The Innovative Leader by Pastor Sam Adeyemi: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

What Innovation Really Is

Every car today has a three-point safety belt. It was not always that way. It used to be just a strap across the waist. But when they discovered that even though in the event of a crash it restrained people, it also created problems because the force of the car would throw the body forward and destroy internal organs.

Nils Bohlin, a Swedish engineer who had been certified as a mechanical engineer and then worked with an aircraft company, was working at the Safety Division of Volvo. As an aircraft engineer, he had learned to study the distribution of forces on the body in a crash. He introduced the belt that comes across the chest so that when the body is involved in a crash, the belt transfers the force to the rib cage, which protects the internal organs. That belt saves millions of lives every year.

That is what innovation is about — it is about improvement on what is already existing.

There is invention, there is creativity — especially creativity, which brings something that has not existed before. But innovation takes what is already in existence and makes it usable, uses it to solve a present problem. To innovate means to make changes in something established, especially by introducing new methods, ideas, or products.

Innovation is simply finding solutions to problems.

To the credit of Volvo — they gave the patent to all other car manufacturers for free. They could have made money every single time this system was installed in a car, but they realised this is something useful for humanity. There is no need to control it.

Why We Must Innovate

• Because we have problems. We have physiological problems, social problems, economic problems, psychological, emotional, spiritual, and political problems. The existence of problems establishes the need for innovation.
• Because it is the way to thrive as the world changes. If you remain the way you have been and continue to think and do things the same way, the likelihood is you will find yourself in the wrong place.
• Because it boosts productivity and revenue. Your capacity to add value and solve problems is tied to innovation.
• Because it helps us extract great value from our resources. Without innovation, crude oil would be totally useless. Without innovation, we would have no shoes from cowhide, no textiles from cotton.

In 2 Kings 4, there was a widow whose husband owed so much money. The creditors came and wanted to take her two sons as slaves. She ran to the prophet. The prophet asked, "What do you have in the house?" She said, "Nothing except a small jar of oil." He said, "Go borrow empty barrels from your neighbours — don't borrow a few, get as many as you can. Close the windows. Take that small jar and pour the oil into those big barrels." She complied, and the moment she began to pour, there was a miracle flow of oil.

The first principle from that story is this: God will never allow you to get to the point where there is nothing around you that he can use to move you to the next level in your finances.

That became the message — start with what you have. If you are going to be innovative, you have got to have that basic belief system: my blessing is not far from me; there is something around me.

Solomon said in Proverbs 12:27 that the lazy man does not roast what he took in hunting. The laziness Solomon is describing is not physical exertion — it is mental exertion.

The Foundation for Innovation

1. You must really care about people

   The foundation for innovation is love. Leadership is about people. You must really care about people.

   I define love as the ability to recognise and celebrate value in another person, drawn from John 3:16 — for God so loved the world that he gave. God was not feeling romantic. That was sacrifice. Recognising value in another person.

   Every human being is an extension of God. Man was created in God's image — man is the most valuable asset on this planet. In Matthew 25:31, Jesus gave us a template of what will happen when every person appears before God. He said, "I was hungry and you did not feed me, I was thirsty and you did not give me water." And those people would argue, "Lord, when did we see you like this?" He said, "As much as you did not do it to any of the least of these, you did not do it to me."

   When you look at man from that position and appreciate the phenomenal value of man, you will never treat a human being with indignity again. And you will observe the gaps in their lives — why should someone so valuable not have food to eat? That motivates you to innovate.

   Our most valuable asset is time. Time is a convertible resource — you can convert it to money, to a loving relationship with your spouse, to good parenting. But time is more than money: your time is your life. Killing time is not murder — it is suicide. If you could do something in 15 minutes but kept a person for 8 hours, you wasted part of that person's life.

2. You must value the human mind and ideas

   The equipment God gave us is the mind — for recognising value and for extracting it.

   You may also like

   

   Impact Conference 2026 | Purpose-driven Leadership And Priesthood

   by Apostle Joshua Selman

   arrow_forward

   You have to accept that you are a co-creator with God. When a person originates an idea we call it a brain child. We have been creating children but we have not been creating what the children will eat. The world pays you in proportion to the value of your brain children.

   Your brain uses your body to collect data and interpret it. Your brain uses your imagination to explore the intangible. Your imagination is your opportunity to overcome your limitation — when it comes to imagination, you have no limits. You are not limited by time or space. The mind stands between the intangible world and the physical world; it is our opportunity for converting intangible realities into physical realities.

   It is when you change your thinking that you change your life.

Fostering Innovation as a Leader

If you lead a group of people and you want innovation to be part of your culture:

• Provide guidance — define the problem you are solving.
• Set the example — be a thinker, read, study, generate ideas.
• Encourage ownership — let team members own the vision; delegate and empower.
• Find hidden gems — look at your team members; everyone is gifted, everyone is a genius.
• Celebrate diversity — different perspectives save you from calamity. If everyone on the team thinks the same way, seven of the eight people are useless.
• Embrace failure — allow people to try, fail, and make mistakes, because it moves us closer to the solution. Life does not give perfection on the first attempt.
• Act on great ideas — when people contribute great ideas, do not let your ego get in the way.
• Pay attention to hierarchy — the challenge with a heavily hierarchical structure is that the voices of people at the lower level are never heard, yet they are the ones in direct contact with the customers and the real problems.

The Two Foundations of Human Thinking

In 1 Corinthians 1:22-24, Paul writes: Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified. Two ideological foundations drive our world. One part values the supernatural — the miraculous. The other values logic — the use of the mind, and is curious to find the principles that govern nature.

The part of the world that values the supernatural places massive emphasis on prayer. Their results are mostly in the invisible world. But they often remain weak in solving physical problems. Understanding principles unlocks creativity — it is when you understand the laws of aerodynamics that you can design an aircraft.

The part of the world that values logic innovates and what they innovate, the rest of the world has to buy.

Paul is saying that both exist in Christ. The Jewish nation of today has left much of the world behind in innovation and technology — not because they abandoned the supernatural, but because they embraced both wisdom and power. The culture you are raised in influences the aspect of God that appeals to you — but both the power side and the wisdom side are in God.

Father, I pray for everyone connected to this message. God, give them a breakthrough idea. May this mark the end of stagnation and the beginning of massive shifts in their lives as individuals, in their families, in their organisations, and in their nations, by the grace of God.