Has Listening to Church Attenders Led to the Decline of the Church? (re-post)

In my lifetime, I have been involved in some really traditional and really innovative expressions of the local church.  The main difference between the two tended to be the area of focus.  Traditional churches focused on those who were coming.  More innovative churches tend to focus on who hasn’t yet come.

For example, as a church leader in a church plant in Seattle, I began to realize I was so desperate for people to show up that I allowed our vision to be hijacked by people who had left other churches to come to ours. I ended up compromising our vision for a church that reaches out to focusing on the needs of the ones who were coming.

Learning from Gary Irby (church planting strategist for Seattle) and then later Erwin McManus (lead pastor at Mosaic), I came to realize my mistake. As church leaders, we need to make decisions based on who is not here yet rather than on who has been here the longest.

This principle is true in business as well.  According to Clayton Christensen, Harvard Business Professor, Author, & Innovation Expert:  “The Innovator’s Dilemma is about the failure of companies to stay atop their industries when they confront certain types of market and technological change. It’s not about the failure of simply any company, but of good companies…

It is about well-managed companies that have their competitive antennae up, listen astutely to their customers, invest aggressively in new technologies and yet still lose market dominance.”

So then, what is the solution?

According to Christensen we need to be willing to innovate to reach a new audience.  If not, our current audience will get older and pass away.  Ironically, they will also go to a new company willing to meet their needs better than we are.

I realize that the business world isn’t synonymous to ministry, but too often churchgoers do make decisions as if they are consumers rather than ministers.  For those of us who are church leaders, we have to make sure we avoid that same consumeristic trap.

For more notes on The Innovator’s Dilemma, send me an email at eric@gatewaychurch.com with “Innovator’s Dilemma Notes” in the subject.  I will also include you in future email newsletters which include free resources.

The Innovative Gamble of Hulu

I read an interesting article about Hulu awhile back which points out the risks involved with providing content through unusual means (through the Internet rather than just on TV), but the greater risks involve not being willing to make any changes whatsoever.

The Fast Company article is by Chuck Salter. He writes:

“The industry goes through moments like this every 25 years or so,” explains Kilar, a voracious student of media history. “It happened when the major networks started. It happened with cable TV. I realized I’d have way too much regret not doing it.”

Of course, it may be the networks that wind up with regret. Because even as Kilar set out to help NBC and Fox avoid the drift toward obscurity that threatens the music and newspaper industries, he began creating something that could contribute to their undoing: a new and better way to watch TV shows.

While ad revenue is plummeting elsewhere in media, Hulu’s is growing, with more than 250 advertisers and an estimated $120 million in revenue in 2009, according to analysts — from zero just two years ago. “In the early days,” Kilar tells the group, “advertisers wouldn’t even meet with us.”

“Kilar unveiled a bombshell: The search engine his team had built would display results for all broadcast video across the Web.

“There was this slight moment of ‘huh?’ ” recalls J.B. Perrette, head of digital distribution at NBC Universal. Why would a site owned by NBC and Fox allow you to search for, say, CSI: Miami — and then provide links to take you to the CBS site?

Kilar calmly explained that he wanted Hulu to be the online authority on TV video, just as Amazon is the expert site for books. If people are looking for a particular show — any show — Hulu should help them find it. As Kilar sees it, shows are the brands users care about, not the networks that air them. There was a “healthy debate,” he recalls. It was a debate that he would win, although he’s too diplomatic to put it that way.”

“Consumer behavior is one of the hardest things to change,” Kilar says. “The gap between the existing and the new has to be so materially better that it shocks you into a behavior change.”

Read the rest of the article here.

In what ways should those of us who are church leaders change our methods to distribute our message? What are some ways we have remain resistant to do so?

Live Teleminar with Catalyst’s Brad Lomenick!

phone200Our next LIVE teleseminar will take place on Tuesday, April 14 at 1:30pm – 2:00pm PST (4:30pm – 5:00pm EST).

I will interview Brad Lomenick, the Executive Director of Catalyst. During the call we’ll talk about leadership, some of the things Brad and his team are learning, and the evolution of Catalyst growing from one event to a multi-impact organization. We’ll also dive into what it’s like, from Brad’s perspective, to be mentioned in Seth Godin’s popular book, Tribes.

Make plans to join us for this LIVE teleseminar event. Time permitting we will open the lines up to allow you to ask questions and interact. You can also submit questions in advance of the LIVE call via email that we’ll try to address.

SIGN UP NOW — CLICK HERE

You can listen to audio recordings from previous teleseminars at https://ericbryant.org/teleseminar/, including our most recent conversation with TWLOHA (To Write Love on Her Arms) and Urban Youth Workers.

Join us next week in Orange County for Origins and Catalyst West Coast!