Mission in Disruption
Society is in rapid acceleration and disruption. In the last few months, we’ve had multiple crises all at once as a society - the pandemic, the economy, the Black Lives Matter protests, the looming election, and more.
It’s all changing fast.
As the church, how can we “engage culture” in the midst of it all? Is it possible to adapt, and find new ways to facilitate a genuine “missionary encounter”?
I’ve been long writing on the side about how churches and ministries can stay agile in a digital age, and learn to design the ways they encounter and reach their cities.
Of course, we know we can’t sacrifice biblical fidelity or pastoral thoughtfulness in the name of innovation - there are limits, and we are not marketers. But we also know that we have an imperative to reach the world around us on their terms.
So the opportunity is in the tension.
We don’t see “adaptive mission” very often in churches and local ministries, because the typical incentives and structures are often more pastoral than missional.
Churches are typically good at gatherings, groups and care, and often the only natural mechanism for quick response to disruption is the Sunday sermon.
For example, at our church, when COVID-19 hit, we pivoted from a Lent-season sermon on Sin, to a new series talking how to be the church led by the spirit in a time of disruption.
This was a great pivot, emphasizing sensitivity to the Spirit (which is a helpful key for navigating change), but it also highlights how adjustment happens at the “sermon broadcast” level, but rarely at the programmatic or structural level.
So, I was thinking through some of the ways we adjusted for mission in our church during the pandemic, what some of the lessons were, and what I think the core ingredients are for adaptive mission in the future.
Case Study: Alpha Online
One program that has always been central to our church’s core ministry system is Alpha. The essence of Alpha is to empower churches to create a non-judgmental space to explore faith, through a video curriculum, in a really hospitable group space.
In New York, it’s the hospitality that is usually the key - great wine in a great apartment somewhere - and it’s the thing that allows you to feel safe to invite your skeptical friend from work.
The disruption of COVID-19, of course, was that these physical gatherings were no longer possible, but the desire to keep Alpha going and give people space to explore faith seemed more crucial than ever.
So in May, the Alpha leadership team at our church (all lay leaders and volunteers) decided to push through, and decided to rapidly launch Alpha online, and figure out how to maintain the Alpha spirit without the physical hospitality.
This involved developing a digital brand identity (alphaonline.nyc), and building a landing page as the first part of the funnel, with a clear invitation.
It also included an expanded menu of “course options,” which in the new model, took place every night of the week - we offered 7 courses in one cycle, and asked a few key diagnostic questions on the online form.
In person, Alpha is usually only on one night of the week, with maybe one parallel group on a different night in a different place. The evenings are volunteer-intensive. But in this new reality, it took fewer leaders to run a course, and so we could offer more courses, and offer more flexibility.
On the “experience” side, our Alpha team worked really hard to translate the principles of a warm guest experience, from in-person active listening, to digital principles for facilitating a non-awkward conversation and making people feel welcome.
To create a sense of belonging, they opened up a 30 minute “digital bar” at the end of each night, to allow people to linger and have free conversation, on a digital screen.
On the “invitation” side, we partnered with Evan and Mike at Social Science, a social media agency. These two guys are already leaders in our church, who are in the community and involved in local ministry. I asked them to bring their expertise to help us with digital ads (something we had never done).
We developed 3 different styles of invitation, and ran Instagram and Facebook ads for two weeks, at a cost of about $5,000. We only invited those in the New York metro area, and looked for keywords that would help us find an audience of non-Christians who might be open to exploring faith.
As a result, we generated something like 130,000 impressions, got 1,400 clicks on the website, and had 157 seekers sign up for the digital Alpha course.
Insights and keys for adaptive mission:
These are rough reflections, and we’re still learning. But it seems that a few things were key in facilitating this kind of a pivot - both this case study specifically, and the larger principles of mission innovation.
One - Practical engagement on a Theology of Mission
A deep understanding and internalizing of the storyline of scripture is a foundational piece for practical or tangible mission. Knowing the creation-fall-redemption-restoration storyline, and having vision of the Kingdom of Jesus being possible and present in the current moment, and a sense of being participants and partners with the Holy Spirit in the building of his people and calling individuals to himself is crucial.
