Amitabh Singh's Blog, page 3

Is Church Growth “McDonaldization of Spirituality”?

Observations made in 1936 by Donald Anderson McGavran, a third-generation missionary to India, was later expressed in How Churches Grow (1959) and Understanding Church Growth (Eerdmans, 1970). He was criticized for his ideas.  

McGavran coined the term “church growth” to overcome the negative connotation of evangelism. He requested several American seminaries to start a department focused on church growth. He laid the foundation for the Church Growth Movement. In 1961, Northwest Christian College in Eugene, Oregon, established the Institute of Church Growth. In 1965, McGavran became the founding Dean of Fuller Theological Seminary’s School of World Mission in Pasadena, California. 

A former missionary to Latin America, Peter Wagner popularized Church Growth Movement with his books and seminars. Wagner in Your Church Can Grow (Regal, 1976) wrote:  

“As Jesus looks over His present-day disciples, particularly those whom he is holding responsible as stewards of the resources that should be used for church growth, he must frequently say, ‘O ye of little faith’… Remember, the indispensable condition for a growing church is that it wants to grow… wanting to grow and planning to grow is another way of applying biblical faith.” 

The Institute of American Church growth produced books, films, and seminars developed from McGavran’s insights. Alan Trippett and Arthur Glasser wrote an influential theology of church growth. McGavran in Understanding Church Growth noted: 

“The spread of the Church throughout the world must not be thought of in merely human terms. We are not speaking about multiplication of branches of an American organization… The multiplication of churches nourished on the Bible and full of the Holy Spirit is a sine qua non in carrying out the purposes of God.”  

By the mid-1970s, church growth was a major topic of debate. Rick Warren used the term “church growth” in the early 1980s because it was what everyone knew. He stopped using the phrase around 1986 because there were many things he did not like about the Church Growth Movement. Interestingly enough, McGavran started using the term “effective evangelism” when “church growth” as a term became baggage. It now means different things to different people. 

The apprehensions stemmed from the fact that to church leaders it sounded like: 

“a hard-driving North American business, armed with a sheaf of statistics, eager for new take-over” “carried away by the enthusiasm of pragmatics at the expense of real dependence of God” “fault does not lie with church growth concepts but in a lust of success on the part of some ministers”  “wave of pragmatism sweeping the church today seems predicated on the idea that artificial technique and human strategy are crucial to the church’s mission.” 

 

Pastors are not wrong in calling church a ministry. Yet, the reality is that the church is also a business. During the first and second centuries, the church was not an organization. The church was not thinking about legal compliances and regulations affecting charities in North America. The church was not managing accounting, audit, annual returns, and managing properties. The IRS, in the USA, automatically recognizes churches as 501(c)(3) charitable organizations. The CRA, in Canada, looks at a church as a religious charity that needs to file an annual T3010. A Senior Pastor ends up managing governance with the church board. So I am left wondering if discussions about how to organize a church in the midst of digital transformation will be viewed by some as “McDonaldization of spirituality.” 

 

What’s Gone Wrong With Our Church?

For a while, everything was going smoothly. We saw some “pastoral droll” as we learned about church growth at conferences we attended every year. We tried to role model a church doing well as our gold standard in ministry. We promoted “McDonaldization of our church”. We tried to reduce our ministry to a repeatable formula. It was meant to have been easy. Now we are struggling to let go of those glory days. 

Church 1.0 was location based. It used to be about ABC (Attendance, Building, Cash). George Barna founded the Barna Research Group Ltd., a marketing research firm located in Ventura, California. Since 1984, the year I accepted Jesus, Barna Research has conducted many market research. Barna (2002 research) figured out that worship services are a poor magnet, and few care about programs. People are attracted to intimacy, authenticity, and the feeling of belonging. 

Church 4.0 is a Phygital Church. The physical and the digital have amalgamated. It is about DEF (Discipleship, Engagement, Faith-building community).  

Both the event-driven Church 1.0 and the personality-driven Church 4.0 are hungry to measure success by the number of visits, likes, and followers. It is a mistake. In December 2002, George Barna published, “Grow Your Church From The Outside In: Understanding the Unchurched and How to Reach Them.” 

