Part the Due Date: Part 2

“We are products of our past, but we don’t have to be prisoners of it.” ~ Rick Warren

In an online article Scott Anthon talks about how Kodak missed the challenges that faced them specifically by neglecting the importance of these three questions.
What business are we in today? ...define the problem you are solving

What new opportunities does the disruption [read technology] open up?
What capabilities do we need to realize these opportunities?

Let's face it. The church is a business, a business with a bottom-line, with employees, with a plant, and with a customer base. As such it should also avail itself of some of the wisdom that comes from the business community about how to maintain or even enhance its market share. The three questions above are a good way to begin that process. Looking at these points from the perspective of the church today and the challenge of declining attendance it is facing, what do we see?

For the last 200 years of its life the church has been in the business of providing a social network for the family, an outlet for the women outside of the home. It also offered ethical and religious teachings based on translated writings and doctrines from the past, and performed rites of passage, while being linked to the power structures of the day. These things are no longer resonating even with those within the church.

Instead of providing the social network for the family, today’s churches could become the support network for those same families. As knowledge explodes, the church has the opportunity to incorporate that knowledge into it’s liturgy. Leadership is needed that will support a bottom-up movement, who are wiling to empower others, especially the laity, that is not afraid of either change or failure, fully supporting experimentation on the part of its clerics.

For instance, having a screen in front of the church should be the expected norm. While that is not even new technology, the idea is often treated with suspicion, (BTW, the words to the hymn were displayed on a screed during my Sunday school days in the 1950's.) Printed prayer books were the new technology in the 1500's. Today's prayer book should be available on mobile devices or digitally displayed on the aforementioned screen at the very least.

We can all think of other institutions who have refused to embrace the technology of today and so have disappeared from the retail landscape. Black's Camera store, Sears Canada, as well as the previously mentioned Kodak come readily to mind. Others are offering new and different ways of accessing their services. Grocery stores offer online shopping with or without home delivery. You can now order your coffee and donuts on the way to that store and find them waiting for you when you arrive. Digitsl books are easily borrowed from the library without the hassle of having to remember to return them..and there are no overdue fees! These are just a few.

If we are always looking back to see what was, we will become like Lot's wife who when she looked back became a pillar of salt!

'Forget the former things, do not dwell on the past."

Isaiah 42.18

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