The Church: Are We a Bloated Operating System?
I’m anxiously awaiting the arrival of my copy Apple’s OS X Snow Leopard so this post by Tony Morgan caught my attention. Tony references this quote about the shrinking size of the new Mac operating system:
“Challenging 30 years of ever more bloated software tradition, the changes here are about becoming a more effective middleware between the media and the hardware, reducing friction while becoming more useful by, well, being lighter, less visible.” From Qizmodo
Tony challenges us in his reaction to the quote to consider our ministries and programming in the church. Are we asking our people to do things that are slowing their progress to the end goal of spiritual maturity? Are we bombarding them with too many messages that the main message is getting lost?
How does this relate to communications? How can our publications and website add to experiences or hinder experiences? If I create a worship guide that has 1,000 of little inserts that fall all over the place during worship or while Pastor Rob is preaching, is that a help or a hindrance? If I try to cram a line about every possible opportunity or ministry into the bulletin, is a guest going to be overwhelmed by all the info and choices? If I try to highlight everything on the main page of our website, will a member pay attention to anything we’re trying to say?
To reference Kem Meyer’s mantra, it’s all about “Less clutter. Less noise.” It’s not about all of our “church” programming. It’s about Jesus. If the church is hindering people from really knowing Jesus and making him known, then, well, we’re wasting our time.
What do you think? Join the discussion...
