You can argue all you like that the news can’t die just because the newspaper or traditional TV die. But that denies the reality that this is exactly what’s beginning to happen in front of our eyes.
And it’s what always happens when you fuse the mission and the method too closely.
It’s what killed Kodak, Blockbuster, Sears Canada and countless other businesses in our life-time. They simply couldn’t figure out a new way to do what they do.
Methods change. Mission shouldn’t.
But if you fuse the mission and the method, and the method dies, so can the mission.
Fundamentally, you have to ask yourself, are we in the news business or are we in the newspaper business?
For the church, this is a wakeup call.
The long-standing challenge of declining church attendance and irregular attendance even among committed Christians has been well documented here and elsewhere (here are 10 reasons even committed church attenders attend less often these days).
Even though I’m fortunate to be part of an expanding church that has growing attendance, we still have to rethink our methods to further the mission.
For years, the equation has been more people in the seats = progress.
And almost all the resources of every church goes into getting more people into the seats.
The assumption? Attendance = engagement.
As I shared in this post a while back, that’s increasingly backward thinking.
In the future church, for these five reasons, engagement will drive attendance; attendance will no longer drive engagement.
As we move into that reality, here are some fresh ways to frame the question.
Ask yourself, are we in the:
Life-change business or in the attendance business?
Engagement business or the attendance business?
People business or the facility business?
Again, there’s no easy way forward. It’s going to take innovation and risk.
As I heard Clay Scroggins share with me recently when we were discussing all this, he said “We used to bring people to church. We need to bring church to people.”
Exactly.
I outline nine keys to innovation here.
2. We’re Re-Tribalizing
So what happens when local newspapers die and even major networks and publications can’t staff their bureaus anymore (a trend that’s well underway)?
Essentially, we are left with what the candidates themselves say and whatever we happen to think about it all.
That’s hardly a hallmark of a civilized society.
In the last decade as billions of us have gained access to almost any information and virtually everyone has their own platform (at least in the form of a social media account), we’ve seen people increasingly pick sides and tribes.
People haven’t become more tolerant. On the left and on the right, we’ve become increasingly intolerant, distrustful and even abusive toward each other.
Sadly, it’s as though we’re tribalizing.
One of the great by-products of the church’s mission is that authentic Christianity fundamentally gets people to think beyond themselves, not only submitting to Christ, but submitting to one another.
It’s sad that Christians have fallen prey to the ‘scream louder’ and ‘say whatever (ill-informed) opinion is on your mind trend’ in our culture.
The voice of reason seems to be disappearing from our culture.
As Jon Acuff put it during a recent interview I did with him, “Outraged plus ignorant is wildly dangerous.”
