The Economy, Churches and Technology

Research guru George Barna’s firm (I also recommend him as an author – see “Revolution” for a great read) has published part two of a three-part series studying the effects of the economy on local churches. The study focused on 1,114 pastors and church executives and was conducted in the fourth quarter of 2009. So far, the results are not only interesting, some are flat-out surprising.

According to the research, “nearly half of church leaders (45%) said they had not (emphasis mine) made any changes to their ministry as a result of the economic problems of the last year.” The remaining 55% have reduced spending, cut staff, reduced missions giving, and/or reduced facilities budgets.

• About 20% of the pastors surveyed have cut budgets, while only 2% to 3% said they “were watching spending, conserving more, shopping for better deals, eliminating non-essentials, freezing portions of the budget and re-evaluating vendors”.
• “About one out of every six churches (18%) indicated that they had to eliminate positions, reduce salaries, rely on more volunteer time, and cut hours from full-time to part-time.”
• “…nearly one in every 25 churches said they had reduced their giving to missions or missionaries.”
• A mere 3% of those surveyed reduced facility budgets.

Doing Less vs.  Doing Differently

The “easy fix” is to simply do less; whether that’s less staff, less programs or less budget – the first response is to make cuts. There’s nothing wrong with tightening the financial belt, but cuts alone won’t provide the church with the leverage to ramp up once the economy turns around.

I thought that David Kinnaman, President of the Barna Group, concluded his thoughts brilliantly as he talked about the challenge of not merely doing less, but doing things differently.

In the past year, most churches have been satisfied to tie down loose financial ends and keep costs under control. That has been no small feat for most organizations, let alone donor-driven congregations. Yet, the surprise is how few churches seem to have clearly and intentionally developed a proactive response to the downturn.

When pastors were asked to identify the changes they had made as a result of the economic downturn only about one out of every eight church leaders (13%) identified what might be described as activities that proactively position the church as a valuable resource to churchgoers and to those in the community.

For instance, many churches understandably have put off purchasing new equipment and technology. Yet less than one-half of one percent of the churches we interviewed said they upgraded their use of technology in order to help cut down on costs or to maximize communication and reach. Some churches were naturally deferring building projects and facility-related expenditures, but virtually none of the leaders we interviewed said they were rethinking whether the future of congregational ministry required or could even sustain their current campus, much less planned facility expansions. And while some churches have offered resources, training and assistance specifically in response to the economic crisis, it is surprising that so few pastors had made strategic shifts to become a significant and vital resource to their congregants and to the broader community. Like so many others, church leaders have been focused on surviving; now is the time, though, to calibrate ministries and strategies to the opportunities brought by the new economy. (David Kinnaman, The Economy’s Impact on Churches (Part 2 of 3): How Churches Have Adapted)

Having worked with churches on the big three areas of consulting (people, process, technology), I’m in complete agreement with David’s assessment. Change is hard. Aligning your people, processes and technologies can make the difference between doing less and doing things differently. It’s harder than only making cuts, but the results are far more effective.

In addition to David’s suggestions, how would you (or has your church already done) help churches think different instead of/in addition to doing less?

Twitter This

Twitter Account Name: Password:

How to Soak Up Expertise

I have a problem: the Internet is ginormous and gleaning slivers of insight is hard.

Given the extreme availability provided by blogs, videos and Twitter, it’s not hard to find people who share about topics that interest me. The problem, of course, is that managing the volume of content on the Internet is like drinking from a fire hydrant – nix that – from Niagara Falls. Searching has never been easier, but the sheer quantity of results from Google/Yahoo/Bing can often keep us from taking the time to sort the data. Instead, I find myself starting my searches in two different ways: Blogrolls & Twitter.

Where to Look

I already have a large number of blogs that I follow (thank you, Bloglines for making this easy), so starting my searches on blogs of people who I know have similar affinity is a pretty good way of finding other people who I may not know. Quite often, I’ll find what I’m looking for in a matter of minutes.

But my favorite way to search for people (more accurately: experts) is by making the ask on Twitter. I’m AMAZED at how quickly and how accurately my Twitter crowd sends links to the people I need to find/follow.

How I Sift, Sort & Soak Up Expertise

When I find someone that’s really compelling and has great knowledge coupled with tremendous insight, I’m a sucker for soaking up anything and everything I can find about them. Once I have good information, I’ve had to learn to not be overwhelmed by the amount of information I find.

Sifting

When I find a site or blog that has great information, I’ll search that site using the Google site search “site:domain.com” and then put in the words or phrases that I want to find within this site. For example, I could search like this: site:withoutwax.tv leadership will search pastor Pete Wilson’s blog for the term “leadership”).

Though it may seem ludicrously obvious, I use the COMMAND + F (CTRL + F for Windows) – the ever-useful “Find” feature” – in my browser to search through a page for keywords or phrases.

Sorting

There are plenty of ways to capture data, but my favorite is Mindjet’s MindManager. It’s mind-mapping software that allows me to type in anything (useful for brainstorming, too) and drag-and-drop images, links, URL’s, etc.) right into the mind map. Obviously, this can be as simple as a TextEdit or Word document, or even XMind (a less robust but free mind mapping tool).

Soaking

Because research can be a time-sink, I have taught myself to focus on no more than one main topic at a time. Again, using MindManager, I will capture content that I need. Anything extra gets saved into a different “drawer” on the mind map, ready for me to look at later on.

Once I have my research, I will continue to check for new updates from the blogger and, more often than not, follow them on Twitter and add them to a search group (list). In this way, I can continue to learn from their insight over time. This is the key. A single point of data is good, but a consistent stream almost always provides better context, deeper understanding and more practical application for me.

By taking their ideas, insgights and experiences and writing out how I can apply the information – in my own context – helps me to “own” the information. I don’t think we really soak up anything until we can teach what we’ve learned to someone else, using our own context.

Do you have other ways of “soaking”? Feel free to share them in the comments.

Twitter This

Twitter Account Name: Password: