When an organization faces major change, the choices can look deceptively simple: preserve everything or change everything. Neither response is good enough. The real work is learning how to adapt without losing the purpose that made the organization worth building in the first place.
That is especially urgent for Christian ministries. If we resist every change, we risk becoming irrelevant to the people we serve. If we adopt every promising practice without examining its underlying values, we risk becoming something other than a Christian ministry. I think of a bow: its strength depends on tension between its two sides. We need that same productive tension between faithfulness and innovation.
ORG702 approaches this challenge through innovation networks, interpersonal research, communities of practice, and movement building. The goal is not simply to produce another paper. It is to develop the relationships and judgment needed to help an organization, and perhaps an entire field, move toward a better future.
Key Takeaways
- Effective innovation holds adaptation and core purpose in productive tension.
- Leaders need practical and values-based knowledge alongside documented research.
- An interpersonal research plan connects learning needs with experts, peers, mentors, and model organizations.
- Strong networks can improve one organization while helping a wider movement change.
Table of Contents
- Innovation Is a Networked Activity
- Choose a Preferable Future, Not Just a Probable One
- Three Kinds of Knowledge Leaders Need
- Build an Interpersonal Research Plan
- Study Both Your Organization and Your Movement
- Start With Observation or Theory, Then Keep Learning
- Turn the Learning Into an Innovation Strategy
- Use the Learning Community, Too
Innovation Is a Networked Activity
Early in my career, I co-founded the Internet and Telecoms Consortium at MIT. We brought together organizations that understood the internet would transform telecommunications but were still trying to understand how. The network included companies such as Nokia, Sprint, Hewlett-Packard, Lucent Technologies, and Motorola. Voice and video over IP were among the developments we were examining.
There is a parallel with AI today. Many leaders can see that change is coming. Far fewer know what that change will mean for their particular work. A useful innovation network brings people with different expertise into conversation so they can investigate that uncertainty together.
Ministries can do sophisticated work in this space. We should not assume that innovation in a Christian context means borrowing a few business ideas or gathering people for an inspiring conversation. We can study how change spreads, learn from organizations doing excellent work, and build networks capable of improving practice while remaining clear about our values.
Choose a Preferable Future, Not Just a Probable One
Strategic foresight distinguishes between futures that could happen, futures that are likely if current patterns continue, and futures we would prefer to create. That distinction matters because an organization can recognize a threat without doing much to shape its response.
Consider rescue missions and similar ministries. My concern is that, without better approaches to adaptation, some will secularize, some will adapt successfully, and some will become less relevant because they do not adapt. Others may operate in places where change happens slowly enough that they do not face the same immediate pressure. Those proportions are my illustration of a possible future, not a prediction to treat as settled fact.
The preferable future is one in which many more ministries adapt successfully without abandoning their Christian identity. If you work outside ministry, translate the same question into your own field: How can organizations respond to new realities while staying true to their core purpose?
Sometimes an organization struggles because its leaders made a poor decision. Sometimes it struggles because the whole movement or industry is misaligned with the world it now serves. That is why innovation strategy cannot stop at the boundary of one organization.
Three Kinds of Knowledge Leaders Need
Traditional research is very good at working with explicit knowledge: information that can be written down, organized, and shared through books, databases, procedures, and reports. But leaders also need knowledge that is harder to put on a page.
- Explicit knowledge is the what. It includes the documented concepts, policies, and evidence you can study directly.
- Implicit knowledge is the how. It develops through experience, observation, mentoring, and solving real problems. A seasoned CEO’s ability to respond to an unfamiliar situation is not simply a list of rules from a book.
- Tacit knowledge is the why. It includes deeply held beliefs, values, and assumptions that shape how people interpret a problem and choose a response.
For Christian ministries, the third category is especially important. A faith-based rescue mission and a secular organization may both address homelessness and addiction, and each may have something to teach the other. But they may approach the same work from different convictions about people, purpose, and transformation. You cannot fully understand a ministry’s practice if you never learn the reasons behind it.
This becomes particularly important when organizations hire people from outside their tradition. A new colleague may understand the job description yet not understand why a ministry makes certain choices. Stories, mentoring, shared work, and relationships with peer ministries can carry knowledge that a manual alone cannot.
Build an Interpersonal Research Plan
ORG701 concentrates more heavily on research methods for explicit knowledge. ORG702 is its interpersonal counterpart. It asks how you and your organization will learn from people who possess the practical wisdom and values-based understanding your work requires.
