Do something new

Innovation is a key feature of Wharfedale Vineyard. We encourage people to experiment with doing new things and new ways of doing things. Reflecting on past years and lots of innovation in the Vineyard, we detect a pattern that expresses how this can work. It is summarised as:

Pioneer
Review and simplify
Replicate

Pioneer

If you have ideas, enthusiasm and energy for something new, why not see if a small pilot can be done in a housegroup context. Or chat to the leaders of any of the existing activities. The idea can be something you have seen in another church or read in a book, or something you don't think has ever been done before. For example in Wharfedale we have seen innovations in areas such as:

24-7 prayer, inspired by the book Red Moon Rising
Minicab: inspired by the original Wharfedale Vineyard all-age housegroup, mixed with ideas from Intergenerational Cell Groups seen in another local church.
The Vine: as far as we know a way of doing "all-day church with swimming" that had not been seen elsewhere, but has subsequently been copied in other churches.
Vineyard Kids worship party: inspired in part by the Great Big God CD launch roadshows
Belly Buttons: a toddler group for parents, subtly different from a traditional mums and toddlers group.

Review and simplify

After a pioneering activity, an important follow-up is to review and collect feedback. We usually ask the leader to speak first about "What went well" and "Even better if" and then collect encouragement and improvement suggestions from others as well. More importantly, we are seeking to discern what God is blessing, and to go with that.

Often a first activity will be complicated and intensive to organise, so a key question is to ask how it can be made sustainable - and usually that means simplifying some aspects of the project. So for example:

The first Minicab group aimed to provide a complete programme with every possible element. Now Minicab groups choose a smaller focus or range of activities that complements the other activities in the Vineyard, and which is appropriate for the needs and interests of the families in the group.
The Vine started with an ambitious programme that included special welcome activities, two teaching sessions, up to five seminars as well as lunch and several sporting options. We quickly realised that less seminars were needed, simplified the welcome activities and dropped the second teaching session.
The Christmas tree collection suddenly became easier when we introduced the Webform to collect people's details on the church website. And when we discovered that the Council would support the activity by providing skips for free.

Replicate

Once an idea has been shown to work, other groups are often keen to do something similar, or there may be energy to do it more frequently. Usually we give space for stories to be told to encourage this to happen.

To give some examples

one Halloween, one housegroup did "No trick, our treat" and the next year, after hearing the stories, several groups did their own versions in their areas.
after a couple of years of Christmas Tree collections in Adel, the activity was ready for seven groups to do in different areas of the city.
the first Minicab group experimented with many different formats and spawned at least five groups which have done different variations on that theme for different periods of time.

Not all ideas end up being repeated, and this isn't always because the idea was bad.

So if you are bursting with ideas...

Join a housegroup
Get stuck in and serve in a related area to gain experience
Talk about your idea informally. You could mention it in the "In the pipeline" forum.
Pray about it and ask others to pray for you
Learn from similar things done elsewhere through reading or visiting.
Find people who are enthusiastic enough about your idea to put some effort into helping.
Find a housegroup leader or leader of another area, offer to help in their task, and ask for the opportunity to experiment.
Some initiatives require money or resources (the Vineyard Centre or staff support for example). If so, please talk with your housegroup leader about asking for help and/or money.
You may need to discuss your idea with one of the wider group of leaders who will be able to allocate money or resources and provide a point of accountability.
Be prepared to review it candidly, and to receive feedback from others

David Wallace, 16/08/2008