Future World (Part II)

When given the choice between closed or open systems, consumers show a fierce enthusiasm for open architecture. They choose the open again and again because an open system has more potential upside than a closed one. There are more sources from which to recruit members and more nodes with which to intersect.

Kevin Kelly

There are enormous cultural, political, and economic forces pulling us together and pushing us apart in altogether new ways. I have touched on some of these ideas in previous posts such as “Future World” and “Swarm Theory.” Kevin Kelly in his seminal book, New Rules for the New Economy, observes that, “Individual allegiance moves away from firms and toward networks and network platforms.”

The implications are enormous.

Tim O’Reilly, an Internet media expert, compares our current government to a vending machine. The metaphor would equally apply to old line corporations providing goods and services, and even to churches. We look in the vending machine and make a decision if we want something offered and then a second decision as to price. If the machine offers undesirable products or if it costs too much, we just walk away. If the machine fails to spit out the desired product, we kick it or rock it into the wall in an attempt to get what we want. What if, our government, businesses, and churches could be more like the I-Phone, a platform that allows anyone to develop and offer new services and options? What if our churches could find a way to become more like Facebook or Craig’s List, or ebay or some sort of node in a new web of service, commitment, caring, and connection?

Consumers, including Americans searching for spiritual meaning, are not playing by the old rules any more unless there are no alternatives. The new loyalties are to the network not to the organization.

From a recent USA Today article by Lynn Grossman “Going to Church this Sunday? Look Around.”

Of the 72% of Americans who attend religious services at least once a year (excluding holidays, weddings and funerals), 35% say they attend in multiple places, often hop-scotching across denominations.

Among the findings: (from Pew Reseach)

•26% of those who attend religious services say they do so at more than one place occasionally, and an additional 9% roam regularly from their home church for services.

•28% of people who attend church at least weekly say they visit multiple churches outside their own tradition.

•59% of less frequent church attendees say they attend worship at multiple places.
Pew says two in three adults believe in or cite an experience with at least one supernatural phenomenon, including:

•26% find "spiritual energy" in physical things.

•25% believe in astrology.

•24% say people will be reborn in this world again and again.

•23% say yoga is a "spiritual practice."

•Forty-seven percent to 59% of Americans have changed religions at least once, a Pew survey in April found. The top reasons for most: Their spiritual needs weren't being met, or they liked another faith more or changed religious or moral beliefs.

•The percentage of people who call themselves Christian has dropped more than 11% in a generation, and so many people declined any religious label that the "Nones," now 15% of the USA, are the third-largest "religious" group after Catholics and Baptists, according to the American Religious Identification Survey last March."

It really doesn’t matter if we like these trends or we do not like these trends. With us or without us, they are happening. How can we make our churches nodes in the new net, accepting the fact that the folks with whom we want to connect believe in astrology, reincarnation, and other heterodox notions without compromising our own believes or values?

I have a friend who is considered a rather successful church builder within his own denomination. At a recent church conference, one of his peers asked him, “What evangelistic program do you use?”

The question caught my friend off guard. The only answer that came to mind was, “I answer my phone?” an unbelievable insight in only four words.

Do I answer my phone? The answer is sometimes. If I have to answer the phone at work, I always try to polite and professional or relaxed and entertaining as the situation dictates. At home sometimes I try to avoid answering the phone. Fear of telephone solicitors and other sorts of energy vampires make me thankful for answering machines. Sometimes I feel just too tired and beat up to deal with the demands or needs of other human beings.

Do companies answer their phones? Unfortunately, the answer is rarely. After spending time in “listen to the following message as our options have changed,” hell, we might, if we are very, very lucky actually get to talk to an uniformed employee who speaks English only slightly better than I speak Hindi (that would be not at all).

Do churches answer their phones? The answer is sometimes, but too often our churches are too busy off planning the next evangelical program to answer the phone.

May God have mercy on my soul.

Matthew 18:

[12] How think ye? if a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray?
[13] And if so be that he find it, verily I say unto you, he rejoiceth more of that sheep, than of the ninety and nine which went not astray.
[14] Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.