A community of practice is one valuable part of that plan. It brings practitioners together around a shared domain so they can learn from one another’s experience. The domain might be aftercare in addiction recovery, remote education, or the use of AI with students. The important point is to identify a specific area of practice, connect people doing the work, and learn from what they have discovered.
But a community of practice is not the entire interpersonal research plan. If you wanted to develop an outstanding addiction recovery aftercare program, for example, your plan might include:
- Identifying model ministries and strong secular organizations.
- Interviewing experts and peers whose experience addresses your learning needs.
- Connecting with leaders who can help put changes into practice.
- Learning from mentors or consultants who can explain their judgment in context.
- Participating in associations, conferences, workshops, and program networks.
- Sharing useful documents and resources across those relationships.
For a ministry, the mix of Christian and secular sources deserves deliberate thought. You can learn from excellent work outside your tradition without assuming that every model shares your goals. At the same time, limiting your network to people who already think exactly as you do may leave important expertise undiscovered.
The plan should also recognize that learning moves in both directions. You learn from experts and peers, but your organization’s experience can contribute to a wider community. Eventually, those exchanges can help a movement learn and change.
Study Both Your Organization and Your Movement
There are two levels of innovation to consider. At the organizational level, you might ask how to improve one program. At the movement level, you might ask why many organizations are facing the same difficulty and what would help the entire field respond.
My work on the past and future of the rescue mission movement is an example of the second question. It brings together innovation theory, communities of practice, and the sociology of religious movements to examine change across a field. The same approach can help someone in education or business ask whether established ways of working still fit the people and circumstances they serve.
This is why ORG702 is interdisciplinary. Diffusion of innovations helps us think about how new ideas spread. Communities of practice help us understand learning among practitioners. Sociology helps us examine movements. Theology and Christian worldview help ministry leaders evaluate not just whether an innovation works, but whether it serves the right purpose.
Start With Observation or Theory, Then Keep Learning
Academic research is often presented as if everyone must begin with a theory, develop a hypothesis, and then test it. That deductive path is useful, but it is not the only path. Practitioners often begin inductively: they notice what is happening, identify patterns, develop a hypothesis, and work toward a broader explanation.
If you run a program, you may first notice that a particular approach is not working as expected. That observation is a legitimate starting point for inquiry. You can investigate it with other practitioners, compare experiences, try a change, and assess the result.
Our broader framework connects this kind of inquiry with action research, lean startup thinking, and communities of practice. You plan, act, observe, and reflect, then refine what you do. The difference here is that you do not have to learn alone. The people in your network help you interpret what you are finding and consider what to try next.
Turn the Learning Into an Innovation Strategy
The work in ORG702 builds in stages rather than asking for a polished strategy at the outset:
- Map your learning and innovation needs. Begin with a visual map of what you and your organization need to understand. Slides can be easier to revise than a finished paper, so they make a useful first draft.
- Research sources of learning. Identify the organizations, practitioners, experts, and networks that match those needs.
- Look beyond your organization. Apply lessons from innovation networks and social or religious movements to your wider context.
- Synthesize a plan and strategy. Bring the research, relationships, and movement-level insights into an interpersonal research plan and organizational innovation strategy.
Do not leave the conversations until the end. The course calls for at least six interviews, so it makes sense to arrange them throughout the work. More broadly, each major project in a doctoral program can become an opportunity to meet people who understand a different part of your field.
I would argue that the network you build may have more long-term value than any single final project. A paper can document what you know at one point in time. Relationships with thoughtful practitioners can continue challenging, informing, and strengthening your work long afterward.
Use the Learning Community, Too
There is a distinction between a community of practice and a community of inquiry. Communities of practice usually center on people engaged in a shared area of work. A course can function as a community of inquiry, where people investigate questions together as part of their learning.
That means your peers are not just names on an assignment list. Pay attention to their projects, exchange work when it would help, and ask what they are learning in organizations similar to yours. Those conversations can become part of your interpersonal research network.
The ideas in this field can feel dense because they connect several disciplines at once. I think of a synthesis as the base plate of a Lego city: it helps the individual pieces fit together, but the structure makes more sense once you have handled the pieces yourself. Give difficult concepts more than one pass. Return to them after you have read, interviewed people, and tried applying them. If a particular idea still is not clear, ask questions and use available tools to work through it.
Innovation is not only about finding the next idea. It is about building the capacity to learn with others, test your assumptions, remain grounded in your purpose, and help more than one organization move toward a preferable future.