Making Connections
20/03/13 04:27
I have a friend who is a fairly successful novelist. She has written and published several novels, but her novels don’t provide sufficient income for her family. She once said to me, “I don’t know if I am a novelist who preaches sermons or a minister who writes novels.” Once, not too many years ago, she commented that all it would take for her to be a successful novelist would be to have her book picked for the Oprah book club. If that is true, I’m not sad that I’m not Oprah. Imagine having 10,000 novelists all shouting, “Pick me! Pick me!” Of course the world doesn’t work that way. The definition of a successful book is not made by a single person, no matter how rich that person is or how big an audience she commands. The books on the Oprah’s Book Club lists distinguished themselves in the marketplace before they were considered.
Here is how the world really works: One person recommends a book to another. If that person is really enamored with the book it gets recommended to 10 other people. And if each of those ten recommend it to ten, then a hundred copies are sold. If each of them recommends the book to ten friends, the book begins to look like it will break even. A few more generations of recommendations and it sells enough copies to make the radar of the big lists. Get recommended often enough and the book will end up on the New York Times bestseller list. I’m not saying that there isn’t luck involved. I’m not even saying that what gets published is the best books written. I’m well aware that there is a difference between what sells well and what is the highest quality. But there is more to succeeding in the world of publishing than just being in the right place at the right time.
But this blog isn’t about the publishing business, even though I am interested in the publishing business. It is about the church.
There are some people who believe that the church is like that mistaken notion of the Oprah book club. In our town there are between 130 and 135 churches and para church organizations. Not all of us are screaming, “Pick me!” Pick me!” but some are. Some people think that all we need to do to be successful is to get picked by enough people. Some even think that whether or not you get picked is a matter of luck – or of shouting louder than all of the others.
In reality, churches don’t grow because the right person chooses them. They grow because their members learn how to invite others to participate. If ten people convince ten of their friends to come and then everyone else invited ten more the church grows to 1,000 members.
I am deeply committed to the grass roots of the church. The mission projects our congregation undertakes are the ones that our members choose. The people who are in charge are the ones who are willing to do the work. We pay attention to the comments of the people who come to church. We also listen to comments of those who attend less regularly and we share the hopes and dreams of those who imagine a different church. The church needs to continue to grow and to respond. We don’t participate in Christ’s future by repeating things we have already done.
I am far more interested in making connections that are genuine than in generating attention for something that isn’t real. Here is another example from outside of the church. There are plenty of people who think that success in the post-industrial world involves “going viral” on the Internet. A blog or a YouTube post that gets a lot of hits is deemed to be more successful than one that gets fewer. If you take that rational to its extreme, you might believe that what is most meaningful to Americans are videos of cats and kittens.
If winning is getting the most people to visit your website, I’m not particularly interested in winning. I find a single note from someone who actually read my blog post to be much more meaningful than a hundred people who clicked on it and then went on to something else before they actually read the words I have written. The truth is that I don’t think that I’ve written anything that has much mass-market appeal. I don’t know if I am able to write such a thing. But I have little interest making a big splash for the sake of the noise. There are lots of ways to get momentary notoriety for doing something stupid. More people know about America’s Funniest Home Videos than know about last week’s sermon, but that doesn’t mean that pictures of guys getting hit in the crotch with balls or bats or other objects has lasting value.
I’m not a big television fan, but an example from television might serve to illustrate. When it was on the air, The Beverly Hillbillies was one of the 20 most popular shows on television. Star Trek, on the other hand, received only mediocre ratings. In fact the show got better ratings in reruns than it did in its network run from 1966 to 1969. A dozen ideas from the show became common technologies. Did you ever notice how a Motorola flip phone looks like a Star Trek communicator? Star Trek was one of the most culturally influential television shows ever made.
Making connections that are genuine is far more important than generating attention.
That is why I’m so pleased with our recent “bring a friend to church” Sunday. We gave ourselves an opportunity to practice the basic skill of making an invitation. Not every member brought a friend. We didn’t double our attendance. But we made some lasting and meaningful connections. There are multiple people who didn’t just visit once, but who have been coming back. When a major event occurs in their lives – when they face grief or pain or an unexpected turn of events – the real connections with other people will be far more important than the biggest stadium event they ever attended.