Barna wrote, “Most unchurched people figure they have gotten along just fine without church, and until someone gives them reason to feel otherwise, they will remain spiritually unattached.” 

I rephrase, “Most churched and unchurched people have gotten along just fine…” 

We now need to focus on the engine. Before the pandemic, we were so busy, we forgot to change the oil. When the cold night arrived, our spiritual temperature was challenged. The car wouldn’t start the next morning. Let me refer to church membership as the engine. Don’t make your membership process cheap. In researching churches, Barna learned that it’s not about what churches do or who their pastor is that matters. It’s about how its members care. I should add that membership isn’t about numbers, but about involvement. Set high standards for anyone wanting to identify with your church family. It should mean a lot more than just showing up. 

The 5,000 feasted on loaves and fishes. Twelve people followed Jesus the next day. Jesus preached but it drove people away in anger. We know God is at work. The key is to help people see his fingerprints. We cannot experience God just through loaves and fishes. Membership will be small when you stop giving away the loaves. This is where the truth about spiritual formation will be most apparent. That is the only number that really matters.  

Here are five areas to consider as standards for membership: 

Assessing personal relationship with God (water baptism) and His people (small groups) 

Examining integrity through interviews, mentoring, and commitment (lifestyle agreement) 

Evidence of growth and development (pathway to spiritual formation) 

Commitment to the cause (volunteer, servant leaders) 

Generosity (giving to the cause represented by the church community) 

Jesus fills our nets when we cast them in the water. Is your church budget directed internally or externally? Is the emphasis on Sunday services or a healthy lifestyle during the week? Are your church visitors attending events or part of a community? 

As Church 4.0 transforms, church leaders should be open to changing anything but our core values and distinctive biblical beliefs. Programs that don’t meet our strategic goals should be removed. Your online church should be treated as a sub-congregation. The size of the online church is irrelevant. The focus has to be on how someone can be engaged for both retention (first 90 days) and spiritual growth (beyond 90 days). 

Change is inevitable but it is not impossible. Church leaders have struggled with changes in church events. It is now becoming increasingly clear that it’s necessary to adopt a strategy that is based on unique resources and limitations. Church 4.0 leaders are going through a transition. It is messy, frustrating, and hard. With 5G, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence (A.I.) about to create a tsunami of change, the hardest part might still be in front of us. 

As we move forward, change is essential to our growth strategy. No program is so good that it will never change. Change is the price of vision. Spiritual growth is not meant to be comfortable. When churches embrace genuine concern for the outside, growth is possible. 

 

Free Yourself By Releasing Others

[image error]One size does not fit all. As church leaders, we are familiar with the pains of growth depending on the size of the church. I usually discuss five possible phases of growth.  

1. Start-up Phase: Highly relational, led by a Pastor or two.  

The size of this phase is small, but it should never affect your vision. In this phase, you want to grow, but you do not want to lose the feeling of being a family. 

2. Ramp-up Phase: Program-driven church, led by a Pastor, volunteers, and staff.  

The cost of growth is discomfort. In some churches, you see that the perfect family-like circle starts to break down as new visitors join. Sometimes the older members start criticizing the newcomers. The “in crowd” may start to feel a little left out.  

3. Maturity Phase: The organizational structure is stronger, led by Pastors and teams.  

Pastors in this phase need to realize that it is okay to lose some original members who used to be part of a tight group. The preacher may feel guilty of not knowing everyone as a shepherd knows the sheep. He will have to stop memorizing names and start equipping team members instead.  

Growing churches will require a Pastor to make choices in this phase. Small groups must be promoted for members to connect. The Pastor’s role in communicating the “why” behind what your church does will be critical to ensuring strategic alignment.  

A good pastor must hire good staff. There will be criticism from some people who will say that “the staff runs the church” in this phase. Volunteers may have to yield to paid staff. Procedures will have to be standardized. The leader cannot implement new processes all the time. Strategy and planning must take greater priority. However, lead Pastors will lose touch with what is going on in some areas. Leaders will have to let go of implementation decisions made without their personal input.

4. Expansion Phase: Traditional to Social Church Relationship Management (CRM), led by Pastors, staff, teams, and supported by technology.  

