{"id":198,"date":"2009-02-16T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-02-16T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianpiatt.org\/?p=198"},"modified":"2009-02-16T16:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-02-16T20:00:00","slug":"church-20-spider-vs-starfish-part-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/christianpiatt.org\/?p=198","title":{"rendered":"Church 2.0: Spider vs Starfish (Part two)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Originally posted at the DisciplesWorld blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Last week, I threw a bit of a teaser out there, with this whole \u0093Spider vs. Starfish\u0094 concept. As I\u0092m sure many of you have lost hours of sleep, and perhaps have had a hard time forcing down a decent meal in eager anticipation of the follow-up, I figured it wasn\u0092t fair to keep you waiting any longer.<\/p>\n

The whole concept came from a book on business management practices, called The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations<\/a> by Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom. The model presented here resonates with the idea I\u0092ve had for a while now that church could learn a whole lot from the structure and governance of organizations like twelve-step groups like Alcoholics Anonymous. After all, they have reached millions with virtually no budget, and they seem immune to economic conditions, flourishing while we institutional churches struggle to keep the doors open.<\/p>\n

So what\u0092s the difference?<\/p>\n

I might help answer that question with another question; if you cut the head off a spider, what happens? We all know it dies, right? But what if you cut off the arm of a starfish? It just grows another starfish. Where you once had one, there are now two. In trying to stop it, you actually only made it stronger.<\/p>\n

So, how many of our churches are more like spiders instead of starfish? I thought so.<\/p>\n

Here\u0092s where the advent of recent technology might teach us an awful lot. If Rebecca Woods will indulge me in the future, I\u0092d gladly post some other blogs about using applications like facebook<\/a>, podcasting and blogging to further our ministries, but for now, let\u0092s consider them a little more systematically.<\/p>\n

In particular, consider a phenomenon known as \u0093Web 2.0.\u0094 This is much like the so-called \u0093leaderless organizations\u0094 that Brafman and Beckstrom are referring to. They are viral in nature, highly adaptable and scalable, and relatively easy to manage because the users generate the content.<\/p>\n

I\u0092ll offer a few examples to clarify the differences between a 1.0 \u0096 or spider \u0096 model and a 2.0 \u0096 or starfish \u0096 system. Amazon<\/a>, which has become a behemoth presence for online commerce, would be considered a 1.0 model. They have a product that they sell to customers, pretty much in the traditional model, despite their lack of storefronts. Though they\u0092ve been successful up until now, they are depending on some basic truths about the market. If, for example, the cost of paper or transport fuel went through the roof, it would affect their business model significantly, or if a supplier shut down, they might be stuck.<\/p>\n

eBay<\/a>, on the other hand, is a 2.0, or starfish, model. eBay<\/a>, as you probably know, doesn\u0092t actually sell anything. All they do is create the framework within which people can conduct business. This means they can be a conduit for everything from sweat socks to automobiles and homes. If the price of gold plummeted and jewelry markets crumbled, people could just sell more baseball cards or used books on eBay<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Another comparison might be looking at the difference between the traditional military structure versus a network like Al Qaida. Though you can throw an entire military into chaos by attacking its senior leadership or supply lines, Al Qaida is hard to stop in one sense because it is a headless beast. You kill or capture current leaders, and a dozen more pop up in their place. The system is so adaptable, it\u0092s hard to stop.<\/p>\n

Our churches have been based upon a 1.0 \u0093spider\u0094 model for centuries, and so far, it\u0092s worked pretty well. But now, we\u0092re surrounded by starfish like facebook<\/a>, Craigslist<\/a>, BitTorrent<\/a>, MySpace<\/a>, eBay<\/a> and the like, and we wonder why it is that we, the institutional church, don\u0092t seem relevant to younger people.<\/p>\n

For starters, we not only don\u0092t look familiar: we don\u0092t even look relevant.<\/p>\n

People may not be able to put their finger on it, but they know 1.0 versus 2.0 when they see it, especially younger people. There are consequences to being a starfish organization instead of a spider, such as letting go some control over the content exchanged within the system, but there\u0092s great opportunity as well.<\/p>\n

In future installments, I\u0092ll discuss a few more ways in which we can employ Church 2.0 methods in or existing congregations, both with technology, and even on our boards and in our Sunday School rooms. But for now, look around you and see if you can start spotting the differences between the spiders and starfish, all around you.<\/p>\n

Until next time!<\/p>\n

Christian Piatt is the author of MySpace to Sacred Space: God for a New Generation<\/a>, and Lost: A Search for Meaning<\/a>, and he is a columnist for various newspapers, magazines and websites on the topics of theology and popular culture. He is the co-founder of Milagro Christian Church<\/a> in Pueblo, Colorado with his wife, Amy. For more information about Christian, visit www.christianpiatt.com.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Originally posted at the DisciplesWorld blog. Last week, I threw a bit of a teaser out there, with this whole \u0093Spider vs. Starfish\u0094 concept. As I\u0092m sure many of you have lost hours of sleep, and perhaps have had a hard time forcing down a decent meal in eager anticipation of the follow-up, I figured […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,4,11,19,2,13,18,17,10,22,12,1,20,21],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/christianpiatt.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/christianpiatt.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/christianpiatt.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christianpiatt.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christianpiatt.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/christianpiatt.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/christianpiatt.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christianpiatt.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christianpiatt.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}