Disruptive Technologies
From the tech-bro perspective, what churches are facing right now is called a “disruptive technology”. What Netflix did to Blockbuster. What Wikipedia did to Encyclopedia Britannica. What Uber did to taxis.
If you look at our history, we have traditionally been heavy on the disruptive side of the equation. Servetus using this new printing press gadget to undermine the church. Puritan ancestors getting all uppity with their Cambridge Platform. Universalists dispensing with huge chunks of established church hierarchy to preach a simple message in a viral setting.
Now, we’re on the other side of the coin. We have gone from disruptive to disrupt-ed. With all the telltale signs… Budgets are harder and harder to balance. Enthusiasm is harder to find.
And we are doing the two things that the disrupted industry always does:
Telling each other that personal (or congregational) wisdom and hard work can overcome the situation. (It sort of can. Encyclopedia Britannica still exists in a modified format, as do VHS rental places in some isolated communities).
Brainstorming how we could, as a movement, jump on board with the disruptive technology and begin leading it.
Here is the thing. Strategy number one only ever kinda works. And strategy number two never works. Because the established industry is, by definition, really good at doing things in the way they’ve been done. If Encyclopedia Britannica had tried to make wikipedia, they’d have immediately gotten tied in knots with reasonable concerns about any idiot deciding to spread misinformation. Having always solved this problem with hired experts, they wouldn’t be able to see other ways to solve it.
It takes an outsider to champion a disruptive idea.
When Napster was killing the music industry, music executives understood the trouble they were in. They worked hard to suppress music sharing through legal methods—effectively barring the doors so people couldn’t leave. This didn’t work, because in order for people to stay in the world of legal music, they needed a better option than “drive to the store and buy a CD, burn it to your computer, and upload it to your player”. They needed something that was easier than digital downloads. Industry people tried to make it, and got bogged down. It took Steve Jobs—an outsider from the computer world—to see what was needed and make it work.
Strategy three worked for the music industry: See an outsider with potential, with a demonstrated track record of success, and partner effectively with their vision.
What would that strategy look like for Unitarian Universalists?
We would look for places where people are effectively doing what we think of as Ministry, and invest in and partner with those Ministries.
The first time I watched a YouTuber who was doing exactly what I was trying to do (but a zillion times better than I could), I thought “How can I succeed in competition with people like this?”. Of course, I couldn’t. I didn’t have YouTube training. I had something even worse than zero experience—seminary training. Which trains you in ways that actively hold you back in a world of viral media.
I wish that instead of “How can I succeed in competition with people like this?” I’d asked “How can I be useful to people like this?”
How can I partner with them? Provide a platform? Become symbiotic?
Because religious community isn’t disappearing, it’s migrating. People who are pouring out of something don’t cease to exist. They’re also, correspondingly, pouring in somewhere else.
Each of us needs to decide where to position ourselves, relative to that change.