There are No New Behaviors on the Internet

Marketer Des Traynor from Intercom did a good job of illustrating this point at last years Lean Startup Conference. Every new social media phenomenon doesn’t create new behavior, but a new way to expressing existing behavior.

For example. Snapchat, where your image or text disappears a short time after it’s delivered, is the same as passing notes in class then tearing them up so that nobody else will see them. The odds that someone will intercept your note are similar to that of someone taking a screen shot of your snapchat.

Social media, can and does, exacerbate existing behaviors. Sometime this is for the worse. It’s much easier for a 10-year-old to find porn, and they do!

For churches to be innovative, it’s important to think about the behaviors we WANT to exacerbate, and develop systems that encourage those behaviors. As you can imagine, technology can play an important role here.

For example, say we want people to give more. People, especially church people, want to give. The behavior exists but it needs to be inspired! Are people likely to give moreĀ during collection timeĀ if you tell them the church needs it, or if you tell them a story about someone the church helped every week. The latter has proven to be universally more powerful. The same should apply to our systems, however. Do you have a simple donate button on your site? Or do you let people know that their money will provide a backpack for a child in Guatemala so that they can go to school (among other stories)? Do you let people designate projects where their money can go? These methods turn a boring system into an inspired one.

We have 2000 years of church history, chances are we’re not going to discover any new behaviors, but we can design systems to inspire people to be the best people they can be. Jesus was a master at doing this. He was the guy to didn’t come to abolish the existing law, but to bring a new one, an inspired one. Jesus didn’t deny the issue of uncleanliness, but he said it exists our hearts, not in our food; and thus we’re allowed to eat bacon! In doing so, Jesus got us to see cleanliness as a matter of the heart and reflect on our behaviors, not our practice.

Think of a behavior you’d like to cultivate in your church, and think of systems you can change to reach that goal. Then you’ll find innovation much easier to accomplish.

 

 

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