How the Internet is changing Denominations
When the printing press
emerged churches changed, some argue even that there would have been no
reformation without it. Whatever, the Internet is bound to make similar changes
to churches and denominations, maybe more. I think it is already changing the
way denominations operate. Here’s how:
1. Everyone expects to participate.
Before
the Internet the church operated pretty much as an oligarchy, with power and
decision-making concentrated into the hand of the few on behalf of the
many. Boards, church staffs, along with
district and denominational leaders met and made decisions on behalf of the
proletariat. “The people” were supposed to trust their leaders to make these
decisions for them. The Internet has
altered this arrangement. People now
expect to participate in decision-making (or at least the discussion before the
decision). It is harder now for boards
and leaders to make decisions and just expect people to fall into line and
“just say amen.”
This came to a head in my own denomination (The Wesleyan
Church) at our 2004 General Conference.
Before then a few hundred elected “delegates” (our “oligarchy”) got in
the mail a printed collection of “memorials” or resolutions for denominational
action. This group then came together to
discuss and decide on each action, mostly considering only those already
“recommended” by the General Board of my denomination. In 2004 a group of young pastors got a copy
of all the resolutions, typed them into a discussion forum and invited everyone
debate the merits of them all. When the
elected delegates arrived at the actual General Conference most all the
important debating points had already been raised by the proletariat—those who
were not even elected to make the decisions.
The final actions were still “decided” by the same smaller group of
(mostly older) “delegates” but the discussion had already taken place and the
results were affected by the thoughtful discussion of the not-yet-empowered
people posting on the Internet.
The
Internet has made us all think we have a right to participate in the
discussion, even if a smaller group actually makes the final decision. The day is passing where the Politburo holds
the power. Elected representatives have
to at least listen to “the people” before deciding. The “Wiki
principle” has prevailed: people think there is safety in numbers and they
should have a chance to say their piece before the empowered decide something.
Smoke-filled rooms are disappearing. Or,
at least those in the final room must have at least listened to the masses
before making their final decision.
2. People expect instant and complete information.
Before
the Internet those in power could control the release of information. A long
time ago denominational leaders actually published the names of newly elected
District Superintendents in the monthly denominational periodical and that was
when most people found out the news. Or,
a paper letter was prepared with this information to send to 50 or so DSs and General Board members—“insiders”—who would release
this information at their discretion during the month before it got into
print. This gave leaders considerable
power in the sense that “information is power,”
That day is gone. When a new DS is elected in my denomination
today someone in that district text messages the results right from the floor
of the conference to one of a hundred retired ministers who live in
Brooksville, Florida who within ten minutes forwards the results to dozens of
others and before the session is dismissed a thousand people could already know
about it—assuming they care. Even when
my denomination releases the “news” the next day it is merely official confirmation
of what many already know. Likewise for removals, resignations and leave-with-pay. If a college or seminary President is put on
leave and a cryptic email is sent reporting only part of the story the Internet
buzzes until people get the rest of the story—and they always do. It is nearly impossible to “manage news” in
the church in the Internet age. People
are so connected and “news travels fast.”
Leaders now longer control news.
Leaders in the Internet age no longer are the proprietary source of
news—they have to distribute it fast and openly report the story or the people will beat them to it.
3. People expect access to leaders.
Before
the Internet leaders could somewhat insulate themselves from the common people.
Indeed most of the “appurtances” of leadership were
arranged to put some distance between the leader and the average Joe. To
complain about your son who had been unfairly dismissed by a church in another
district required typing a letter, several days in the mail, and who knows how
long before the leader might get around to dictating a reply and sending it
through several more days of “snail mail.”
In an emergency one might use the telephone, but that may
only turn into a pink slip message that could be deferred for days or even
weeks. Leaders today at every level get
emails “directly from the bottom” and they are expected to reply. True, some leaders and pastors simply refuse
this access and if they are over 60 they will survive ‘til they can collect
their Social Security.” But those who
stonewall access are increasingly cut out of the process and gradually become
pretend leaders who the real influence flows around.
