In the 1980’s, there was an amusement park in New Jersey called Action Park. Designed as a weekend escape for New Yorkers by an eccentric finance millionaire, the park featured water rides, go-karts, massive slides… and almost no safety regulations. Action Park became famous for its laissez-faire attitude towards its own customers’ lives, its rowdy atmosphere, and its totally over-the-top rides. 

The rides were often conceived of on the back of a napkin by the founder, Eugene “Gene” Mulvihill (notably not a person with any technical experience in that kind of thing), or were pitched by ride designers who had already been turned down by all of the mainstream parks, usually for being too risky.¹ 

Gene believed that more was more, and often even took the risky designs from the ride designers and changed them to make them faster, taller, more dangerous, seemingly allergic to any sense of restraint when it came to what Action Park would offer. 

While I have never designed a water slide that ripped out human teeth, I do work in innovation and new projects, and will admit that Gene and I share the tendency to not err on the side of caution.² I tend to assume that I am fine to make it up as I go, to design my own rides. It is not my impulse to check for permission, to seek outside input, or pull the breaks on my own. 

And while that has proven to be a useful paradigm to bring to chronically slow church work, I can’t pretend it always works out. I recently partnered with a client and when it seemed like they were excited about a new idea, I went with it, drafting, designing and moving forward. All of a sudden after a few weeks, I started hearing more and more specific and persistent questions all about the technicalities of the program, about how this one piece might not fit with this one piece. It took a few rounds of questions before we all realized they just weren’t as ready as they thought they were. We had to start from scratch with another new idea that was more conventional and in their comfort zone. In pulling ahead at a speed they weren’t ready for, I had unintentionally slowed us all down because we had to go back to the beginning. 

It got me thinking about Action Park, and how we effectively balance the energy needed for innovation with the safety checks and counter-forces needed to keep from creating total chaos. 

How do we keep the rides moving, while also keeping them (literally) on the rails? I think we can think of this in two directions: 

For the people who tend to slam the gas (myself included):

1. Have a sense of scope before you begin. What is it exactly that the people you are serving are looking for? Is it a new offering, a new program, a whole new organization? Pitching a total church re-brand when your church council was thinking you were going to move up donuts and coffee time by 15 minutes is a way to ensure that they can’t hear you (even if you’re right)

2. Establish ground rules or foul lines. Knowing what your people will not go for will help keep you from undercutting your own creative momentum by stepping on landmines. Having a clear sense of the boundaries of your permission allows you to play inside the permission you do have more effectively. 

3. Work together. Yes, it will slow you down. Yes, they won’t want to do it your way, but asking the safety engineer before the ride gets built will save a lot of busted chins and knees. Have the meeting you don’t want to have, and be willing to incorporate feedback from people who think differently from you at every step of the way. 

And for people who tend to ride the brakes:

1. Trust that God will be in the new thing as much as God was in the old thing. God is a God of creation! God is at work, and moving away from one way that God has worked in the past does not mean moving away from the way God works. New things can be an invitation into deeper purpose, deeper connection, and deeper understanding of God.

2. Get clarity, and share it. If you feel a sense of unease about an idea, spend some time unpacking that feeling, and identifying what real needs, fears, and stories are behind that unease. People who tend to hit the gas (me), will take the permission you give them, so making sure that your ‘yes’ is yes, and your ‘no’ is no, and that those yeses and nos are clearly communicated, can save frustration down the road. 

3. Work together. Yes, it will push you faster than you think you should go. Yes, they won’t always take your advice, but allowing innovation and change to be part of the DNA of your community will ensure your community’s survival in a changing world. 

Innovation work, especially as part of a community, always exists in this tension. The tension isn’t something to be solved or avoided, but used as a tool to ensure that your community grows responsibly, consistently, and without knocking anyone’s teeth out. 

No matter which side of this push-pull you’re on, feel free to give us a call, and we can help your community manage the ride. 

1. All of this is pulled the documentary Class Action Park, on HBO. ↩︎
2. It was a water slide with a loop in the middle, and that part of the documentary is not for the faint of heart. ↩︎