When the world changes... social media, mobile devices and the world of work.

My friend Mynhardt posted the wonderful reflection below on how a few technologies are changing the way in which people work.  Here's a part of his post.

The very nature of business has changed.

Where before the successful businessman was a company orientated person, skilled in the management of policies, deadlines and documents, now the future of business lies more in being a community focused and relationally intelligent person, mastering the arts of connection, contributing and sharing.

Obviously, the tools needed to do the job well looks very different on opposite ends of this spectrum.  

We're moving away from spreadsheets, email, printed documents and telephone conversations, as these ways of communicating become increasingly slow, cumbersome and, dare I say weird, to an emerging group of young professionals in the workplace.

Here are 3 of the top tools transforming the way we relate to each other professionally:

1. Social networks - undermining our reliance on email and voice telephony for communicating, and also creating a new culture of always-on connection;
2. Mobile technology - fostering a whole generation of young people who are getting to know the internet through their phones, long before they find it anywhere else; and
3. Geo location services - as our connections are getting more global through our online links, they are also getting more local through the use of location based services, letting you know what's happening just around the corner.

Please read the rest of his great post here...

I agree with Mynhardt - indeed, I have experienced what he is talking about.  Most of my daily work life (and mission) is 'run' through my iPhone and iPad.  A large part of what I do as a coach, mentor and spiritual guide is done through social networking services.  I engage with friends and fellow sojourners through social networking services, instant messaging, skype and email.

This got me thinking about a comment that was made by someone the day before Mynhardt's post.  We were talking about what the internet was like when it first began (yup, I was at University before the internet! and in fact, I was also at University when the first Mosaic and later Netscape Browsers were launched!).  The conversation turned to how the internet was in 2005 - I asked her what was so different from then to now and she commented 'I can hardly imagine the internet without tabbed browsing and twiter'!

Indeed, the internet, and the new generation that were born after the birth of the internet, have grown up with short attention spans, multiple pages loading at the same time, a myriad of tasks being done all at one.  Together with this, there has been a radical paradigm shift on the internet from information to social.  I remember when I could visit just about every site on the internet (yes, all 100 or so sites) in a single day!  The first browsers only loaded text and they were realy just 'pushing' information onto the web.  Now, it is all about social interaction, curating information, finding what your peers and social circle find interesting and integrating that into your life.  Twitter, facebook, Yelp, Foursquare, Ping these are all social curation tools that personalize the internet to your social and geographical setting.

Indeed, the new world is changing.  I foresee a few changes in the world of work in the years to come.

1. Tasks rather than careers: We are raising people to be task focussed rather than career focussed.  Most young people will gain a skill that they will apply for various settings, clients, and locations.  For example you may be an editor that lives in Cape Town taking on editing work from all over the world, working on a project by project basis.
2. Location is criticial:  I mean this in two senses, first, the new generation is wanting context relevant applications for their lifestyle and needs - location is critical for one's personal life.  For example, if I search for Pizza, I want results that relate to the town in which I live, not some far off place like Chicago!  Second, location is also less important in other settings of life, like your work life.  I constantly hear young people bemoaning the fact that they have to 'go into the office' or 'go to work'.  Because they are used to work on individual tasks (and sometimes multiple tasks at the same time) they want to do it where and when their energy, attention and equipment best allows it.
3. Stimulation is key:  This is the first generation that I know of who have grown up on overstimulation. Since, as Mynhardt points out above, most internet access is gained through a personal, portable, device (smart phone etc.) most young people are accustomed to being constantly connected, having all their information at their fingertips, and being constantly engaged and 'entertained'.  I think that we shall find that fewer and fewer people will take on tasks that don't constantly keep them stimulated, challenged and engaged.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on some of the changes that are taking place in the world of work.  Also, I'd love to hear how you access the internet (primarily).  Is it on a desktop computer, a laptop, or a portable device?  Please also share what generation you are from!  I have a sense that 'older' folks like me prefer a screen and keyboard, younger people prefer a cell phone.

What do breath mints, kisses and Church decline have in common? The Dutch Reformed Church looses 21 congregations last year!

