Adjacent Possible

Innovation through imagination and constraint

Where do good ideas come from? Despite the wishes of many who ache for a breakthrough, they rarely emerge from a downtown office or arrive as a gift from a spirit on high. What we do know is that the most meaningful ideas, the ones that help us navigate the challenges we face, tend to grow in more organic ways. For that insight, we owe a debt of gratitude to Steven Johnson, whose book Where Good Ideas Come From explores how creative ideas actually take shape and how we can cultivate the conditions that allow them to emerge.

On September 12, 1962, President John F. Kennedy challenged the nation to something that seemed nearly impossible: We shall send to the moon 240,000 miles away, a giant rocket, more than 300 feet tall on an untried mission to an unknown celestial body, and then return it safely to Earth. On July 11, 1969, we did. It seems like a given some 50+ years later, but at the time, it was breathtaking. It was a triumph of American intelligence, skill, perseverance, and scientific superiority.

A million good ideas went into accomplishing this feat. But diving in deeper, there were probably also a lot of ideas that didn’t pan out. I am sure there were plenty that could be classified as failures. But ingenuity, imagination, and hard work carried the day. Undoubtedly buoyed by lots of federal dollars and irrepressible self-confidence among the men who worked at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). America won the space race, and the possibilities seemed limitless.

The splashdown of Artemis II, a mission possible because of the space travel ancestors more than 40 years ago, gave witness to the continuing power of imagination manifest in action.

The way has not been easy.

Consider Apollo 13. This voyage was carrying three astronauts on their way to the third moon landing. Something unplanned created a problem, as in “Houston, we have a problem”. The oxygen tank in the service module exploded two days into the mission, disabling its electrical and life support systems. The ship, the lives, the triumph were all at risk of evaporating completely. There was little time and no way to supply the vulnerable astronauts with tools or any tangible support.

Options for solving the problem were limited to what was already on the ship. Only a good idea could save the mission and that good idea had to come within significant constraints.

Engineers gathered in a small room. A man sent by the Flight Commander walked in carrying a big box. He turned it over on the table and out tumbled some tubes, some valves, some hoses, a pair of socks and yes, duct tape. He picked up a square filter in one hand and a round filter in the other.

“You’ve got to make this one,” holding up his right hand,

“fit into this one,” holding up his left hand,

“using this stuff,” gesturing to the other random items.

“Failure is not an option,” he said, and walked out.

And they did it.

Johnson tells this story of the engineers who saved Apollo 13 to demonstrate the idea of the adjacent possible. By the “adjacent possible,” he means that at any given point in a system’s evolution, change is limited to what lies just at its edges. The possibilities that are not yet fully seen or understood but are still reachable from within the system. There is, in fact, a much larger set of changes that remain out of reach from where the system currently stands. The work of innovation, then, is to identify the changes that are possible now and to ask whether they move us closer to a system that gives more life.

The NASA engineers looking at their options for “fitting this into this with this” could be a great metaphor for us. People gathered together who care about the church, trying to connect the way of being church in the late 20^th century with the world in the first quarter of the 21^st century.

How do we keep the oxygen flowing? Can we make one fit the other?

In the mainline denominations, lots of people have given up. We hear all of the time, “it can’t be done” and “I’m out.” Others think it’s time to let the ship finish going down and start new enterprises. But other people are looking at the hoses, the socks and the duct tape and wondering what we could so with this. We are working with groups of people ready to move in an innovation space. We are inviting congregations to the adjacent possible.

The adjacent possible is accessed with different ways of knowing. By not relying only on interpretation of the written word or only on rationality. It is found through storytelling, imaginative reflection, authentic, even difficult truth-telling to each other, listening differently, testimony, laughter, wondering, generosity, loosening the death grip on being right.

The adjacent possible is discovered in small steps outside the comfort zone, in simple, openly curious conversation with people outside the inner circle, in entering the circle of gift-giving and receiving, in sitting with trees and seeing the town with each other’s eyes. The adjacent possible is discovered in paying attention to the gaps, without judgment or prescriptive solutions, and in staying in the unknown just a little longer than is usual. In the Houses of Hope process, we challenge people in small town and rural churches with these kind of practices.

Michael Adam Beck served a rural church in what he affectionately calls “middle of nowhere, Florida.” About 12 people came to worship every Sunday. All of them members of one of two extended families from the community. Beck was young, eager to serve a wider mission field, not simply the faithful twelve church attendees. He was eager to innovate.

He and his wife, Jill, brought with them a blended family of eight children. They certainly introduced new energy to the congregation. But as he discovered, the new energy of eight children alone wouldn’t grow the church.

The town didn’t have a lot of amenities. Soon his big family went looking for the closest restaurant to enjoy a meal that someone else had prepared. They found a diner in the next town over. They were glad for some barbecue. Meals at the diner became part of their routine. Michael developed relationships with the owners, the servers, and the other regulars.

Michael wondered what new thing God was doing in his town. He pondered what God was calling him and the church toward. He started where he was. He asked the folks at the barbecue place, “What would church look like for you?” First, he learned that they spend Sunday mornings feeding people; attending a church service simply isn’t possible. In the space opened by Michael’s curiosity, expressed through a relationship of familiarity and trust, something new began to emerge.

They co-created a church together right there in the restaurant, over barbecue-laden tables. From the adjacent possible.

The restaurant folks brought the good brisket, sliced pork sandwiches, and sweet tea, and Michael brought Jesus stories. He shared simple retellings of things Jesus did or said and asked people what they thought about it. Simple question, simple program, simply the gospel.

In his book, Fresh Expressions of the Rural Church, co-authored with Tyler Kleeberger, Michael describes what happened, “They could wrestle with the implications of the story in their own life as if they thought it might be true, It’s amazing how people would honestly share about their deepest moments of pain and struggle, just by reflecting on the stories of Jesus. It’s also amazing how time and time again, people expressed a deep sense of healing, by simply articulating their grief or doubts in an unfiltered way.”

The Jesus stories were the adjacent possible for the barbecue crew.

Michael’s experience resonates with the innovations of The Austin Story Project and Houses of Hope. We give people in congregations and church-related spaces the process and practice to gather in circles to entwine their life experiences with the life experiences of Jesus. What remains to be seen is whether those practicing this way will be able to enter spaces beyond their own community, places where others are also longing to share their deepest moments and find healing.

Will they access the adjacent possible?

Congregational Innovation is not for the sake of increasing numbers. We know that it is often difficult to accept that. It is for the sake of breath, of connecting the square filters of our lives with the round opening to the way of Jesus. It is finding what gives life and following the spirit in that direction. Michael’s church of 12 grew to almost 100 people in the first year. But he says, the real growth was in the depth of relationships, care, connection, and love.

Embracing the adjacent possible can lead to new life. God is the first innovator. We follow.