Healthy theological imagination and reflection on mission is the baseline for innovation - it’s what makes any design framework or problem solving methodology distinctly Christian. It has to come out of a Jesus-soaked theology with an early-church imagination about how to reach the world. Otherwise, we’re just using business frameworks.
In this case, Alpha is led by some of our best lay leaders. They’ve been in our community for a number of years, been shaped by our teaching, some of them came to faith through Alpha, they are all deeply connected with the city, and they’ve all been through our missional life course, which is an intensive on the missional storyline of scripture.
Two - Build Strong Local “Communitas.”
Mission should be shaped and developed in the context of thick Christian community. It can’t just be ideas in a lab on a whiteboard - it has to have a particular social reference, a modeling of the Kingdom in the interaction of people.
I love Alan Hirsch’s concept of “communitas,” the idea of community that is formed out of liminality, the common experience of disruption and shared adaptation. So much of the practical mission I see in New York is, essentially, groups of friends that emerge in times of trial (whether a formal church team, or an informal group), that then develop an “overflow spirit” to go pursue outsiders.
In the case of Alpha, so much of this was able to happen because of “thick community,” and the trust to handle the logistics, send all of the back and forth text messages, handle conflict and disagreement, and more.
It’s also critical because even on a Zoom call, there is a strong sense of a “real community” behind the digital screen, which adds credibility and safety to a stranger clicking into a digital room.
Mission isn’t an individual pursuit, it has to have a communal referent.
Three - Pursue Proximity to the Cultural Moment.
Any effective cultural encounter in a time of disruption will have a “finger on the pulse,” so to speak, of what’s happening in the world around them.
In the middle of Covid-19, the Black Lives Matter protests, the contested political moment, and so much more, we have to reckon with how these things are affecting the minds, hearts, realities, horizons, and possibilities of the average person.
This often gets translated into good preaching, but doesn’t often get as translated into the events, programs, media, content, and groups that we offer.
In the Alpha example, we thought long and hard about the pandemic - about how so many people will suffer from loneliness, how they are asking larger existential questions about their lives, how they are googling for prayer and other spiritual keywords, and how they likely have a lot of time on their hands.
This led to many of the insights behind the digital Alpha model, but wouldn’t have been possible without having a team “on the ground.”
Four - Create Space for Divergent Thinking
The innovation process, in essence, essentially comes down to (1) reflection on who you are trying to reach, and (2) empowered divergent thinking at the group level about ways to reach them. It’s essentially knowing who you are communicating to, and brainstorming the things that might serve them well.
In other words, it’s not that hard, but we organize around this process very infrequently at the church level.
But, church communities are positioned so well for this, because they have large networks that can generate a multiplicity of ideas, and are closest to the ground with everyday people.
It’s just that space for divergent thinking and brainstorming isn’t facilitated.
In the Alpha example, the core Alpha team of 7-10 people spent real time dreaming and imagining how we might invite someone in the current moment, came up with multiple ideas, and then just went for it. As a leadership team, we empowered them with extra budget to take risks.
Five - Empower the Creative Talent around you
The other key step is organizing and harnessing the creative capital in the church, particularly those who already have design, product, and marketing instincts from their everyday vocations.
Churches in cities today are convening massive “creative class” talent, because that’s where it lives, but often don’t have an imagination about how to invite them to share their gifts with the world. In an age of brand narratives, content marketing, and digital product building, this is more important than ever.
In the Alpha case study, we talked with Social Science, and asked if they would help us develop Instagram and Facebook ads for our Alpha course, and with a level of skill and operational professionalism that most pastors and church staff will never have, were able to execute on a successful campaign that drove hundreds of sign ups to the Alpha website.
Just because we asked! There are people in our communities that have massive skill in product development and distribution, if we have the imagination to get them involved.
Toward Adaptive Missional Experiments
I think creating space for missional imagination and innovation at the local church level, with a vision of faithful cultural encounter, is a key step in our moment.
More case studies to come.