Due to the number of people Pastors meet every week, pastoral care issues will increase during this phase. It is impossible to visit every family at the church in a year. Creating a pastoral care program will become more important. Lines of communication will need to be strengthened. 

As the church continues to draw more people, the vision will have to be recast. Church vitality will have to be maintained. Pastors at this stage must understand that things will happen without their involvement. 

A lack of volunteer recruitment and multiple platforms living in silos will need to be addressed. As a leader, you will need to lead while volunteers, staff, and church members carry out the ministry of the church. By equipping others to lead, you release others and free yourself to do other things that demand your time and attention.   

5. Mega-churches:  Are organized differently based on size, structure, and multi-campus requirements.

 

 

Reflection Question: Will you free yourself by equipping others to do the ministry? 

 

 

 

Leveraging Digital Transformation

[image error]It would be leadership insanity to continue to do the same thing and expect different results.

Church 1.0 was location-based: Leaders erected church buildings. People came to the church on Sundays. Having a better parking lot meant more visitors. We had restricted hours, mostly on Sundays, and people came when the doors were open. It was not a 24/7 experience.

Church 2.0 was customer-centric: It was about taking care of “my people.” The 1990s were about better service. In 1992, the first week in October was announced as “customer service week” by President H.W.Bush. Churches adjusted to better customer service as their selling point. Churches started to discuss how to follow up with “guests” – hospitality, greeters, coffee in the lobby, and customer or guest service became the buzz word.

Church 3.0 was cause-based: Serving the community, supporting missions and short-term missions, giving to a local food bank, volunteering at a local charity, running a community center. In some circles, we began to discuss human-centric and ecological-centric missions.

Church 4.0 is moving from traditional to digital. It is “phygital.” 

Phygital is the merging of physical and digital. Church 4.0 is the marriage of online and offline environments that creates a closer and an authentic engagement. All marketing channels have to work together to create a frictionless and seamless experience.

Phygital is a term coined to describe omnichannel marketing. You need to have the ability to move from one channel (email) to another (text messaging) while nurturing your visitor in your Church Relationship Management (CRM) platform.

Phygital marketing, optimization, and automation will take place at an incredible speed. Take the case of Zappos. It is an online shoe and clothing retailer. They provide a personal touch through their call center that removes the barrier of buying shoes online. Likewise, church leaders will utilize online tools to attract and merge with human-to-human engagement. We go to Twitter for breaking news. We eventually return to Fox News or CNN.

There is no “one-size-fits-all” guide available to leaders. The overall size of the church helps to decide the scale of administration.

Small churches need to attract online viewers and engage with them locally to grow. Mid-size churches face the challenge of expansion while controlling costs. Large churches need to innovate to avoid burnout.

The speed of change and strategy you adopt needs to fit your context. Leveraging digital transformation is about how you navigate your leadership mindset, skillset, and toolset. 

(Excerpts from my book, Church Leadership 4.0, Source:  askamitabh.online/books )

Living In Denial?

In 1759, Benjamin Franklin discovered that lightning is electrical. It was a signal of change to all candle makers.

In 1769, Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot of France gave us the first actual automobile that ran for 20 minutes carrying four people at 2.25 miles per hour. It was the first signal of change to horse and buggy owners.

In 1806, Humphrey Davy introduced an electric arc lamp to the Royal Society in Britain. It was a warning sign for candle makers.

In 1865, an article in the Boston Newspaper scoffed at radio transmissions, stating, “Well informed people know that it is impossible to transmit human voice over wires.”

In 1899, Charles H.Duell, Director of the United States Patent Office, declared that “…everything that can be invented has been invented.”

In 1903, the Wright brothers moved from constructing cycles to first man-powered aircraft. Some appealed to ban the flight to avoid frightening the horses. 

On November 2, 1920, Station KDKA made the USA’s first commercial broadcast. People heard the results of the Harding-Cox presidential race before they read about it in the newspaper. It was a signal of change to newspaper companies.

In 1927, a co-founder of Warner Brothers, Harry Warner said, “Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?” By 1931, silent movies were replaced by “talkies.”

In 1939, the New York Times wrote, “The problem with television is that people must sit and keep their eyes glued on a screen… it will never be a serious competitor to radio.” Two years later, Bulova clocks were the first TV commercial that reached 4,000 television sets.

