February 29th, 2012 by Andrew
Social media is everywhere, and changing the way organizations operate and compete. Based on conversations I’ve had with my pastor (Dave Ripper of Grace Chapel), will be having (I’ll explain below), and things I’ve been reading/hearing, I’ve wondered how these ideas relate to “the church.” The church can mean a lot of things, but I’ll explore that idea a little more below as well. Note that there is no thesis statement for this post. I don’t know where it will go, but I’m thinking about it, so I decided to write about it.
An HBR blogger, Nilofer Merchant, says we’re in the social era, and has published Rules for the Social Era. According to the article, “Facebook, KickStarter, Kiva, Twitter, and other companies thriving in the social era are operating by the rules of the Social Era. They get it. They live it.” However, “too many major companies — Bank of America, Sony, Gap, Yahoo, Nokia — that need to get it, don’t.” She argues that large organizations are the proverbial frogs in water that is slowly boiling, and that there is little hope for them. The first “rule” is that organizations need to think lean, not big. “Most organizations operating today started when companies needed more operating capital. Being big was in itself a mark of success. And in fact, being big created a natural barrier to entry for competitors.” This already opens up questions of what the church is. Some people view it as the global community of Christians, with many millions of members, while others are selective in their focus on specific denominations, or congregations. Within my mindset, I’ll think of the global community as the industry level (because it doesn’t really operate as an organization, as we envision it). I do not belong to a denomination (and neither does my church congregation), but I’ll assume that competition exists at the denomination level and congregation level, and that the variation in organization size and structure mirror the competitive market. You’ve got GE/Catholic church on one end, and garage start-ups/house churches on the other end. In some countries the church is illegal, just as Google is illegal in France. My church is pretty large, and it’s my understanding that thousands attend on a typical Sunday. Grace Chapel has planted small churches, and started satellite campuses (which do some things on-location, and somewhat “independently”, but simulcast the Sunday morning message). It’s my understanding that they may also explore the idea of an “online church campus.” What that looks like is unknown, but I was nominated to talk to somebody about it, which helped spark my interest in writing this post. My analysis will consider all the levels imaginable from the perspective of my church (a big church, planting independent small churches, operating satellite campuses, and even going online).
The second “rule” from the HBR post is that organizations need to think conversation, and not [value] chains. “[Linear] models optimized efficient delivery of a known thing. But this doesn’t help us when faster, fluid responses are what we need…. But “conversations” can actually go deeper if you allow them to become central to how you work, rather than leave them on the perimeter of the work.” This could certainly be a valid criticism of the church, but I think the claim would need to be defended. Certainly “efficient delivery of a known thing” is a major part of organized religion. In the case of Christianity, the “known thing” is the Bible, and efficient delivery would mean getting that information into people’s heads in a way that they can understand, and where it will have an impact on their lives (and souls). The entire Bible can now be easily read online (and in over 100 translations!), which seems pretty efficient. If you have a Kindle, you can get the Bible for free from Amazon (and a paperback version is only $1.99, with free shipping with Amazon Prime or an order of at least $25). But the church isn’t just about distribution of the words. Jesus himself spoke in a way that would not be understood by everyone, and elsewhere it shows that the words can’t be understood without someone explaining them. So, the church, and its members, are there to explain, but how is that best done? Based on the life of Jesus, I think it’s safe to say that preaching and teaching is part of this, but also conversation, traveling and having dinner in the homes of a wide variety of people. I think it’s safe to say that the conversation has moved “to the perimeter” for many churches, and that this is a mistake. The question remains of what that conversation should look like though, especially when you believe that absolute truth exists, and that false teachers will spread falsehoods to destroy the group. How can the conversation be effective, without becoming the only thing?
The third rule is that organizations need to share, rather than tell. “When companies think of social media, they hope to get consumers to “like” them or “fan” them, as if that increased connection is meaningful. Again, that captures the marketing aspect but misses the strategic point. The social object that unites people isn’t a company or a product; the social object that most unites people is a shared value or purpose.” She argues that “when people know the purpose of an organization, they don’t need to check in or get permission to take the next step, they can just do it…. With shared purpose, alignment happens without coordination costs…. This is the foundational principle of the social era.” Though I don’t think Merchant adequately differentiates between “share” and “tell”, especially when “truth” is the “product”, but this seems central to the idea of the church engaging with the world around. It’s not just about being “liked”, or somebody saying they’re Christian on their Facebook page – it’s about a shared purpose that should unite and motivate everyone of the faith. You can’t just tell people to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” and to “Love your neighbor as yourself.” They have to share that value if they’re going to live it. You can coordinate feeding of the poor, but the coordination costs are too high to make care for the poor a 24×7 behavior without that “alignment.”
