Innovation 2007, which makes its debut on February 9, is guaranteed to spark lots of discussion for a long time to come. The 64-page glossy book is the single biggest compilation of ideas and insights about North American churches ever undertaken by Leadership Network.

"We serve a God who is constantly creating and inventing -- and churches need to be constantly innovating to remain faithful to God's redemptive message to the world," says Dave Travis, Executive Vice President of Leadership Network and the driving force behind the project. "Innovation 2007 captures the current state of this process in the North American church."

Encouraging innovation in churches is nothing new to Leadership Network. Since its founding in 1984, its activities, programs and publishing partnerships have dramatically accelerated innovation in churches. Innovation 2007 is the next step in this process -- and it is a very big step, indeed.

"Innovation 2007 is not a statistical analysis, research paper or encyclopedia, but rather a helpful and easy-to-read executive summary," Travis says. "Each year, we send highly skilled teams out to discover what is happening in God's Kingdom work. Innovation 2007 is a short visual and verbal summary of this year's findings.

The book is designed to help Christian leaders quickly digest current topics of discussion in churches of various traditions, regions, and size -- and clarify what is most useful in their individual context."

Four Angles on Innovation
Warren Bird, Leadership Network's Director of Research and Intellectual Capital, directed and served as principal writer on the year-long project. Bird, who has co-authored 16 books on various church-related topics, organized and grouped Innovation 2007's information into four primary sections . . .