By 2045 the output of global pollution is expected to be cut in half. Such progress is forecast because world leaders recently sat down for a week of hashing out the real-world problems at the Vatican. Invited by Pope Francis and led by Catholic experts, it seems this might be a defining moment for getting a grip on global pollution. Experts say it was made possible because the Catholic Church was the only organization capable of bringing such a gathering together.
Of course, this is not a true story. But, what if it was? 

What a huge amount of social capital the Catholic Church would have with non-Christians. What a way to build a better reputation amongst people of the 21st Century, so we can reach them with the Gospel of Jesus.

Replace the environment with a disease, addiction, human trafficking, poverty, violence, etc and the story is the same. What if we Catholics became (once again) the leaders in innovation? What if we lived out the principles we preach more fully? What if our public witness was extraordinary and compelling to those that want more out of life? What if we truly became catalysts of goodness and renewal in our world? Because we once did and were.

A HISTORY OF INNOVATION
The reason Western society is still the leader in many areas of our world today is widely due to Christianity and Christian leaders. Throughout the last 2,000 years, Christians have been the leaders in education, science, medicine, technology, art, politics, human rights, economics, law, and more.

In other words, when the Catholic Church has thrived it has been largely due to innovative thinkers and leaders who had a space to try out new ideas, sometimes with direct patronage of the Church - but at least without it being an obstacle to innovation. These ideas were put into action and started to change lives. These changed lives started to change culture. A changed culture was able to spread throughout the world.

So many of our treasured institutions we hold so dear today, such as universities, hospitals, Western law, the scientific method, a free but regulated marketplace, etc - had their beginning in the minds of Catholics who took their ideas and made them realities. If you want a thorough reading of the history of innovation which the Church has had, I highly recommend the book, How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization by Thomas Woods.

THE ANTI-INNOVATION MINDSET 
Still, we ought not look back on past successes and think that the Church has always been open to innovative ideas, because that isn’t the case. Many leaders had to suffer through great hardships to lead change or needed renewal. They had to fight through a mindset which was anti-innovation / anti-entrepreneurial. In some ways, that is the case today too. To be a Catholic leader who is truly innovative, you will face many barriers.

We see it in the Church where there is mistrust, lack of clarity in mission, church politics, conflict, fighting for power, competition, jealousy, etc. In other words, sinners run and work in the Church! Furthermore, there is a culture of management - not mission. There is little vision for growth, but maintenance of decline. There is little transformation and a lot of status quo. We see a wide lack of true leadership, and a lot of people who care about not getting uncomfortable.

Having worked in the Catholic Church for nearly 20 years now, I know many of the dysfunctions which are part of the culture of Catholic parishes, dioceses, organizations, and apostolates. It is no secret that many are not healthy places. 

These things beg these questions:
- How did we get into this predicament?
- What do we do about it?

Here is a partial answer to the first question:

1. Seminaries (and grad schools) aren't forming leaders for the modern parish! Seminary formation is a hyper-academic environment, where young (mostly) men spend the majority of their time with peers, learning from (mostly) older men, who train them on philosophy, theology, sacraments, pastoral issues, etc. These are all good and necessary. Yet, when these men get into a parish, they are dealing with multi-generational issues, families, women (mostly), and are (for most of their priesthood) living alone. They rarely get to "use" their high philosophy and theology, because their flock doesn't even know the basics. Many lack leadership skills and training. Even fewer know how to form teams, deal with human resource issues, budget, fundraise, etc. Those are just the admin issues. Then there are the pastoral issues. These include a lack of understanding how to evangelize, how to bring someone to conversion, how to accompany someone personally and train others to do the same, how to bring a disciple to Christian maturity, etc. Lay leaders suffer from most of these issues as well. Is it any wonder then, why we have such big issues in the Church today? Leaders can't lead when they don't have the knowledge, skill, and ability to complete the task given them.
2. Pastoral training rarely helps our leaders understand real evangelization and discipleship! Too often we see leaders who don't have the answer for breaking the decline in our parishes. Answers which are creative and transformative. Innovative answers. This is because their experiences in pastoral ministry are focussed on classes, Sacraments, events, and pre-packaged programs (all good things but not enough to change the culture). They don't understand how to spiritually multiply or form missionary disciples - because they haven't apprenticed under someone who was doing these things. In other words, these are foreign concepts that most of our leadership has never personally experienced, even if we are starting to use the buzzwords of discipleship, missionary disciples, accompaniment, etc. Real change takes a leader who is willing to change how they personally operate, not just change the activities of the parish or diocese they are over.
3. Change is hard and all of us like comfort. We all know it and we all struggle with it sometimes. But, we MUST change the way we operate or we will continue to see the Church decline. For every one person joining the Catholic Church we have SIX  CATHOLICS WHO ARE LEAVING, in the USA! Not only that, but few go to Mass, believe the Church's teachings, have a relationship with Jesus, etc. How we can accept this and just continue to "manage" our parishes and dioceses doesn't add up. We should all be upset at this...unless we really just don't care that much about salvation for others. 
4. Lack of openness to innovation, an entrepreneurial spirit, and new movements. I am NOT advocating for changing the Church's doctrine. But, rather, we need new ways of operating, new movements, and a new missionary spirit. But, there is no small resistance to new ways of doing things. Part of it is fear. Fear of change. Fear that I have to change. Fear of having to humble myself to try something new. Fear that I may not have operated in the ways we need to and my work hasn't been as fruitful as it could be. This is nothing new. We are all human and nobody does things perfectly. But, we can all grow a lot more, if we become more humble and courageous. We need an age of experimentation and leaders (and donors) who encourage it.
5. A Culture of formation (good), but with little transformation (bad). Yes, we need to teach. Jesus taught. But, teaching isn't always the key to someone's heart being converted to Christ. Generally, it is in some kind of encounter with Jesus, where there is an explicit opportunity to choose to follow Him, and an invitation to repentance & conversion. This is evangelization. This is a big part of what we are missing - being explicit in our evangelization. Still, when many pastoral leaders start to take up pastoral planning, they fall back on what they know and many end up making teaching the core of the movement. Then we fall right back into the same problems we have. These two things (teaching and evangelizing) should be part of the same dynamic. Yet if we teach without evangelizing we get Catholics who may not believe in Jesus, even if they know doctrines. If we evangelize without teaching, we get ignorant disciples who don't have deep roots.
6. Stopping after we make converts - so we fail to raise up missionary disciples. This is now the new trend. Everyone wants to do more "discipleship". But, do we know what we are aiming at? Sherry Weddell did a marvelous job of giving us the language of being "Intentional Disciples". That is, someone who intentionally chooses to follow Jesus. Our discipleship is never an accident or merely inherited from others. Still, this is not the final goal and too often we aim at making disciples...and then we stop! We need to aim for disciples who make other disciples who make other disciples. This is a culture of spiritual multiplication, which takes a long time and a lot of vision-casting. Since this is foreign to most leaders, we don't know where to start, which leads me to my last point.
7. We don't change, because to do so means we have to admit we haven't always operated the right way. Change takes humility. Accountability takes humility. Can you imagine if a bishop admitted that he doesn't have all the answers, needs help, and is seeking to learn from others what would be the best ways to turn around his diocese, which is bleeding out Catholics? Personally, I would admire him a lot for such humility (note - there are a few bishops who are doing this). I remember the first time I realized I wasn't actually helping raise up missionary disciples. It hurt, because I had to admit I needed to change the way I operated. I started to seek out those who knew more, place myself at their feet, ask them to disciple (accompany, mentor, and guide) me. I then applied what I learned from them and started to mess up (and still be fruitful - because it was God doing the heavy lifting). I still don't know it all, am still a big sinner, still learning what makes up discipleship, and am still trying to grow as a disciple-maker. We ALL need growth and getting back to the model Jesus taught us.

