I just got back from spending a week at Kellogg Center for Nonprofit Management in Chicago. It was a fascinating experience and one that I will be reflecting on for some time. It was great to be affirmed in what we are doing at COTHA and to be challenged to improve on what is going on.
One of the interesting seminars dealt with the changes we are experiencing with the way we communicate. Here's some interesting data:
• 93% of Americans use mobile phones/wireless.
• 30% of Americans using smart phones
• More the two trillion text messages sent in 2010
• 56.3 billion mobile multimedia messages during the same period.
• 90% of the Global population with access to mobile networks.
• There are now 700 million subscribers on FaceBook
And what is the impact of all this? Does it really matter to us in the Church? Well, take a look at this:
The bottom line:
• More people are connected GLOBALLY in 2011 than ever before in history. Just not in person.
• Experts say these behaviors and technologies are still in their infancy and will continue to grow in the next 5 to 10 years. Therefore organizations must continue to adapt and change their marketing and communications.
What is the faithful way forward? For some, it's to bury one's head in the sand and hope it all goes away. Maybe if we wait around long enough things will return to the way they were!! Not a chance. We constantly have to be in the mode of evaluating and reevaluating what we are doing and what we should be doing. That is why we are so involved in social networking ourselves, especially with FaceBook, Twitter, and this Blog. But just as quickly as we get used to this, the world changes.
Our Saturday night service makes an attempt to bring into our worship the promise that Social Networking makes for creating community. We actively use Twitter and people can (and do!) make comments about the message and the service itself. The hope, though, is to take that technology and create further community throughout the week by connecting with each other. Does this work perfectly? Of course not. But we're not going to sit around and wait until things are perfect because the world will have changed again.
It does no good to hope this will all go away. It won't. We need to speak into the world in ways that we can be heard. We'll make mistakes with this but inaction is not an option!
One of the interesting seminars dealt with the changes we are experiencing with the way we communicate. Here's some interesting data:
• 93% of Americans use mobile phones/wireless.
• 30% of Americans using smart phones
• More the two trillion text messages sent in 2010
• 56.3 billion mobile multimedia messages during the same period.
• 90% of the Global population with access to mobile networks.
• There are now 700 million subscribers on FaceBook
And what is the impact of all this? Does it really matter to us in the Church? Well, take a look at this:
The bottom line:
• More people are connected GLOBALLY in 2011 than ever before in history. Just not in person.
• Experts say these behaviors and technologies are still in their infancy and will continue to grow in the next 5 to 10 years. Therefore organizations must continue to adapt and change their marketing and communications.
What is the faithful way forward? For some, it's to bury one's head in the sand and hope it all goes away. Maybe if we wait around long enough things will return to the way they were!! Not a chance. We constantly have to be in the mode of evaluating and reevaluating what we are doing and what we should be doing. That is why we are so involved in social networking ourselves, especially with FaceBook, Twitter, and this Blog. But just as quickly as we get used to this, the world changes.
Our Saturday night service makes an attempt to bring into our worship the promise that Social Networking makes for creating community. We actively use Twitter and people can (and do!) make comments about the message and the service itself. The hope, though, is to take that technology and create further community throughout the week by connecting with each other. Does this work perfectly? Of course not. But we're not going to sit around and wait until things are perfect because the world will have changed again.
It does no good to hope this will all go away. It won't. We need to speak into the world in ways that we can be heard. We'll make mistakes with this but inaction is not an option!
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