By 1952, television ad revenue surpassed magazine and radio ad sales. It was a clear signal of change to radio stations.

In 1966, Times magazine predicted that “Online shopping, while entirely feasible, will flop.”

The history of denial continued among leaders. Three times Blockbuster had an opportunity to buy Netflix. They declined it. Bill Gates wanted to place Britannica on a CD-Rom. They declined it. Bill Gates himself declined wanting to put Microsoft’s Encarta online. BlackBerry ignored 4G wireless network and fell behind.

Sixteen years before the 2020 pandemic, in August of 2004, Craig Groeschel had a satellite uplink built at the Oklahoma City campus that provided LifeChurch.tv the capacity to send a live video worldwide. Craig received criticism for starting an online church.

By 2020, 4.2 billion people were already connected, and 3.4 billion publicly shared their personal information to the world. People are no longer consumers. They are now “prosumers.” They not only consume but produce. They post about you on their 20 plus social channels.

If your audience are connected even when your church office is not, who is really living in denial this time?

(Exerts from my book, The New Normal of Leadership: Innovation & Technology in Church 4.0,
Source:  askamitabh.online/books )

Why Should I Care About Email Segmentation?

When it comes to improving email open rates, boosting click-through rates, and decreasing unsubscribed rates, email segmentation is a great place to start.

Segmentation is the process of breaking up an email list into smaller groups, or segments, in order to send targeted emails. Visitors’ preferences are never static, so you should ask the following questions to help you get started:

What are your segmentation goals?What do you want to achieve with direct marketing (email and text) to each segmented list?How do you review your segments on a regular basis?

Almost everyone understands why we need to send personalized emails. In fact, we’re happy when someone fills out an online form and an email is sent out with the recipient’s name included.

This, however, would not work if the name was entered in lowercase letters on a form submission. “Hello john” is one of the chinks in automation that a good Church Relationship Management (CRM) platform should auto-correct. I personally advocate using Salesforce CRM (which offers 10 free license for churches) as a way to optimize and automate.

Email segmentation goes beyond name fields. It’s the field mapping with our CRM that’s critical. It should be the visitor’s behavior, not just the data they enter into forms that determines engagement. A big part of my strategy is data integration. By using the best CRM, I want to ensure the right email is sent to the right person at the right time. I am not a fan of multiple lists being maintained either. When someone is deceased, you do not want to be sending emails to them because your records are not tied to your CRM.

Sending relevant content to your audience can be tricky if you don’t segment your email distribution lists correctly. That’s why legacy lists are often challenging to work with, since you may not know the audience.

Using automation rules that are based on the visitor’s behavior and a specific Call-To-Action (CTA) can help you avoid writing multiple emails, and allow you to target abandoned CTAs. Those who are interested in your content need to be nurtured back to your website.

It is important to create segmentations using a prioritization technique. I help churches segment their email lists into groups that share the same characteristics. I also help churches create workflows that send emails through automation.

Knowing that effective segmentation will result in a higher click-through (open) rate, you may begin by considering five things:

Send out an annual survey at the beginning of each year. Even if 20% of your legacy list responds, you will get valuable insights for segmentation.Look at demographic segmentations (age, family status).Segment online and on-site audiences based on their geographic location (country, city, zip code).Segment groups based on psychographics (life goals, hobbies).Segment lists that reflect different behaviors (browsing habits, sign-up habits, campaign conversions, and loyalty).

Take a look at the analytics of your Church emails. You might be surprised by the low number of people opening your emails, and discover that segmentation is a weakness you need to address.

If you’re not a type-A person, consider recruiting a volunteer to help you create and maintain your segmentation lists, to avoid managing engagement through disorganized email lists!

As your church continues to grow, you will need to engage your members for both retention and spiritual formation. Therefore, make it your goal to segment your emails and implement an effective CRM to increase ROR (Return on Relationship). That is why email segmentation matters.

Do In-Person Meetings Matter?

When planning a meeting or event, ask yourself three questions:

1. Is this an event that will require an in-person meeting?

2. Are my meeting objectives task-based or relationship-based?

3. How complex are my objectives?

Why do I suggest these three questions? There is the rationale behind in-person meetings that makes me adhere to two principles:

Attract online in order to engage locally.Automate recurring transactions without compromising human interaction.