Parents
dissatisfied with the heat level in their daughter’s dorm room believe they
have a right to send an email directly to the President of my University and
they’ll do the same to a DS about the youth camp skit that “went too far.” And they expect a reply. This is a daily migraine for leaders and
makes them want to toss their computer in the trash can and do away with their
email address. We are not returning to
more simple days. These leaders must
(usually) respect the “chain of command” so they are obligated to forward the
email to the proper person, but even then the parent (or member, or pastor or
whomever) knows that the forwarded email will get better attention.
The
Internet has “flattened” almost all organizations including the church. People have their U.S. Senator’s email
address and they don’t expect their church leaders to keep their address
private. Those who do
simply get cut off from the flow of influence and eventually are dismissed as
out of touch. Their life is
nicer, but they do not wield much influence.
4. Human interchange has taken on a more savage
flavor.
While
Television may be the original culprit, the Internet has provided a forum for
individuals to lash out with angry tirades at others (and leaders) which
sometimes reduces the level of discussions to something more reminiscent of Lord of the Flies than considered
thoughtful debate. People will say
things in an email or as a response to a blog they
would never say face to face. This has caused some leaders to simply refuse to
wrestle with the under class. These
leaders say, “Never get down in the mud to wrestle with a pig—you both get
dirty but the pig like it.”
I
can’t blame them. I’ve gotten plenty of
[what used to be called] “flames” myself and they always hurt—even if they are
posted anonymously. But simply avoiding the mud is not really an option in the
future. Leaders have to be vulnerable enough to allow some mud to fly. Besides, when a leader responds to
mud-tossing they get an opportunity to disciple their people in how to “turn
away wrath.” And, of course, on most
blogs we even have a chance to delete the worst mud.
I
think it’s a theological-political matter.
If a leader trusts “the people” over all they believe that the majority
will usually correct the aberrations.
Indeed, the worst mud-tossers are often
corrected by others in rowdy online discussions. This is exactly what happened all along on
insider boards and committees—the high and low scores are tossed out and the
large middle is all we really take seriously.
I don’t like the savage interchange that Christian radio, political
debate and Television has brought us. And I don’t like the confrontational
debate that sometimes emerges in Internet discussions. But I like even less the
notion of leaders—pastors, college administrators or denominational
officials—cutting themselves off from the discussions. Leaders who dismiss Internet discussions
eventually will find themselves leading themselves alone while others co-opt
influencing of the masses.
5. People
expect things for free.
I
know it seems totally unrealistic to anyone with a business sense, but the
Internet has trained the masses to expect to get for free what they used to pay
for. What is the most useful Internet
service we get? Google. Do we pay for it? We expect it for free and
if they start a subscription fee for using their search engine we’ll just move
over and use another service. We don’t
mind advertising, but we expect services for free that we use to pay for. Who has recently purchased an
encyclopedia?
Few
Internet users expect to pay to watch videos or news clips online. And few expect to be charged for “content”
provided by a church either. A
denominational church simply expects to be able to download membership
materials absolutely free to adapt and print locally. If church membership is so important why
charge for this material? If a
denomination has some specialty doctrine it promotes why charge for using that
material? This is how most folk
think.
It
will give a massive headache to publishers in the future. We can already download enough “curriculum”
to serve a local church’s needs for ten years—why pay for what we can get
elsewhere for free? This it the thinking
the Internet has brought us. People can
still make money producing church resources but the business plan of the future
will have to be totally different from one based on “old media”
assumptions. Bright, creative, and
generous people all across the world are quite willing to post resources they
wrote and give them away for free.
Selling resources people can get for free elsewhere is a dying business.
What
is coming is dual publishing: on paper and given away free electronically
simultaneously. Paper copies will have
to be sold for not much more than the cost of photocopying that same
information. As a writer I hate to see
the good old days pass, but it is already passing. Books, and membership materials, and
doctrinal curriculum will continue to be published on paper, but increasingly
leaders will have to give it away free at the same time. We’ll have to find another way to make money. The day of “open source curriculum” is
rapidly approaching.