So don’t expect me to go viral. Don’t expect our church to suddenly transform itself into a mega church. Check back in 50 years or a century to see which churches are still around and which have invested in making lasting contributions to our communities.
In the meantime, I’m sticking with the business of genuine connections.
Here is how the world really works: One person recommends a book to another. If that person is really enamored with the book it gets recommended to 10 other people. And if each of those ten recommend it to ten, then a hundred copies are sold. If each of them recommends the book to ten friends, the book begins to look like it will break even. A few more generations of recommendations and it sells enough copies to make the radar of the big lists. Get recommended often enough and the book will end up on the New York Times bestseller list. I’m not saying that there isn’t luck involved. I’m not even saying that what gets published is the best books written. I’m well aware that there is a difference between what sells well and what is the highest quality. But there is more to succeeding in the world of publishing than just being in the right place at the right time.
But this blog isn’t about the publishing business, even though I am interested in the publishing business. It is about the church.
There are some people who believe that the church is like that mistaken notion of the Oprah book club. In our town there are between 130 and 135 churches and para church organizations. Not all of us are screaming, “Pick me!” Pick me!” but some are. Some people think that all we need to do to be successful is to get picked by enough people. Some even think that whether or not you get picked is a matter of luck – or of shouting louder than all of the others.
In reality, churches don’t grow because the right person chooses them. They grow because their members learn how to invite others to participate. If ten people convince ten of their friends to come and then everyone else invited ten more the church grows to 1,000 members.
I am deeply committed to the grass roots of the church. The mission projects our congregation undertakes are the ones that our members choose. The people who are in charge are the ones who are willing to do the work. We pay attention to the comments of the people who come to church. We also listen to comments of those who attend less regularly and we share the hopes and dreams of those who imagine a different church. The church needs to continue to grow and to respond. We don’t participate in Christ’s future by repeating things we have already done.
I am far more interested in making connections that are genuine than in generating attention for something that isn’t real. Here is another example from outside of the church. There are plenty of people who think that success in the post-industrial world involves “going viral” on the Internet. A blog or a YouTube post that gets a lot of hits is deemed to be more successful than one that gets fewer. If you take that rational to its extreme, you might believe that what is most meaningful to Americans are videos of cats and kittens.
If winning is getting the most people to visit your website, I’m not particularly interested in winning. I find a single note from someone who actually read my blog post to be much more meaningful than a hundred people who clicked on it and then went on to something else before they actually read the words I have written. The truth is that I don’t think that I’ve written anything that has much mass-market appeal. I don’t know if I am able to write such a thing. But I have little interest making a big splash for the sake of the noise. There are lots of ways to get momentary notoriety for doing something stupid. More people know about America’s Funniest Home Videos than know about last week’s sermon, but that doesn’t mean that pictures of guys getting hit in the crotch with balls or bats or other objects has lasting value.
I’m not a big television fan, but an example from television might serve to illustrate. When it was on the air, The Beverly Hillbillies was one of the 20 most popular shows on television. Star Trek, on the other hand, received only mediocre ratings. In fact the show got better ratings in reruns than it did in its network run from 1966 to 1969. A dozen ideas from the show became common technologies. Did you ever notice how a Motorola flip phone looks like a Star Trek communicator? Star Trek was one of the most culturally influential television shows ever made.
Making connections that are genuine is far more important than generating attention.
That is why I’m so pleased with our recent “bring a friend to church” Sunday. We gave ourselves an opportunity to practice the basic skill of making an invitation. Not every member brought a friend. We didn’t double our attendance. But we made some lasting and meaningful connections. There are multiple people who didn’t just visit once, but who have been coming back. When a major event occurs in their lives – when they face grief or pain or an unexpected turn of events – the real connections with other people will be far more important than the biggest stadium event they ever attended.
So don’t expect me to go viral. Don’t expect our church to suddenly transform itself into a mega church. Check back in 50 years or a century to see which churches are still around and which have invested in making lasting contributions to our communities.
In the meantime, I’m sticking with the business of genuine connections.