South.
What is ahead of us is a whole new reality of what it means to be and do "church." The next church will be much more of a mosaic that is multicultural and will have different priorities and patterns than those we've all grown accustomed to.
What the world needs isn't another Americanized church that looks like the past. We need an innovator who can push us past what was and propel us into what will be. We need the brave Tesla, Turin or Ford leaders who risk exploring fresh expressions who will forever change our imagination about what church is. Innovation isn't just modification. I'm not simply saying we need better music, or different preaching styles...
Something new is about to break through from the new center that will forever alter the church. I believe it will take a few decades to come into its own. No Reformation change ever happens overnight. We will take some time to stop basing our ideas of church on what the US has given us in the modern era. I just hope I'm still alive to catch a glimpse of it.
I believe that one advantage we have over the last Reformation is that we are aware that we are living in the next one. I don't believe any of our Reformed church father's ever really stopped to think how they were. changing the church as we know it. In fact, most of the early one's had no desire to stop being Catholic, only to reform it. But, as with most innovators, they responded to the needs and what the deeply believed was the right thing to do.
Who will be brave enough to listen to the direction of the Holy Spirit and become the next Reformed leader for tomorrow?
Posted 22nd June 2021 by Classis de las Naciones
