Dr. John Harris a long-time friend and contributor to The Church Digital. He co-wrote "Sharing Jesus Online" with Jeff Reed. Recently, he posted on his personal Facebook page something that all Church leaders should hear. Here is what he wrote.
In 2016, the Nokia CEO shared that Nokia was being acquired by Microsoft. This sums up my concern for the American church’s large Sunday gathering model. So many pastors of thousands of churches (avg 4,500 per year) that close every year are saying this same thing.
Here’s what troubles me about this quote. It’s his use of the word “somehow” meaning he still didn’t know what happened.
From an article in 2016…
“During the press conference to announce NOKIA being acquired by Microsoft, Nokia CEO ended his speech saying this “we didn’t do anything wrong, but somehow, we lost”. Upon saying that, all his management team, himself included, teared sadly. Nokia has been a respectable company. They didn’t do anything wrong in their business, however, the world changed too fast. Their opponents were too powerful. They missed out on learning, they missed out on changing, and thus they lost the opportunity at hand to make it big. Not only did they miss the opportunity to earn big money, they lost their chance of survival. The message of this story is, if you don’t change, you shall be removed from the competition. It’s not wrong if you don’t want to learn new things. However, if your thoughts and mindset cannot catch up with time, you will be eliminated.
The LinkedIn article by Awais Rathore goes on to share that "the advantage you have yesterday, will be replaced by the trends of tomorrow. You don’t have to do anything wrong, as long as your competitors catch the wave and do it RIGHT, you can lose out and fail. To change and improve yourself is giving yourself a second chance. To be forced by others to change, is like being discarded. Those who refuse to learn & improve, will definitely one day become redundant & not relevant to the industry. They will learn the lesson in a hard & expensive way."
Ministry Application:
THIS ladies and gentlemen is what we call a cultural blind spot. If you’ve been in my EQ training you’ve heard about personal, team, organizational, and cultural blind spots.
A cultural blind spot is when you are blind to the cultural shifts and trends affecting your business, customers/clients, and efficacy of your methods. And being oblivious to these shifts you don’t make necessary changes and continue with business as usual until you can’t anymore. You no longer have the resources to stay afloat. The money is gone, the people are gone, and it’s over.
For some churches, the answer is not “we just need more money or more people”. For some churches, the answer is a new operating system, even a new ecclesiology.
For 2024, some churches need to look HARD at transitioning to a house church model; it will multiply your ministry and impact, while decreasing your expenses AND look more like the church in Acts.
If you’re interested in exploring what that looks like to move in that direction and need help with your transition, reach out to me and let’s talk.
What do you think? What else stand out to you from the Nokia's CEO's comments and the state of the Church? Share your ideas below or on social media.
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