6. The “Long Tail” is here.
But
there will still be sales in the Internet age.
Before the Internet denominational leaders (like everyone else) shot for
the average trying to reach the “fat middle” of the people in their
denomination with resources and leadership that met everybody’s needs fairly
well (and nobody’s perfectly)—this is the big hump in a normal distribution
where most of the members lay. Thus most
denominations produce “denominational-generic” leadership, materials and
programming. We had to—this was where
the greatest “market” was. This is why
denominational programs and 
materials
weren’t that much different than generic resources and leadership from other
sources.
The
Internet is changing all that—the “long tail” is here. The tail is the huge demand for things that
are not “blockbusters” that the average crowd wants. The Long Tail (by Chris Anderson) argues that
there are huge sales in “selling less of more” in the future since the Internet
has brought down distribution costs connecting producers and users at lower
prices. A denomination would not think
of producing a resource for Wesleyan
single female urban professionals pondering a call into ministry—there just
wouldn’t be enough sales in it to put up the money to produce 50 copies. The long tail is the market for the
accumulated special needs of the thousands of people like this and together the
market may be bigger even than the total of the blockbusters like Purpose
Driven Life that Wal-Mart sells.
The
Internet has brought us “The Long Tail” and it is here to stay. Before the Internet we had the “top 40” songs
and three news broadcasts. Now the
Internet caters to individualized specialized tastes so we have hundreds of
news sources and channels, and Rhapsody offers
subscribers more than 2 million songs and in any given month with 40% of their
sales being music you can’t even get in stores. A full one third of Amazon.com’s sales consist of books you can’t buy in even
the largest physical bookstores. The
average readership of a blog is seven. Sure, there
are blockbuster blogs with readerships in the millions, but the vast majority
of readership on the web is in the long tail.
The
Internet has taught us that someone somewhere has exactly what we want—all we
have to do is find them. EBay and Google
intend to help us connect. Of course
generic materials—even blockbusters—can still be produced, but the really big
market is in specialization—small runs of very specific resources (including
seminars, leadership programs and books) designed for tiny market niches.
This
Internet effect is actually good news for smaller denominations. The day of look-alike me-too programs and
materials will give way to more very specific “narrowcasting” in the future. Conferences and roundtables will emerge for
youth pastors of middle school kids in middle size towns. These will increasingly compete with the
large generic youth conferences Group and
Youth Specialties sponsor. Conferences and materials for churches under 50 will emerge just like we (already) have such
roundtables for churches over 1000.
There will be meetings for Wesleyans opposed to war or conservative
Wesleyans committed to instantaneous entire Sanctification. Indeed, some of these have already emerged
and are operating underground right now.
Sprawling programs where denominations try to fit every pastor and
church into a single mold might continue for a time but in the future there
will be more programs, and more books, and more materials, and more conference not less
of them. The generic “blockbuster
generic” will give way to “the long tail” of resources and leadership
specifically designed for specific narrow needs.
Why
I think this can be good news for denominations is many denominations
(including my own) are actually long tails themselves… they are a tiny fraction
of the whole with very specific values and beliefs—at least those who haven’t
caved into the generic. The Internet is
not creating more generic evangelical Christians but actually is creating
thousands of mini-denominations within the larger denominations. The leaders who see this coming will
capitalize on their “convening” powers to gather like-minded people together
and they will figure out how to connect producers of narrow resources with
those who need them—a denomination eBay of sorts.
The Internet is not a
“temporary fad” as one of my denomination’s General Superintendents quipped in
1995. It has already changed the way denominations do their work. The Freshmen students I will teach this week in class have never
known a world without the Internet. They
already consider it “old media” and IPodcasts and
text messaging and several other means are their ways of connecting and
communicating. It is time to finish catching up to the changes already in
effect from the Internet age. Some of
the changes the Internet has fostered are fearsome and troublesome, but over
all denominations are adept at adapting and I believe they’ll figure out how a
denomination works in the Internet age.
So, what do you think?
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Keith Drury September 4, 2006