So, what do breath mints, good kisses, and Church decline have in common with one another?

Well, I'd like to encourage you to come along to the Coronation Ave Methodist Church in Somerset West this evening, 7 November 2010 (if you're in Cape Town!) to find out.  Here's the map - the service takes place at 18.30.

View Larger Map

Well, this quote, from Ed Silvoso, gives a framing clue to what I'll be talking about:

Preaching the truth without love is like giving someone a good kiss when you have bad breath. No matter how good your kiss is, all they will remember is your bad breath!

I have given a great deal of thought to, and spent some time researching, the decline in Church membership and Church attendance.

This story in today's Rapport Newspaper bears out my feeling that South African Churches (and Churches in other regions in the world) are emptying at a rather rapid rate! Across the world Churches are facing two factors:

• Fewer people are joining Churches.
• The average age of members in existing Churches is increasing. 

Simply stated this is not good news for the Church.  Unless the Church can truly touch more people with Christ's love it will continue to decline (either as members leave, like this Rapport Article on the Dutch Reformed Church points out.  Or the average age of congregations will get older and older and eventually the members will die out - this has been the case in large parts of Europe.  England is a good example where congregations are generally quite small and relatively elderly.  One friend suggests that the majority of Methodist Churches in England have only one generation of 'membership' left.  Coffey and Gibss in the their book 'Church next' suggested that 60% of American Churches will die out by 2050).

The gist of the article is that the NG Kerk (Dutch Reformed Church) has lost 10588 members in the last year.  By their calculations this means that the Nederduits Gereformeerde Kerk has lost the equivalent of 21 congregations of 500 members in one year!  The situation is even more dire when one looks at a longer view - since 1986 the denomination has lost 23.8% of its members.

You can read some of my other posts on Church decline, and some of my research here:

• Church decline and neuroscience - how people decide.
• Is the Church dying or just changing?
• A Church with a mission, or a mission without a Church?
• God is not good and why religion poisons everything.

If you don't feel like reading can I please encourage you to watch this short little video? It is a superb reminder about what we should be doing as Christians and the Church.

If you can't read Afrikaans please use google translate - simply copy and paste the text below into http://www.google.com/translate and translate it from Afrikaans to your language of choice.

Die NG Kerk het verlede jaar genoeg lidmate verloor om 21 gemeentes van 500 lidmate elk vol te maak.

Teen Februarie vanjaar was daar in dié kerkverband 10 588 lidmate minder as ’n jaar vantevore.

Dit blyk uit die jongste syfers wat deur die NG Kerk se algemene sinode se taakspan oor geldsake inge samel is.

Dié syfers is bereken op grond van ’n opname wat in die tien sinodale gebiede gemaak is en waarin gemeentes gevra is om die aantal belydende en dooplidmate in hul onderskeie kuddes te vermeld. Gemeentes het die syfer onder meer bereken na aanleiding van hoeveel mense nog aktief eredienste bywoon.

Ds. Clem Marais, lid van die taakspan, het gesê hy is nie seker dat die syfer 100% akkuraat is nie (dit is nie geoudit nie), maar dat dit wel die tendens van dalende lidmaatgetalle bevestig.

Die NG Kerk se gebruiklike Kerkspieël-proses, waartydens ’n meer wetenskaplike opname van lidmaat-tendense gemaak word, is tans aan die gang. Wanneer dit na verwagting teen volgende jaar bekend gemaak word, sal daar meer betroubare syfers oor die NG Kerk se lidmaattendense beskikbaar wees.

Marais meen een van die vernaamste redes vir die afname in lidmaatgetalle is emigrasie onder dié kerkverband se tradisionele lidmate, hoewel die verskynsel van mense wat na ander kerkverbande oorloop, ook daartoe kon bygedra het.

In ’n artikel wat in die jongste Kerkbode verskyn, wys die ekonome drr. Fanie Joubert en Jannie Rossouw, asook die predikant ds. Fanie Joubert daarop dat die NG Kerk se algehele lidmaattal tussen 1986 en 2010 met 23,8% afgeneem het (van meer as 1 400 000 tot minder as 1 100 000).