In another essay, Merchant argues that “for organizations wanting to thrive in the social era, being distinct is key to both profitability and winning. While there has always been a market for bespoke, differentiated items, until very recently that market served a tiny fraction of the uber-rich. But today, both macroeconomic forces, and technological advances mean that customized products aren’t just for the one percent. Instead, customized products and experiences can be for everybody, at least some of the time.” Fortunately, profitability is not the motivation for [true] faith, but there is an element of competition in scripture, whether it’s about defeating death and evil, or running the good race. More importantly, I think the requirement for conversation requires customization to some degree. If it’s different, based on who you’re talking to, it’s really not a conversation – it’s just preaching. This customization has a wide range of possibilities, and many of them have nothing to do with social media. You could spend time getting to know the poor in Boston, and inviting them into your home, or partnering with and mentoring existing leaders in South Africa, enabling them to succeed. Still, when churches have access to social media tools, the question remains of how best to use them.
One idea I’d like to reinforce, is that even though this blogger has invented the term “social era”, our world has been social for a very long time. I think perhaps we are seeing an upswing in the idea of social right now, but that is partly because we’ve seen some harmful effects of the anti-social era ® (I just invented that term). In the old days, money lending was personal, and forgiving debt was common and fair (as was trying to pay your debts). These days, money lending is mixing huge anonymous pools of money, assigning it account numbers and acronyms like CDOs. Corporations will refuse to pay their own debts, but promote the message that some loans should never be forgiven, no matter what (even if you’ve died, and the courts have declared the debts void). Military conflict has always required some level of dehumanization (part of the reason for uniforms), but now remote controlled flying machines can rain death from the sky, and will soon be coming to a town near you. It used to be easy to know what the right thing was, but the US alone now has hundreds of thousands of pages of laws (and millions of pages more in regulations) – and if you cross an imaginary line, the laws are completely different. The average citizen violates countless laws every day, and some laws are so absurd that it can be considered anti-social or dangerous to obey them (I-95 in the Boston area is a major four lane highway, with a speed limit of 55 – and an average speed of free flowing traffic much higher). But before we had all these rules, standardization (factories and public schools), and constant communication, we had social behavior. Even with government, when the boss was a 3-month ship ride away, a governor would have to understand the values of their ruler, and make wise decisions based on those values, and what seemed fair. Now, fairness doesn’t even enter the equation. This conflict has always existed to some degree, and even Jesus battled it. He was constantly accosted by rule-followers, convinced that everyone was terrible, because they couldn’t follow all the rules. Jesus called them out as the assholes they were, and helped people, even if it was a day where working was prohibited. He hung out with prostitutes and tax collectors (even worse). He would talk with anyone, about anything. Should you get a divorce, give to the poor, eat grain from a random field? He’s talked about it, with people who had the questions. He had custom conversations, when the crowds weren’t getting too big. And when he got too many followers, he couldn’t delete his Twitter profile, but he did get in a boat and go to the other side. It was not all about the biggest crowd, or the most efficient communication – it was about social conversations. But what should that look like now?
