Author: kevinhaglund

4 lessons for the Church from Redbox

kevinhaglund 3 Comments

This past Saturday, I wrote about lessons from Blockbuster Video. Today, it occurred to me that the church could take some lessons from Redbox. If you’re not familiar with Redbox, it is an extremely cool concept in video rental. Redbox has managed to survive–and even thrive–in the age of streaming videos. They have managed to cut the overhead by putting an entire video store in a kiosk. And you find them everywhere! You can reserve a movie through a smartphone app and pick it up as you leave the grocery store. And it only costs about $1 for 24 hours!

Now, what can the Church learn from a movie renting kiosk? Here are a few of my thoughts:

  1. No frills – Redbox keeps the main thing the main thing. Movies. There’s no buying popcorn, soda or candy from the kiosk. What should the church’s main thing be? Some would point to the Great Commission (Mt 28:19-20), and that would be close, but the Great Commission wasn’t given to churches. It was given to individuals. My favorite quote is “if you build the church, you won’t necessarily get disciples; but if you build disciples, you will always get the Church” (Mike Breen, 3DM) In other words, church services and programs don’t make disciples–people do. The Church is the result of discipleship and should be the place where disciples gather to worship, celebrate, get equipped and then scatter to push God’s Kingdom into every nook and cranny of the surrounding culture. See my blog post half-time speech vs. gameday.
  2. Low overhead – Redbox has low overhead. It doesn’t have to pay for brick and mortar stores and store employees. Sure, someone’s got to stuff all those movies in the kiosk, but compared to Blockbuster, Redbox has got to have pretty low overhead. I’ve been on staff at some churches where the payroll alone was over 60% of the annual budget. Cut the programs back and it probably means you don’t need all those staff members (and if you cut back some of the programs, you might lose some of your dead weight consumers!). And what about those multi, multi-million dollar facilities and massive church campuses? Sure, the church needs a place to gather for worship, but do we really need an education wing to heat and cool for one hour a week? Homes are much better for groups anyway! I have a feeling that in the not so distant future, churches in America are going to be forced to reduce their budgets. In the not-so-distant-future, churches that stand on Biblical convictions could lose their tax-exempt and 501c3 status. If that happens, giving to churches will likely plummet.
  3. They’re everywhere – It seems like there’s a Redbox kiosk just about everywhere you turn around–grocery stores, fast food establishments, etc. What does it take for a new Redbox location? I’m guessing some sort of agreement, electricity and an internet connection. It is a model that is easily duplicatable. In our current day and age, what does it take to start a new church? Some would say that you’ve got to have a great communicator, a really good worship leader and awesome band, lots of attractive signage, tens of thousands of dollars worth of technology (audio, video, lighting). Oh, and a cool space to meet like a movie theater or fine arts auditorium. That’s a serious chunk of change! It’s no wonder that according to the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, only 68% of church plants survive. I’m sure many of those that fail run out of money. Some probably have leaders who quit or move on to other ministries. Other church plants just end up attracting all the people who are disgruntled at their current church and end up imploding from internal strife. But if discipleship and mission were put back in the hands of ordinary people, new communities of believers (churches) could spring up just about anywhere.
  4. They’re effective – According to Redbox Profits, 15 DVDs are rented each second! At some point, the movie rental industry might shift entirely to streaming movies and those little red kiosks will probably disappear. In fact, Redbox recently unveiled its own streaming service to compete with Netflix. If our American churches were evaluated for how well they were helping to put discipleship and mission back into the hands of ordinary people, how many would be considered “effective”? Sadly, it would probably only be a few. Too many of our churches are only effective at attracting consumers and perpetuating a co-dependent relationship with the paid professional clergy. In these churches, the people are dependent on the paid clergy for their spiritual food and the paid clergy are dependent on the people for their paychecks. It’s a phenomenon Mike Breens calls “spiritual feudalism.”

Can you think of any more?

lessons from blockbuster video

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I was driving through our town today and passed the former location of Blockbuster Video. As I looked at the empty storefront, it occurred to me that I remember the days before video rental stores and now we are living in the “post video store age” so-to-speak. There might be a few video rental stores around still, but basically an entire industry came, flourished for a while and went away in a matter of a few years! Although Blockbuster, the largest of the video rental companies, tried to adapt its business model to keep up with the changing times, it didn’t survive. Streaming videos from Netflix and ultra-low overhead concepts like Redbox have taken over the big brick and mortar stores with thousands of movie titles to choose from.

I couldn’t help but make a parallel to the church. Now, before you rush to the conclusion that the Church will vanish like Blockbuster, that is not the conclusion I’m trying to draw from this illustration. I believe the church will exhist–flourish, even–until Jesus returns. The parallel I want to draw is this: I wonder if the big, brick and mortar churches are in danger of going the way of Blockbuster?

Today is the day before Easter and tomorrow many churches will be filled with people. Some big churches are even getting a jump on Easter by having services today to handle the expected crowds. One mega-church in our town is having 3 services today and 3 tomorrow. Another mega-church nearby is having 10 identical services between Friday and Easter Sunday! I’m worn out just thinking about doing that many services!

The day we live in is one of great change. Mike Breen calls it a “cultural earthquake.” Our culture is no longer being shaped by the Church or Judeo-Christian values. Fewer people approach life with a Biblical worldview. This has already happened in Europe and many of the huge cathedrals are now museums or pubs as church population there has plummeted. In 2008, church attendance in both the UK and France was estimated at 12%. The US is headed quickly in that direction. Church attendance is already quickly falling off as more and more people become de-churched.

Our “worship shows” with haze, light shows and loud music haven’t kept the crowds from leaving. Our rockstar-like pastor/communicators who get invited to all the big Christian conferences haven’t been enough to keep people in the fold. And our amazing programs for every man, woman and child just aren’t doing the trick, either. The trouble with the Church in America is that if you peel away the well-produced Sunday morning event, there’s not much of substance happening in the way of discipleship. And without discipleship, much of what we do in church just becomes entertainment. After awhile, the entertainment we peddle in church in the name of God just can’t quite hold a candle to the entertainment the world has to offer. Church becomes spiritual goods and services produced for a bunch of consumers. At least, that’s what I’ve observed more often than not.

So what’s the answer? Transcendence. People are searching for meaning–a cause greater than themselves. When we invite people to join us in making God’s Kingdom tangible to those around us by living out the ways of Jesus in community as the body of Christ, we offer them transcendence–a role to play in God’s great story that He has been writing. Discipleship and mission is the key! Discipleship is simply teaching people to live their life in the reality of the Kingdom of God–to live like Jesus did and lead others to do the same which is mission. That takes intentionality and it takes relationships that go deep. We can’t disciple people when they are sitting in rows. We can only disciple people when we invite a few people into the journey with us–when we give them access to our lives just like Jesus did.

Programs, worship events and fancy buildings are nice, but they don’t make disciples. This is not to devalue the gathering of God’s people to worship together. That is a very important and worthy thing to do, but in too many churches, that is all we do! (I wrote another blog about changing our focus called half-time speech vs. game day.) If we don’t equip God’s people to live out and share their faith where they live, work and play, church attendance will continue to fall. Inviting people to church is great, but it is not evangelism. Inviting people to a small group is great, but it is not discipleship. Getting people to serve on a ministry team is great, but it is not necessarily mission.

Until we put discipleship and mission back in the hands of ordinary people instead of just the paid professionals, the mass exodus from the American church will continue. And it won’t be long before our big, brick and mortar church buildings go the way of Blockbuster Video and the cathedrals in Europe.