Thinking differently about barriers to entry

Research shows that if Amazon’s webpage loaded one second slower, they’d lose 1.6 billion dollars per year.  https://www.fastcompany.com/1825005/how-one-second-could-cost-amazon-16-billion-sales

One single second.

What do you suppose that research would show about a process to access a worship service that includes registration, a zoom link, and a password?

Of course, maybe this isn’t all bad.  Maybe it’s not good to have things be too easy.  Maybe all those people who wouldn’t wait a single second more for Amazon’s web page to load didn’t actually need more stuff.  Maybe people who aren’t willing to type in a zoom password aren’t patient enough for church.

I mean, they’re for sure not patient enough for church.  So, maybe the barriers are not so much barriers as… Effective screening procedures.

It’s worth thinking for a second about who we’re screening for.

Structures that require large budgets (involving buildings or full time staff with master’s degree level salaries) screen out people who don’t have a lot of disposable income.  By definition.  If they don’t successfully screen for that, there are two options:  A few wealthy people hold way too much power relative to the rest of the group, or they go bankrupt.

Sophisticated anti-oppressive language (the kind that’s rooted in reading a lot of books or articles) screens out people with learning disabilities, people without a lot of leisure time, and people for whom English is a second language.

Sermons delivered by people trained in Master’s level theology often screen out people who are not similarly academic.  Also, that same process ensures a disproportionate amount of clergy with wealthy enough backgrounds to fund those educations, effectively screening out diversity.  (Or, it ensures that people are carrying massive debt, which has its own set of problems).

I’m sure that you can come up with your own examples of people we screen out.  And if we’re looking at a single community, that’s fine.  Different groups will draw different types of people.  But if, as a movement, we centre one type of group—like a congregation, particularly one with a full staff complement and a building—we ensure that the larger ecosystem is dominated by the type of person who fits easily into that structure.

If we decide to go that route, no amount of studying diversity will actually have the effect we’re hoping for.

Embracing a variety of models isn’t just a survival strategy, it’s a moral issue.