There is some pretty low hanging fruit out there, for churches everywhere, and including mine. I think the really low hanging fruit is in sharing. Even if you don’t know what conversations will take place yet, you can share, and see where it leads. All events were canceled today, because of the weather. It was on the website, but was not tweeted. A lot of the church uses the same one or two devotionals, which are available online. It would be very easy for 1-2 people each day to blog or tweet their thoughts on that day’s devotional (for an idea of what I mean, here is today’s). If you’re going to have a thousand people from one community reading the same thing every day, start a conversation about it, and get them engaged! One thing they’re doing, that is cool, is encouraging everybody to read through the New Testament for Lent, with a specific reading plan. Even better, they’ve created a website with MP3s of the readings for each day, so you can listen while you workout, or while you drive, or while you lay there hating reading (I’m really enjoying them, and the varied voices, though I’m a couple days behind schedule). It wouldn’t be that overwhelming if the twitter account for the church tweeted links to that days MP3 and passage on the internet, each day. You would have a little reminder in your feed, that you can click your preferred medium, or ignore entirely without even the need to hit “delete”. They upload recordings of the sermons each week, along with associated study guides for follow up – they could tweet when those go live each week. These ideas would really work for churches of any size, but a mega church could also create an app, that can show real-time parking availability, updates for service times (that alone is usually a hassle to find on the website, and I can never remember), and events for the week.
Jumping into conversation mode, there are also a lot of pretty easy steps. Blogs and twitter are both pretty easy. Do you sometimes think? If so, write down what you’re thinking, when you’re thinking it. If not, share what other people are thinking (even better if you share what people you’re trying to have a conversation with are thinking). A cool think my church is doing is having one of their pastors have a phone conversation with every single member of the church (mine was Dave Ripper, which was awesome because he is awesome). What better way to start a conversation than calling every member, and spending 15 minutes asking them to tell you what they like or don’t like about the way things are working? It might engage them more in the rest of the stuff, but even if it doesn’t, it’s an actual conversation, and the start (or continuation) of an actual relationship. This stuff matters, as much more than social media. Offering interesting and relevant classes, in a more intimate setting, also really helps get the conversation started. I’ve taken a class on personal finance, and Jennie and I took a pre-marriage class before we got married. This included some churchy values, but I could see them also being valuable for anybody who needs to manage their money better, or wants to have a successful marriage (and there were people from outside the church in both of those classes). Right now Jennie and I are taking a class for already married couples, and participants range from newly married to married for 30+ years, and there are lots of great conversations in that group. We specifically chose it, to help solidify the foundation of our relationship before we go through the major life changes of falling income, starting school, selling a house, and moving to a completely new city. There are also tons of other topical courses, but it would be interesting if they started to branch out into interactive/online/social media versions of some of these. In particular, few people that attend the evening service (which is a lot of the social media generation) can attend most of the classes, which are only offered in the morning. However, with the explosion of online education, it would be interesting for the church to start exploring how they can engage their members, and society, by offering something online. If an early morning weekend personal finance class can bring in crowds, imagine the potential for an online version.
These are just some basic ideas, and I can’t dive into them too much right now (it’s very busy at work – and 10 PM), but I think there’s a ton of potential. Feel free to start a conversation with me about it.
Can a church be all social? I’ll close with a few comments here, but I think a particular church related organization can be all-social, but I don’t see any reason or benefit in a member only interacting in that way, just as it wouldn’t be appropriate for somebody to live their entire life on Facebook. However, I think there is some potential for very meaningful online interactions. There is an internet based Rotary Club, for example. An online church could do some things very well, perhaps including many of the things that most churches focus on. If somebody is going to just sit in a chair, and watch a sermon, they can do that from anywhere. They can maybe listen to some Christian music at home too, or even sing along, but I think that would really be inferior to the real experience of singing in a packed room with an enthusiastic crowd. Personal conversations can be facilitated online though, and might even be easier than offline (on Sundays, in mega churches, many people probably come and go without a single interactive moment, but level of interaction can be tracked in WebEx type software very easily). It’s also easier for some people to open up online, sharing their hurts and struggles. However, I think this would ideally be supported with some sort of personal interaction as well. Grace offers “life communities” – small groups of people that meet in homes. An online church could get together many people virtually for preaching, but facilitate location-based small groups all over the region, country, or even world, in ways that a physical building could not. Group video chats might offer some interesting possibilities here, for people to interact with the “global church” in ways that are not possible locally, but I don’t think the technology is quite there yet (when I skype with my friend in South Africa, it’s voice only – and that gets a lot more complicated with groups of 10-20).
Anyway, I think it’s an interesting question. I’m not an expert on this, by any means, but please feel free to share comments, ideas, or criticisms in the comments. I have not re-read any of this, and I wrote it over many hours, on a busy day at work, but I hope you’ve found the thoughts interesting.
Church, Social Media