The Frog and "Why Not?!"- An Innovation Story
Matthew Overton
One of the key skills of anyone trying out a worthy ministry experiment (loosely defined as innovation) is to imagine what is both good and possible. Over the years of trying new experiments in my local church and listening to emerging practitioners I have found that often it is the people who adopt the mentality of “we could if” rather than “we can’t because” that are able to move themselves and their communities forward. The simple truth is that that history of innovation is littered with people who felt that there was something important to do. That sense of important work drove them to be creative in their thinking. When people are intrigued by a mission (godly or ungodly) they tend to get creative. This leads us to the story of The Frog.
In 1942 after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and multiple naval defeats to both the British and Navy fleets in the Pacific and across Malaysia, the United States needed a morale boost. Their plan was to try and launch a bombing raid on the city of Tokyo. The only problem was getting there. The Russians had told them they couldn’t land in Vladivostok. The Chinese had no free areas for American bombers to land in. They had considered flying out of India but the Himalayas and the Chinese landing situation prevented it. America only had a few carriers in the Pacific and it didn’t seem worth it to risk getting them too close to Japan to pull of a morale boosting mission.
Meanwhile in Norfolk, Virginia a sharp navy officer named Francis Stuart Low had an idea. Low had been watching American planes take off from a runway during military training operations and noticed their shadows passing over the outline of an aircraft carrier on the runway. The outline had been painted for training purposes as a target for trainees. Low, who had been nicknamed “Frog” began making mental leaps. As he saw the shadows and the outline he is reported to have thought, “Why not?!” Why couldn’t bomber planes, large though they are be launched off a carrier? Their shadows seemed to indicate that they were getting off the ground before they passed the end of the outline!
What came of his idea? What we know today as the “Doolittle Raid” over Tokyo. If you are unfamiliar with the story and its heroism, its worth reading about.
But, its another illustration (though admittedly a militaristic one) of what happens when someone loves what they do, believes it must be done, and is in a pressurized moment. The question, “Why not?!” might be the most important question to precede the idea that “We could if…”
When it comes to our gospel work, we must believe that our work matters. It is the single most important mission of our lives and it is one of peace. The question then becomes, do we care about it? If we do, then we must continue looking for moments where we can ask the question, “Why not?!” Our God is a creative God. Our God has seemingly engaged in a variety of what we might call (from a human point of view) innovations. Moments when elements and ideas that previously existed were combined in new ways to produce new demonstrations of the work and love of God for the world. And for those of us that have had those moments, you can feel the presence of the Holy Spirit in the midst of the intuitive leaps…the frog jumps that take place in those moments. I think we ought to imitate that kind of work. It’s true that we must ask all sorts of gospel questions before leaping about the goodness of the work and whether it diminishes the image of God in us and neighbor. But, the work of the church is worthy of both the intuitive leaps and the discernments that ought to go along with them.
Can we?
Why not?!