Jake is on the surface the ideal candidate for the much caricatured institutional anachronistic and dying suburban church. He comes from a middle class family, grew up in the church, dresses sensibly, drives sensibly, eats sensibly, has moderate music tastes, wears short hair and he shaves as well.

Under the surface, like many suburban churches, he is radical. He may not look like it, but he is a university drop out. The reason he dropped out is quite unlike the usual drop out story, which is filled with lame excuses and evidence of an unforgivable squandering of a chance at getting an education most people on the planet would die for. The reason he walked out of his engineering course one year out from finishing was mind blowing.

Jake has a brilliant mind underneath his respectable suburban institutional church exterior. He is a problem solver. His university course proved too limiting, too grounded for his ideas. Along with a good mate he made in the first two years of university he baled out and started a design innovation company. Their first project was decided on whilst still in uni.

Whilst walking down the street and seeing a particular difficulty someone was having [I have to be confidential here as this is currently in the hands of international patent lawyers] they hit on an idea which could eventually have global significance, in the same way that drinking straws, sugar bags, kitchen wipes, etc have become a global must have in every day life.

To fund the expensive legal fees incurred in obtaining international patents they have started a graphic and web design company. The first I knew about this uni dropout was when he walked into my office late on Friday afternoon and asked if he could have a few minutes. He wanted to know who was doing it tough, either in the church or in our local community. The reason he wanted to know is that he had made an in principle decision from the start of his innovation business [maybe one day an empire?], that he wanted to donate 10% of the profit to people who needed help.

He is now in contact with our Care Coordinator to ensure he can get the good oil on where his money can go. Nobody else knows that he is doing this, and not even the recipients know where the money comes from. He is not doing this because we teach on tithing either.

To my mind he is doing it because he is an unusual invisible suburban radical, the kind of which lurks beneath the surface of that much maligned entity that Emergents love to lampoon. He is the product of the day in day out, month in month out, year in year out loving faithfulness of many who attend local suburban churches.

Call us uncool if you like, call us anachronistic, but rather dig a little deeper in uncool churches and prepare to be pleasantly surprised about what you will find. You may just discover that the invisible suburban radicals beat you to it when it comes to innovative faith living.