Do ministries suffer from the innovator’s dilemma? Yes, they do. It is hard for us in leadership to see it, though, because often we are living inside the system that is suffering from it. 

A problem we face as leaders is that the original mission is almost always overtaken by the way that mission is delivered. In 2005, the late Clayton Christensen wrote the book The Innovator’s Dilemma. He observed what happened inside businesses when they successfully developed a service or product and brought it to market. The dynamics hold true for ministries as well.
As a business has success with a new product, increased demand requires more organization. The delivery process is refined. There may be investment in the system that produces the service or product. People within the organization become convinced that their service or product – what they see as “The Best Way” – is the best or right solution to getting the mission done. Bureaucracy grows around its delivery and a self-perpetuating loop reinforces the value of The Best Way. New people join the team. Some are specialized and only participate in one aspect of the system that has developed. They do not have the perspectives of the whole, but they are very good at doing what they know how to do.
In the business world, the innovator’s dilemma reaches its peak when a new competitor enters the market. There is often an innovative improvement, and the incumbent organization, focused on delivering The Best Way, cannot adapt. They are experts at doing what they do best, not this new and novel solution. Their success has doomed them because they have become so good at what they do. The organizational culture affords no other means of delivery.
Do ministries suffer from the innovator’s dilemma? Yes, they do. It is hard for us in leadership to see it, though, because often we are living inside the system that is suffering from it. Another reason it is difficult to identify is that our competitors are different. We are competing against worldview and cultural change. We may have developed culturally relevant ministries, but rapid change has now made our Best Way, whatever it might be, irrelevant because the people it was designed to serve are growing old, the next generation is always different from the former generation, and culture has changed.
The classic example from business is Seagate, a company that once dominated the hard disk industry. As customers moved from larger drives to smaller ones, they squeezed more and more profit from the factories creating hard drives. They got really good at creating 5.25-inch hard drives. Then the industry shifted to smaller drives using different materials. Seagate could not innovate fast enough. Smaller players, not invested in the same production facilities, took over and Seagate faded.
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Though sanctification is based on what Christ accomplished in His death and resurrection and is experienced in the lives of believers by the power of the Holy Spirit, God has appointed certain means to assist believers in the pursuit of growth in grace. The believer’s progressive sanctification will be commensurate with his employment of the means of grace. The central means that God has appointed for the sanctification of His people are the Word, sacraments, and prayer. 

If you were seeking a succinct definition of the biblical doctrine of sanctification, you would be hard-pressed to find a better one than that found in the Westminster Shorter Catechism. In the answer to Question 35, the Westminster divines wrote, “Sanctification is the work of God’s free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness.” Although this is an accurate definition of the progressive nature of sanctification, Scripture sets out several other important aspects of sanctification that are necessary for us to gain a full-orbed understanding of this benefit of redemption. Consider the following five things:
1. Christ is the source of sanctification.
Believers are sanctified by virtue of their union with Christ. He is the singular source of sanctification insomuch as He supplies His people with all that they need to grow spiritually as they abide in Him by faith. As the Apostle Paul wrote, “You are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30, emphasis added). To become the source of sanctification for His people, Jesus had to sanctify Himself in the work of redemption (John 17:19). Though He had no sin (2 Cor. 5:21), He consecrated Himself for His people by perfectly obeying the law of God as well as the mediatorial commands of God (John 10:17–18). Geerhardus Vos explained, “This . . . is not to be understood as a change in the Savior, as if this sanctification presupposes a previous lack of holiness, but as the consecration of His life in mediatorial obedience (passive and active) to God.” In addition to His obedient life, Christ was sanctified for us when He died on the cross. Since the sins of believers have been imputed to Christ, and He bore them in His body on the tree, they were judicially purged when He fell under the fiery wrath of God.
2. Regeneration is the fountain of sanctification.
Since justification is a legal benefit of redemption (i.e., a once-for-all act), sanctification more properly flows from the transformative blessing of regeneration. The implementation of a new nature (i.e., regeneration) into the lives of believers at the beginning of their Christian experience begins the process of sanctification.
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The us-versus-them mentality misses people because it misses the loving heart of Christ. Whereas categorizing people ends in exclusion, Jesus offers invitations to come as we are (Matthew 11:28–30). Jesus welcomed sinners and associated with the people that we might exclude. He calls those other people his own. He didn’t come to save the healthy but the sick, (Mark 2:17).

“What do we need to do to help them?” “How do we love those kinds of people?” “How are we supposed to speak the truth to them?” Have you heard or asked these questions about people in your church dealing with sexual issues? As well-meaning as these questions might be, they can create barriers between fellow Christians, separating God’s people. They metaphorically paint a circle in which some people are included because their struggles are more acceptable, while others are relegated outside of the circle. When we do this, we allow an “us versus them” mentality to form.
As Christians, we need to be extremely careful with such categorization. When it comes to sexual struggles, an us-versus-them mindset places the emphasis on someone’s sin or behavior, not the individual’s heart. Instead of viewing a person through the lens of Christ, as the Bible directs us, we look only at what is visible.
Here are three ways to characterize the “us versus them” mentality:
It speaks of people as a group. There is a truth to this, as well as a danger. The truth is that groups of people often share a characteristic or are in some way associated with each. When Jesus said to his disciples, “You give them something to eat” (Matthew 14:16), he was recognizing that all the people gathered before him were united in a group by their common situation of being tired, hungry, and a long way from home. When he said of the Pharisees, “Let them alone; they are blind guides” (Matthew 15:14), he was merely recognizing the voluntary grouping with which they had identified themselves.
But there is also a danger. The danger is that we overemphasize the group’s commonality that we deny the variety and individuality within the group. This is “painting with a broad brush.” One example of this is generalizing the characteristics of a group so much that we unfairly stereotype every individual. For example, “Gay people have an anti-Christian political agenda.” Well, in reality there are many who don’t.
It emphasizes difference at the expense of commonality. The attitude we are talking about focuses on what separates “my kind” from “their kind” without recognizing our commonality. This works against humility because our sinfully proud hearts always tend towards positive descriptions of ourselves and easily identify faults in others. An “us versus them” attitude keeps us stuck on those differences rather than encouraging us to recognize how alike we all are.
It emphasizes conflict at the expense of relationship and reconciliation. “Us versus them” defines the relationship by conflict—either our opposition to them or their opposition to us. In so doing, it does not seek connection. It seeks to conquer. It seeks to defend. It seeks to circle the wagons, to protect “us.” An “us versus them” attitude reinforces what separates us from a group of people and does nothing to move us toward engagement, redemption, reconciliation, and unity.
In the Bible, we see a plethora of us-versus-them examples. The religious leaders, the Pharisees and Sadducees, seemed quite certain that everyone outside of their own circle was a them. The self-righteous versus the sinners. The pious, mature adults against insignificant children. Powerful men as opposed to weak women.
One of the more prominent examples of this mentality was God’s chosen people, the Jews, pitted against the not-chosen people, the Gentiles. The division was so intense that Jews thought it was unlawful for themselves to associate with Gentiles. In Acts 10, we read about Peter and Cornelius, a commander of an Italian cohort. An angel of God visits Cornelius, a Gentile, and tells him to send men to Joppa and bring back Peter, a Jew. Cornelius obeyed. Then, starting in verse 9, Peter had a vision. Eventually, the men sent by Cornelius arrive, and, while Peter processed the meaning of the vision, he was told to go with the men without hesitation. Peter obeyed.
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