Mission Igniter

Dr. Richard Beck, Associate Professor and experimental psychologist at Abilene Christian University, recently wrote a very interesting post entitled How Facebook Killed the Church in which he argues that our Facebook friends do reflect our “in person” relationships and that in the Millennials a fundamental change has emerged in where they experience community that has them leaving the church “in droves”.

He goes on to argue that people’s dissatisfaction with and negative feelings about church have not changed all that much in the last 50 years, but that they have still attended because church was a primary social connection point. In essence that church was “Facebook” prior to the advent of technology that allows a constant state of social connection such as texting, smart phones, Facebook and other social media.

He argues that these mediums are not replacing “real” relationships with “virtual” ones, but rather helping to create a social connection between friends and a sense of identity and belonging that people previously found in attending church. His article is very thought provoking and worthy of reading and thinking through the ramifications to the local church.

I feel this that his assertions (if true) shouldn’t cause church leaders to despair, but rather to see the opportunity that exist for the church to thrive in this new social environment if we will begin to focus on what should have been important all along: people. The mission has always been to reach people with Christ’s love and teach them the ways of God; not to gather crowds on Sunday or put people through our programs.

The church has to and will change fairly drastically in the coming years, but it not something to fear but to embrace. Seeing Jesus become an integrated part of our whole lives versus an hour on Sunday is something to be celebrated and sought after. The opportunity for it has never been greater. I believe this is the greatest opportunity for the church in America to experience an awakening since the time following World War Two.

What do you think? Is Dr. Beck accurate in his theory or off his rocker? Will the church make the necessary changes or continue to decline? As a church leader, how are you choosing to respond?

Exodus 16:29a “Bear in mind that the LORD has given you the Sabbath…”

The concept of a Sabbath, a time period of rest, is found throughout the Scripture. Most of us think of it as the day a week that religious people would rest, attend services, and focus their attention on God. However in the Old Testament the concept of Sabbath is applied not just to people but to the land and animals. In a manner of speaking is presented to us as the holy rhythm of life. Six days to work, create and busy ourselves with activity, then one day to rest. Six years to work the land and gather crops, and a seventh for the ground to rest.

Being someone who enjoys work, and at times has been accused of being a workaholic, I have often chosen to ignore the concept of a Sabbath in favor of the work; justifying my ignorance by defining the Sabbath concept as an Old Testament idea that has little relevance to modern life. However, the fruit of choosing to ignore regular and defined periods of rest has been a spiritual and creative fatigue that always seems to manifest right when energy and clarity are most needed.

So I tried to manage myself by setting aside a day in which I have been completely disconnected physically from work. Then the advent of the smart phone, and all my best intentions came crashing to a halt as I can now be connected to the phone, e-mail, and Internet 24/7 regardless of where I happen to be physically located. It became an obsession. I was constantly checking; try not to miss anything, claiming to be productive but in truth wearing down my soul.

Then a friend of mine suggested creating a practice of a Digital Sabbath; a 24-hour period in which I intentionally disconnected from the grid. I’ve been practicing this “digital discipline” with some regularity for the past three years. The plan is every Saturday evening I disconnect and then reconnect Sunday evening or sometimes even Monday morning. When I get into a rhythm of a Digital Sabbath, I feel so much more energized and able to connect relationally with people. When I miss this intentional disconnect, I find myself more emotionally drained and less able to cope well or contribute as creatively during the week.

How about you? Do you practice times of intentional digital disconnection? What do you think?

At Ignition Garage (www.ignitiongarage.com) we have the pleasure of working on new ideas every day. Some of them are incubated in our minds and some of them come from our clients, that we get the honor of helping to bring to the light of day (and market).

Time Shifted Events are a powerful model for the future. In the era of shrinking budgets across every spectrum of life (personal and work), there is the need to harness the increase of information ingestion while tailoring to the need of real-time connection for a fraction of what it takes to pull all the participants into one place, at one time. Enter the concept of time shifting events.

What fundamentally we are doing is calling out the content, be it real-time presentations, secondary announcements, or human-augmented media shouts and enabling audiences to participate with the subject matter experts (SMEs), ideally the author of the aforementioned content. The landscape of the marketplace has tectonically moved – where the business models that worked before are in tremendous jeopardy and industries are fighting for survival (publishing, music, network broadcast). The evolution of these industries is fast moving and there will be deaths along with new births (with new models) that create and convey the same or greater value, at a blistering pace.

Time shifted events respects the human in this blitz of value transfer. It will be to everyone’s benefit that the SMEs are there, approachable, and interacting with them – even if the information is not presented for the first time. Indeed, it is a powerful augmenter to something as tried and true as a book – when the author is able to interact across mediums (print, web, media, slide show, story) again, again, and again. It is not about the teller of the story, it is about the hearer.

Ironically enough, while this is happening at lightening speed in social media, it is putting the content creators in a pickle. How do they promote themselves and keep up with the expectations of realtime communication? How many times can an author respond with direct messages (DMs) or replies (@replies) in Twitter, in a 1 to 1000 manner? When the content creator quickly gets to the chaos threshold, they will grab for anything to keep up the appearance and regain some sanity – which often results in outsourcing their authenticity. When the fans get word of this, beware the backlash. The expectations have created levers of power that are enormous billy clubs, wielded by potential mobs.

Time shifting events can act as the emotional shock absorber for the potential billy-club masses. The artist must manage their time, voice, and interaction with their adoring fans. They can do this by being live, while “on” camera, even if they are in their jammies via broadband web communication. It is still authentic, personal, and terribly satisfying.

The era of the enormous, mega-event for product promotion is over. The caveats to this are the avenues of successful entertainment (hearken to U2′s 360 tour for financial numbers to prove this assertion). However, for an original content creator to build the audience that they need – time shifting their events can be one of the best tools in their promotional toolkit. And one day, they will be able to create their own spaceship and cart it around to venues around the world. Heck, maybe they will fly theirs.