Developing Innovative Strategies

By Steve Backlund

As God’s people, we have access to profound, incredible ideas for breakthrough in our lives, relationships, ministries, callings, places of employment, and in our nations. 

This blog is an excerpt from my book, You’re Crazy If You Don’t Talk to Yourself. 

“Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know” (Jeremiah 33:3). 

The San Francisco 49ers have been my favorite pro football team for as long as I can remember. As with any sports franchise, there have been ups and downs in the team’s success. There was a lengthy time of high achievement that was ignited by Bill Walsh who coached the team from 1979 to 1988. 

Walsh inherited a losing franchise that won only two games and lost fourteen in 1978. The 49ers repeated that record (2-14) in Walsh’s first year in 1979. Things began to turn around when the team drafted a quarterback from Notre Dame named Joe Montana. He became the starting quarterback in the middle of the 1980 season. The 49ers went 6-6 that year and won the Super Bowl the next year. They went on to win two more Super Bowls under Walsh and were a powerhouse team in the mid-’90s. 

Bill Walsh was an innovative coach who changed the way the game was played. He introduced the “West Coast Offense”  that featured short passes from the quarterback to his receivers.  He revolted against the traditional “run the ball first and pass if you need to” philosophy. He also was known for having a script of fifteen to twenty plays that he would use in the beginning part of the game. There were many other ways that he altered the way football was played and coached. He was a catalytic figure. 

God has destined you and me to be innovative people and innovative leaders. 

He is inviting us to “call on Him so that He can show us great and mighty things, which we do not know”.  Each of us is to hear things from Him for us to know and do what no one (as far as we understand) has ever done before. Just as Coach Walsh took an old game to a new level through novel ideas, we too get to take normal living and ministry to higher altitudes through “scripting” the first part of our days with innovative steps. 

For me, God has shown me how speaking life to my soul in regular and creative ways is a key to revolutionizing my life and environment. I am being shown how to do things that I have not heard any person speak or write about. I believe that you, too, can find new, great, and mighty ways to impart life to your soul for the days ahead. Ask God about it, and He will answer you. 

As we conclude today’s teaching, I want you to once again pray out loud “with thanksgiving” to our Lord in a way that will strengthen your soul.