Ook in dié artikel word emigrasie as een van die vernaamste bydraende faktore genoem. Die skrywers meen ’n gepaste reaksie op dié verskynsel is vir die NG Kerk om al hoe meer in die geestelike behoeftes van Afrikaanssprekendes in die buiteland te voorsien.

In ’n nuusbrief wat Marais, ook skriba van die NG sinode Namibië, die afgelope week aan gemeentes in dié streek gestuur het, noem hy voorts dat die taakspan oor geld sake se jongste syfers oor gemeentes se finansiële welstand kommerwekkend is.

“Ook wat gemeentes se geldsake betref, begin die bytmerke van die onlangse resessie wys.”

Die totale lopende inkomste van die NG Kerk se 1 133 gemeentes het in die vorige boekjaar met net 2,3% gestyg, vier uit elke tien gemeentes het die jaar met ’n tekort op hul boeke afgesluit en al hoe meer gemeentes raak afhanklik van basaarinkomste soos wat ander bronne van inkomste opdroog.

“Moet jy moedeloos word weens die oorwegend negatiewe tendense?” skryf Marais.

“In die gees van die Luisterseisoen dink ek almal moet dit hoor as ‘stemme’ wat ‘van buite’ na ons kom. En in hierdie ‘stemme’ moet ons probeer om ook Die Stem van die Here God te onderskei … Die Here is immers met ons op pad. Deur ’n proses van geloofsonderskeiding moet ons by Hom hoor hoe ons geloofsrespons moet lyk op hierdie droewige prentjie,” skryf Marais.

Tonight I will be making the case that as Christians we need to find a way to give the world a good kiss!  In other words we need to expose the world to what the Good News feels like before we preach about it.  We must engage the world in love before we expect them to make a decision about God's love.

I have previously spoke about the Luke 10 Model of sharing God's love here.  You can also read about it in chapter 8 of my book 'Transform your work life'. Download a few chapters of the book here.

Interaction and information about the Lausanne movement and congress

My friend Steve Hayes put a great post on his blog about information underload and information overload.  In short Steve is a prominent missiologist but did not hear very much about the Edinburgh 2010 Missions conference.  

In order to avoid something similar for the third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization I decided to put a comment on his blog, and post that comment here, to point any interested persons to a few places where you can interact and find information about the Lausanne Movement and the upcoming congress in Cape Town.

Part of my point is that a 'congress' will not be enough to truly help the cause of reaching the whole world with the whole Gospel.  A group of scholars and leaders are simply not connected enough to people on the ground, and static papers could never compare to interactions and relationships around what it means to do evangelism in all of the different contexts across the world!  While preaching may be effective in one setting, social justice will be far more effective in others... I hope you get the idea?

Here's part of my comment:

I have an inkling, however, that published articles and conference papers are not the ‘way of the new world’ – rather people long to participate and engage around issues, making contributions rather than just listening to the contributions of others (usually ‘experts’ rather than practitioners).

Lausanne is trying hard to have a ‘web presence’, and more importantly to create engagement around the issues of evangelism. (in fact I sent you an email to ask for your help – to your gmail address – I hope you got the email!).

Lausanne can be found in the following places:

Lausanne Web page: http://www.lausanne.org
Lausanne Blog: http://www.lausanne.org/lausanne-blog/
Lausanne Facebook Page: Lausanne Movement We have 2800 persons on this page.
Lausanne Twitter Page: @CapeTown2010 And if you follow us, we will follow you back!
Lausanne Social Networking platform (the Lausanne Conversation): Global Conversation
Lausanne articles and papers (called the Lausanne World Pulse): Lausanne World Pulse

You may be interested in the article that I wrote on social networking, new media, technology and evangelism.

The intention of our social networking efforts are to create connections and conversations around what it means to bring the whole Gospel to the whole world. The Global Conversation site has tens of thousands of persons of various Churches, theological backgrounds and geographic regions discussing, debating and acting up the contextual implementation of establishing God’s Kingdom.

Please can I invite you to copy and repost any of the information above on your blog!  Let's get talking, interacting and working for the establishment of God's transforming Kingdom on earth!