The fix isn't easy. We need change in how we operate, within our parishes and dioceses. It starts with humility and prayer. We can then really discern what each of us needs, in order to grow as leaders. We need the proper vision. We need help. The reason is that God wants renewal in our Church, so that we can fulfill His work. Remember that a handful of disciples changed the world in a few generations, after Pentecost. What about us? Here is where we need to start.

A NEW CALL FOR CATHOLIC INNOVATION
God is creative. He made all of reality. He created you and I. In making all of the amazing parts of creation, he built within them meaning and purpose. He had a plan. In other words, God was innovative. Because the heart of what it means to be a Christian is found in taking the words and model of our God seriously and then putting them into action - we too need to be innovative and support others in their attempts to do the same.

What would a new age of Catholic innovation look like? Well, dream for me for a second.

• Growing Competency of our leaders - Catholic leaders who spent time training (after seminary and/or grad school) in areas they are not yet proficient. They seek out professional development that is truly transformative, not just informative. They operate through habits and virtues which produce tangible fruit in the lives of others. They become better and more competent at their vocations and jobs. They lead their dioceses, parishes, and organizations better and better, because they don’t settle for status quo in their own lives or those they lead.
• An openness to creativity and experimentation. There is no small resistance to new ways of doing things. Part of it is fear. Fear of change. Fear that I have to change. Fear of having to humble myself to try something new. Fear that I may not have operated in the ways we need to and my work hasn't been as fruitful as it could be. This is nothing new. We are all human and nobody does things perfectly. But, we can all grow a lot more, if we become more humble and courageous. While there are some small groups and movements advocating innovation (the OSV challenge is one), we need a movement, not a project to really change culture.
• We need to kill the silver bullet syndrome. Catholics have fallen prey to silver bullet syndrome for generations. Parishes buy the next hot video series, pastors hire leadership consultants, DREs implement new curricula, Youth Ministers go to the best conferences, Bishops hire get the new pastoral planning processes, diocesan leaders buy boxes of books and give them away, etc. We have done these things for many years, looking for the quick and easy steps that will transform us and our parish culture. But silver bullets don’t exist. Renewal is hard and slow. It requires prayer, personal change, accountability, vision, and hard work.
• We need to support innovation with money and prayers. Find the small group that is nimble enough to pivot and change, yet eperienced enough to make a real dent. Then support them with your money and prayers. Too often Catholics will only go for the large groups or the local parish/diocese. Those are great, but to really get innovative - we need to find the cutting edge and throw our support behind it.
• Collaboration built on true friendship. We trust our friends more than strangers. We are willing to sacrifice for family more than the person down the street. We do this because the closer we are to someone, the more we are invested and care. This is natural. It also means we need to stop seeing other Catholics who also want to improve the Church as our competition or even enemies. Most parishes and dioceses are operating in silos. Overcoming such division requires a pretty radical change in thinking for many. Yes, changing such a divided culture is slow and hard work, but it is worth it. The good thing is that most folks who work for the Church are good people, with good intentions, and good hearts. They want to help others, glorify God, and do the right thing. Therefore - it can be iron sharpening iron, if you learn to work together.

If you are a Catholic leader and this vision for innovative Catholic innovation appeals to you, but don't know where to start, maybe we can be of help. You can learn more here. If you are not a Catholic leader, but want to support our work, we invite you to donate here.