Article 3 in a series of articles based upon the Lausanne North America Listening Call
Question 3: What promising breakthroughs or innovations do you see that can accelerate the fulfillment of the Great Commission?
We live in an age of constant innovation and breakthroughs in science, medicine, and technology.
Just so we are on the same page, let me define innovation and breakthroughs. I’m borrowing from Ted Esler’s innovation definition where he writes, “Innovation is the use of something new to create solutions. It can include invention, the creation of something new, or it can be a mixing of existing things to create something new. It might be technological, but it is not limited to technology. It is about products, services, processes, and ideas. Breakthroughs are related to innovation as they are a sudden, dramatic, and important discovery or development that helps to improve a situation, provide a solution, or solve a problem.
The Church has been seen (in general) more as a Luddite than a technophile. However, what we have witnessed over the last several decades is an increasing number of church leaders, churches, non-profit, and Christian organizations leveraging innovation and breakthroughs for greater gospel impact. In our listening call, the leaders provided dozens of innovations and breakthroughs they see that are helping to (or can help) accelerate the fulfillment of the Great Commission.
In this post, I want to present the top three.
Social Media
There are variations of social media.
Social networks, like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, and Snapchat are one variant of social media. These platforms allow people to network with one another sharing personal updates, thoughts, experiences, photos, and videos. Another variant to social media is bookmarking sites like Pinterest …