What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • 8 Things the Churches Could Learn From the collapse of HMV

    I’m sad to see that the HMV music chain is in trouble. The sadness that I feel about it though has to be accompanied with a knowledge that I’ve looked elsewhere for my entertainment recently. At one time I would have gone there to buy things for others and things for myself around Christmas. This year I never thought about going and next year my local shop may well not be there.

    There was a discussion on the wireless just now about it all which included an analysis which went something like this:

    The trouble is, HMV just didn’t learn during the nineties and the noughties. They just didn’t build their online presence and now they face collapse.

    You know, when the history of the church in this century is written, astute historians may well find themselves drawn to similar conclusions.

    Lots of people look to churches around Christmas – increasingly, some may find that the church they have nostalgia for is no longer there when they look for an annual celebration.

    The truth is, it is not the fault of these people searching, that those churches may not survive. All the action points needed lie with those who currently are in charge.

    Here are eight things churches could to do learn from the collapse of HMV if it wants to thrive:

    • Include a congregation’s web presence as part of its quinquennial survey. A congregation can collapse if its web presence is not good just as easily as if its foundations are built on sand. There’s a parable about this somewhere.
    • Recognise that this is not the future this is now. And it isn’t just for the young people either.
    • If your diocese publishes negative material about your congregation, get it taken offline quickly. This includes dioceses that publish directories of their churches which are not updated and which list churches as having no events and no news. It also includes dioceses which publish online “mission plans” which contain negative material about individual congregations which will show up in search engines.
    • Remember your competition is not simply the local church down the road. It is the atheists, the tennis court, the Buddhists and a morning in bed. Here at St Mary’s I long since worked out that our competition on a Sunday morning was not so much our ecumenical friends as the local private swimming baths which are nude on a Sunday morning. We’ve got to be more fun that than and look like we are more fun than that online.
    • Know that Social Media is not a fad. It isn’t going away. Trust me on this one. It is where the people are. Engage.
    • Understand that people trust personality not corporate speak. They don’t trust language about mission from companies like HMV. They don’t and won’t trust it from us. Saying you are “doing mission” may well put people off. No, really.
    • Believe that relationship matters. You have one with me if you are reading this. Go figure.
    • Learn how to use email. No really. Learn how to use it properly. Learn to use mailing lists. Learn to use subject headings effectively. Remember that if you want someone to know something you have to tell them. And then tell them again. And again. And again.
    , , , ,

66 responses to “Sermon Preached on 9 October 2011”

  1. kelvin Avatar
    kelvin

    Now, I think we are in danger of moving away from commenting on the sermon that was posted above.

    Further comments that are focused on that sermon are welcome. I think that I will exercise my perogative and choose not to host any further debates on this thread unless they pertain directly to the orginal post.

    Several comments from those of differing opinions have been gently hushed.

    Reply
  2. Alan McManus Avatar
    Alan McManus

    I remember hearing you preach this sermon, Kelvin, and being surprised at your take on it. Mine, I now realise (thanks for the research, Rosemary), came from Augustine (via my RC school chaplain, now happily married, whose constant theme was the love of God for us). It’s difficult to revise views learned while young as the evidence we accepted as children is not always acceptable to our adult minds – if we chose to review it. So I sympathise both with my coreligionist and with our Cromwellian interlocutor, despite their abrasive tone and the fun we can have with bowels and prostrates: they appear both to speak the truth as they see it. But so does everyone else commenting – and some (like Jaye) read the Hebrew scriptures in the original. I like the interpretation put forward by Kenny and Agatha and just because it was a convenient one for Augustine doesn’t mean it has to lack truth. So I turned to the Greek for backup and the first word that struck me was Ἀρίστων (ariston) which has connotations of excellence and survives in ‘aristocrat’. This king calls his ‘banquet’ (Jerusalem Bible) literally ‘my excellence’ – and he’s obviously gone all out. So none of the big wigs turn up and he goes all inclusive and gets the good and the bad in. Then throws a hissy fit about the dress code. He sounds A LOT like me when I’m directing. Then I noticed there’s a lot of play on IN and OUT (even ‘crossroads’ is διεξόδους – diexodous – way out ways?) and the final words are a pun on κλητοί (kletoi – named/ invited) and ἐκλεκτοί (eklektoi – called/ chosen).
    Now I suspect that shackling a quest hand and foot and shoving him out the door into outer darkness (the Greek word for darkness is the Classical root of ‘Scotland’!) may have put a rather gloomy outlook on the evening’s festivities. Could that be the point? It’s sandwiched between the parable of the wicked husbandmen that has the son of vineyard owner exit sharply and the trap Jesus escapes about taxes.
    With all this about ‘who’s in who’s out?’ and ‘which side of the coin are you on?’ can we take this passage with a pinch of Paul (and Augustine, and Cromwell) and say ‘our righteousness is as filthy rags before the Lord’? So the point is not how we are named/ that we are invited but that the church (ekklesia) we are chosen and called to be is not one of domineering control freaks throwing hissy fits because the excellence of their table arrangements has been spoilt by someone not following rubrics. Or by (ditto) because their nice ideas about biology (JS, once you mention ‘purpose’, no biologist will take you seriously) have been spoilt by people in love. St Mary’s is a great liturgical feast indeed. Everyone goes all out for excellence. Yet I’ve seen the oddest-dressed people doing the oddest things (me late, again, in my glad rags included) welcomed. The RC Church in Scotland, of whose hierarchy I am deeply deeply ashamed, would do well to stop whitewashing sepulchers and start calling the clergy and laity in their charge to inclusive love.

    Reply
    1. Alan McManus Avatar
      Alan McManus

      That should be άριστον, guest, εκλεκτοί. Transliteration is correct, it was the cut and paste that was slapdash. Fortunately my phone does Greek (no pun intended) but it doesn’t do breathings.

      Reply

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