For the first time in church history church leaders are attempting to understand what it means to serve five generations of people in our churches. Even though there has been a shift to online communication which appeals to the younger generation, we cannot ignore the Clint Eastwood generation who prefer handouts and in-person meetings.

In addition, we need to be more inclusive of introverts and extroverts. Extroverts are social and naturally gravitate toward groups, while introverts need their own space. Like Starbucks, we need to find a “third place” where people can engage with each other outside of their homes and places of work.

As Priya Parker writes, in The Art of Gathering – How We Meet and Why It Matters: “Gathering consumes our daily lives and shapes our world.”

For more than 80 years, Alcoholics Anonymous has been helping alcoholics recover. The program of recovery is based on the simple principle of sharing with others.

Relationship-based goals are more effective when accomplished in-person. People should receive difficult feedback in person. A challenging group conversation should also take place in-person, to avoid side-bar conversations.

Zoom fatigue is a real problem. In-person meeting participants are more likely to engage in conversation. For this reason, food events and coffee after the service continue to be popular. Leaders need to realize that in-person meetings increase engagement and participation by encouraging people to be fully present.

Leaders of churches deal with the emotional complexity as well as spiritual needs of their congregants. Although a lot has changed in the last two year, if discussions require navigating interpersonal and other complexities, or careful balancing of competing priorities, it is better to do this in person.

Life.Church Virtual Reality Services & India’s first Metaverse Marriage!

Metaverse enables people to share, work, and play. Life.Church recently provided virtual reality services through the AltspaceVR platform: altvr.com/.

In Church Leadership 4.0 (askamitabh.online/books), I write:

“Leaders are still not realizing the full scope of 5G, the internet of things, and voice-enabled technology. Take a picture of all the electronic gadgets you are using today. They will all look slower and uglier in the next decade. Education, entertainment, and experience are the three legs of our stool to be battered by a tsunami of change. 

We were getting clear signals of change in customer behavior much before 2020. Some church or charity leaders still choose to ignore these signs. 2020 was the tipping point, 2021 to 2030 will record a technology carnage that humankind has never seen before. Yet, some leaders are still in denial.”

The organizational structure of the fourth industrial revolution has changed. Automation and A.I. are changing our toolsets, and we can continue to anticipate changes in our digital marketing approach. Alignment discussions will have to occur as we face a technological revolution covering our website, App, landing pages, webinars, digital content, event registrations, and survey platforms that help us integrate all data with our Church Relationship Management (CRM).”

On Sunday, February 6, Dinesh and Janaganandhini are getting married in Sivalingapuram village, Tamil Nadu (India). The two met through Instagram and will have a Metaverse wedding reception.

Dinesh is a project associate at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Chennai. He said: “I feel so proud and blessed that I have seen and taken advantage of many great opportunities in this world before millions of people have seen them. Beginning of something big! India’s first #metaverse marriage in Polygon blockchain collaborated with TardiVerse Metaverse startup.”

Dinesh and Janaganandhini’s wedding is themed after the Harry Potter universe. Both the bride and groom have avatars with traditional Indian outfits. Guests will receive login details and can choose an avatar to enter the wedding reception. The couple will switch on their laptops after the wedding to enter a virtual venue. During the hour-long reception, they will be able to interact with family and friends from around the world.

As a first step toward putting their Metaverse reception idea into practice, Dinesh approached Vignesh Selvarah of TardiVerse, a “new gen mixed reality based Metaverse powered by Blockchain tech.”

India’s first Metaverse wedding reception, or a virtual reality church service offered by Life.Church is only the beginning. The next five years will be influenced by 5G, artificial intelligence (A.I.), and virtual reality for every content provider. Schools, university, and even churches are about to experience a tsunami of change.

What is the commonality between weaving and CRM (Church Relationship Management)?

We meet people where they are on their spiritual journey. It means understanding their demographic, language, and communication preferences as we interact with them in the moment. As people gain trust and take baby steps, you have the responsibility to offer the right opportunities and track individual opportunity stages.

