drive-by culture

Really brilliant observation by Seth Godin with so many parallels to the church today… some quotables:

“The net has spawned new ways to create and consume culture… [including one that] is distracting and ultimately a waste. We’re creating a culture of clickers, stumblers and jaded spectators who decide in the space of a moment whether to watch and participate (or not).”

“My fear is that the endless search for wow further coarsens our culture at the same time it encourages marketers to get ever more shallow. That’s where the first trend comes in… the artists, idea merchants and marketers that are having the most success are ignoring those that would rubberneck and drive on, focusing instead on cadres of fans that matter. Fans that will give permission, fans that will return tomorrow, fans that will spread the word to others that can also take action.”

The problem is that following Jesus inherently asks for more than a “click” or the distant attention of a spectator. When we focus on the nurturing/building/developing of true followers of Jesus we will not be able to talk about things like “critical mass” anymore. All of our measurements for success need to change. Ultimately that seems biblical – but will we as the church wake up to that?

May comment more later… but just wanted to share an astute commentary with y’allz.

Driveby Culture and the Endless Search For Wow

The net has spawned two new ways to create and consume culture.

The first is the wide-open door for amateurs to create. This is blogging and online art, wikipedia and the maker movement. These guys get a lot of press, and deservedly so, because they’re changing everything.

The second, though, is distracting and ultimately a waste. We’re creating a culture of clickers, stumblers and jaded spectators who decide in the space of a moment whether to watch and participate (or not).

Imagine if people went to the theatre or the movies and stood up and walked out after the first six seconds. Imagine if people went to the senior prom and bailed on their date three seconds after the car pulled away from the curb.

The majority of people who sign up for a new online service rarely or never use it. The majority of YouTube videos are watched for just a few seconds. Chatroulette institutionalizes the glance and click mentality. I’m guessing that more than half the people who started reading this post never finished it.

This is all easy to measure. And it drives people with something to accomplish crazy, because they want visits to go up, clicks to go up, eyeballs to go up.

Should I write blog posts that increase my traffic or that help change the way (a few) people think?

Should a charity focus on instant donations by texting from a million people or is it better to seek dedicated attention and support from a few who understand the mission and are there for the long haul?

More and more often, we’re seeing products and services coming to market designed to appeal to the momentary attention of the clickers. The Huffington Post has downgraded itself, pushing thoughtful stories down the page in exchange for linkbait and sensational celebrity riffs. This strategy gets page views, but does it generate thought or change?

disciplemaking not church planting

I want to share an entry from another organic church leader’s that simply says what I think most church practitioners don’t really get. It’s a continuation of my entry “the people are the product“. It’s the fact that we’re out to make disciples and not plant churches. When I was working my way through the church planting training mechanism of our denomination, I constantly heard, “The only way to evangelize the United States is through saturation church planting.” Which means, we need to plant as many churches as possible [specifically institutional style churches with a hip makeover]. Because new churches always are geared towards evangelism and old churches are geared towards taking care of their own. So the only way is to just keep planting as many as financially possible.

But that misses the point all together – because: first, new churches of that stripe aren’t necessarily evangelizing/disciplemaking more so than they are working to get more people in the building; and secondly it’s then wrongly assuming that building more institutions leads to more disciples. That is a lie of the devil – the same as having a nice home leads to whole and healthy families. Maybe sorta… but really, no.

Roger Thoman’s post is simply reminding us that our goal and heart and passion should be making disciples… helping them fall deeply in love with Jesus, follow him with reckless abandon and then help them help others… and continuing the viral nature of the Gospel through the world. Check it out.

Discipling Viral Disciplers
By Roger Thoman
Originally Posted HERE

I no longer try to start simple/house churches.  I think house churches are great.  They provide a place for people to experience participatory, everyone-matters church life.  They provide a way for people to really connect into authentic, one-another community.  They often provide a place for people to recover from some of the pains caused by institutional church life.  But house churches are no longer the end game for me.

Jesus invited us to join him, organically, in the reproduction of life. His church is a living, thriving, reproducing organism (Mark 4) that allows life-in-the-Spirit to spread virally from one disciple to the next.  His church is alive as illustrated by a seed (Mark 4) that brings forth 30, 60, or 100-fold reproduction.  That is the life of the kingdom.  His life in me is passed on to the life of another (2-fold) which is passed to the life of another (4-fold) which is passed to the life of another (8-fold), etc.  That is the way of organic/viral life and this is what the kingdom IS.  This is ultimately what Jesus invited us to become part of: discipling viral disciplers.

Kingdom life is viral, organic, and, by nature, a movement.

When I have made house churches the end game, I have discovered that they do not naturally reproduce nor become movements.  In fact, house churches have a shelf life.  They may serve a purpose for a season, but when that season ends (and it will) the “movement” is over.  The influence of a house church is temporary.

This explains why Jesus did not ask us to go and “make gatherings or churches.”  He did not ask us to go and “make house churches.”  He said, “go and make disciples.”  This shift from starting gatherings to making disciples (who go and make disciples) goes to the very heart of the matter.  Discipling viral disciplers is the end game.  This places us squarely in the midst of reproductive life that the kingdom is intrinsically about.  We become movement-starters not church-starters.  We release disciples who will influence the world throughout their lifetime and beyond as those they disciple disciple still others