Model T Ministry and Openness to the Future

“You can have any color you want, as long as it’s black.” –Henry Ford

Henry Ford changed the world with the Model T. His innovations in engineering, development, and distribution revolutionized how people live. He was a legend in his own time. But he became so obsessed with his invention that it nearly ruined his company. He really did say that quote about having any color you want, as long as it was black.

Ford was fiercely tenacious about clinging to his ideas. On one occasion, his engineers completely updated the Model T into a low-slung, shiny red model while he was on vacation. When he returned, they proudly showed it to him. Without saying a word, Ford ripped it apart, piece by piece, and utterly destroyed it—with his bare hands. The message was clear: “There will be no innovation. We will always do things this way.”

Pause for a moment and consider whether your campus ministry is built like a Ford. What are your Model T’s in ministry? Where do we pay lip-service to innovation, “as long as it’s black”?

At certain crucial moments in Church history, ministry for and by college students has led the Church in prayerfully re-envisioning ministry for the world. It’s my conviction that campus ministry must again become an incubator for reaching our post-Christian world. It ought to serve as a laboratory for ministry, experimenting in how to reach an ever-shifting culture with the eternal Gospel. Campus ministry is uniquely positioned to shape the future, because we work with those who are the future.

In this moment, our moment, the world is rapidly changing all around us. Technologies that we didn’t dream of only a few years ago are now taken for granted. The only constant is change.

But is campus ministry keeping pace? It should. We work with the generation that is living the future, right now. They’re already living 10 years in the future, and if we’re living 10 years in the past, we’ve missed them. We dare not become stale, predictable, or cliché.

It’s easy to become like Henry Ford in campus ministry. Though we start off full of fire and with a willingness to take risks, eventually we “figure it out.” We find things that work, and stick with them. Before we know it, we’re blindly ripping apart the changes we need in order to thrive in the future.

We don’t know what the future will hold, though I’ve taken some stabs at predicting what it could look like in a previous post. http://faithoncampus.com/four-disruptions-that-could-shake-up-college-ministry/ But we do know we need to be open to the future. Openness is a missional imperative simply because people and culture keep changing.

Here are some ways we can avoid puttering around in our Model Ts while the rest of the world zooms past us:

Be an Active Learner. I’m probably preaching to the choir here, since you’re not on this blog and reading this far unless you’re interested in “sharpening your saw.” (2 points if you know what book I just referenced). Quick: what’s the last thing you read, besides this blog, to sharpen your campus ministry saw?

Be Open. In at least three senses:

1. Open to new ideas. Leave open time and space for innovation and experimentation. What if ministries instituted our own versions of Google’s 20% rule? Be flexible. Give people permission to try new things, and permission to fail.
2. Open in the sense of transparency. Don’t be secretive. Share the good stuff. Let people see your cards, whether or not you’re holding a strong hand. They’ll respect you more for it.
3. Open in the sense of open-sourcing. Everything is going this way. It’s not about simply consuming, but about users CREATING the value of that content through their organizing, and doing it collectively. (These blogathons are a great example of sharing insight and wisdom across organizational and denomination lines).

Work as a Team. Sharing, Teamwork, Peering—these are all essential for the right kinds of change to occur. Get people talking to one another. Waste less time in meetings not relevant to you, and get more involved in stuff you’re skilled & passionate about. All alone in your ministry? That’s no excuse. Share across traditional boundaries, both within your organization and without.

Embrace the Speed of Change. Stop trying to build a static institution, and start trying to build a fluid, dynamic movement. Students change, schools change, cultures change—so should we. Don’t build a treehouse—pitch a tent. That way, when your tree is being chopped down, you can move on quickly and easily.

Don’t Fear the Future. We don’t know what will happen in the future, but we know Who is in charge of it! While the western world has passed from Christendom, Christianity will never pass from the world (Matthew 16). Jesus isn’t afraid of it. And he wants us to try new things. In fact, he loves new things. “Behold, I am making EVERYTHING NEW!” (Rev. 21:5). All our genuine innovation is really renovation, and flows from Jesus’ renewing Kingdom work.

So let’s embrace the future and make something new for the Kingdom!

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