You are able to forecast, nurture, and connect in real-time with the help of your Church Relationship Management (CRM) platform and its opportunity fields. Lead management and timely follow up remains critical.

I think of CRM in two words: taana baana. The Urdu and Punjabi communities of India and Pakistan understand its meaning. It means to lay the groundwork, to organize, or to arrange something.

Weaving term, “taana baana”, means “the warp and the weft.” Taana or the warp direction refers to the threads that run the length of the fabric. This is also known as the machine direction. Baana is fill, or weft, which are the yarns inserted perpendicularly to the warp. Taana refers to the thread from top to the bottom, while Baana refers to the thread from the left to the right.

We can think of the weaving process, “taana baana”, as an analogy for a customer journey that covers the direction of spiritual formation that our CRM tracks. In a CRM, the opportunity stages go from top to bottom (the warp), while the customer journey goes from left to right (the weft). Our audience journeying with us is the layer we spread (as a horizontal thread) through the opportunity stages that we automate (the vertical threads).

The old way of managing churches was based on ROI (return on investment). We monitored the ABCs (attendance, buildings, and cash). The current way is about the DEFs (Discipleship, Engagement, Faith-building communities). A good CRM helps us integrate both ways as we now seek ROR (return on relationship).

In 2016, I turned to Salesforce CRM for an optimization tool that manages our contacts across many countries and tracks their customized journey. Salesforce offers ten free licenses to churches that make this CRM an affordable solution.

With Salesforce’s Nonprofit Success Pack, we gain access to all features of Salesforce CRM. Salesforce also enables us to create custom fields, objects, relationships, and other elements to the CRM. The web-to-lead feature helps us to convert online forms into lead profiles.

Salesforce’s native apps help us integrate dedicated event tools into our CRM. With Salesforce, we can manage all marketing and communications in one place by leveraging various channels, such as email and text messaging, social media, and marketing automation.

Salesforce spent $15.7 billion to acquire Tableau in 2019. This provides nonprofits with tools to make sense of different data sets. If data is the new oil, then Salesforce is a doorway to better optimization, automation, and organizing for growth.

Visit amitabhsingh.com/smartdashboard (USA or Canada Church Marketplace) for more information about how to implement Salesforce CRM at your church.

What Is Your Map To Navigate The New World?

Imagine the church in 1880. Edison’s light bulb was one year old and the telephone was four years old. Letters were written by hand, and for quick communication, telegram was sent. There was no radio, television, computers, email, cars, or aero plane.

1844: Samuel F.B. Morse electrically transmitted the message “What hath God wrought?” When U.S. Congress had voted on whether to invest USD30,000 for an experimental line between Washington and Baltimore, 83 voted against it. Seventy did not vote “to avoid the responsibility of spending public money for a machine they did not understand.” An article in the New York Times, in 1852, described telegraphy as “the highway of thought.”

1860: Every bride wanted her photograph taken. Back then, photography required a heavy camera, elaborate preparation, and it took a long time before clicking the picture.

Mid-1880s: George Eastman, the founder of Kodak, had substituted the heavy glass plates with a thin cellulose film. Eastman Kodak had 89 percent of market share in the United States by 1976. Apple’s ad in 2013 stated, “Everyday, more photos are taken with iPhone than any other camera.”

1885: Ottmar Mergenthaler developed the linotype typeset. He introduced a keyboard mechanism that assembled the letters and aligned them in a row. Old craftsmen resisted the change. Despite the opposition, typesetters became “standard” by 1890.

Modern management founder and author of 39 books, Peter Drucker describes it this way: “Every few hundred years throughout Western history, a sharp transformation has occurred. In a matter of decades, society altogether rearranges itself – its worldview, its arts, and its key institution. Fifty years later, a new world exists. And the people born into that world cannot even imagine the world in which grandparents lived and into which their own parents were born.”

Over a century ago, churches were location-based. The advent of photographs, radio, television, the internet, and social channels radically changed the way churches operate. Technology keeps changing. Process has changed. Theology and principles remain the same. The leader today must be creative without losing sight of God.

A cliché states, “If Moses had a map, he wouldn’t have wandered for forty years.” A church leader needs a strategic roadmap to navigate the current pace of change. What is yours?