Scale

Maybe the pandemic will wean us from our addiction to scale. Economies of scale is a fiscal strategy which tells itself "the more we do this the better we will get at it, the costs will go down and profits will rise. As a manufacturing strategy it has worked in industries as diverse as automobile manufacturing and modern electronics.

Interestingly, each of these industries also have examples of success based not on scale but on higher quality and/or scarcity. You can spend more for less scale. The manufacturer making profit from performance gains...or even cachet. They could build more Ferrari's if they wanted to. They don't so that the price for each unit, along with the margins for the manufacturer stay high. In the computer industry this is called the Apple tax. And no one thinks that these industrial choices are accidents. These are examples of companies which either forsake or cleverly manage economies of scale to achieve specific financial goals.

Not all experiences scale, particularly those based upon relationships. For example, lots of marriages don't make you better at it. The experience of being married will not improve at scale. I am persuaded that applying economies of scale to other relation based  experiences rather than improving them actually changes them. And as you might guess, my primary concern is the Church

Churches of every size are working through the issue of regathering for worship. This is like walking blindfolded in the rain through a minefield whilst wearing scuba flippers. And the minefield for every church is different. This is not an operation that benefits from economies of scale. The premise of following what the big churches do is of little help to the small or medium sized. The experiences of urban churches won't help much in rural areas, and a congregation which skews to an older demographic cannot apply processes prepared for a church of younger participants.

If economies of scale are a poor way to emerge from our present crisis maybe it's time to rethink them the rest of the time.

"Go make disciples" is both strategy and mission. Growth in demographically receptive areas is and has been the result.  Scale as a strategy does grow demonstrably bigger churches. The verdict is still out on more disciples. And the ultimate question remains. If your results have become your strategy have you changed your mission? In education this flip-flop of allowing result to dictate strategy is called outcome based education. What think you of that? What would you think of calling your churches mission outcome based evangelism? Mayhaps, we should just stick with the Biblical process of making disciples...leaving the results to God. Reporting results yes, counting new disciples, of course, but never confusing the means and the ends.

Because there is nothing worse than using economies of scale as your guide only to discover that what you have tried to do can't actually be done. That the organism sought is sacrificed upon  the alter of the organization actually built.

Finally, let me return to where we began. Maybe the real virus we are fighting is the virus of rampant addiction to scale.  Biggerism. Fascination with size. A vision for the church which sacrifices quality for quantity. And maybe the time to fight this virus is right now as we emerge from our cocoon of socially-distanced safety. How can we have deeper relationships? How can we have more focused worship? How can we probe the limits of Christian giving to the poor and sick? How can we preach Jesus more faithfully and engage disciples more completely? Maybe those questions should replace How do we get back to scale. Maybe Covid-19 isn't the disease... maybe it's the cure. That's my Bobservation for now.