Community as Social Enterprise

Reimagining community by breaking down the dividing walls of the church and reorienting toward an orthopraxy of love

I am looking back over five decades of my life, growing up evangelical in Canada. In the early years, I felt confused and fearful. Then, I was disgusted and angry, coming to terms with a social identity that is unravelling in light of a growing awareness of a wider reality, an evolving perspective as I try to compare my point of view to the lived experiences of others. Now, as a member of the Buckminster Fuller Institute and the Design Science Studio, I am reimagining our social architecture and engaging in community that destroys the dividing wall of hostility between in-groups and out-groups, bringing about an emergence of one new humanity, learning to live in harmony and in integrity with our neighbours—all living beings, including our largest neighbour, Earth. Find me on Substack: Trimtab and The Apocrypha.

by Stephen Bau

LDRS 440: Developing Administrative Competence
Ron Pike
July 9, 2013

Planning Document

Context

If I believe the words that Jesus spoke when he walked this earth, I belong to one of the largest and one of the most enduring organizations on earth: the church. Jesus prayed for all who believe that his Father had sent him that they may be “brought to complete unity” in order that “the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me” (John 17:21, 23). Over two millennia, the organization has grown to roughly 2.2 billion people (“List of religious populations”, n.d.). In many areas of the world, the church continues to grow very quickly. In Canada, the church is in decline. To maintain the status quo may be one option, but it will likely result in the continued decline of the church in Canada. The Bible encourages the organization to stick together: “Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another — and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” (Hebrews 10:24). The word, “consider,” describes a strategic and creative process of problem solving to plan how to show love to each other and to the world by doing good. The instruction is very open-ended. The business model is not spelled out. So, let’s consider some alternative plans for building a community of faith, hope and love.

In the connection age, it is important to embrace a new way of looking at leadership that aligns with what Bill George describes as “authentic leadership” (2007) that is able to empower people to play to their strengths. We can find examples of a new way of approaching leadership in creative organizations that have embraced technology but aspire to encourage human interactions by a conscious effort to design those experiences. Shawn Neumann, President of Domain7, a web agency based in Abbotsford, BC, answered a question about “how to foster creative production” within their team: “It’s a fine balance between creating structures that help deliver outcomes for clients and creating those structures in a way that give our team the autonomy to develop creative outputs that they’re excited and passionate about” (Vandas, 2012, p. 71). Like Nehemiah circling the walls of Jerusalem, the church in Canada is assessing the current cultural environment and finding that the situation, in many ways, looks very grim. Many churches in Canada are failing financially as congregations age and many of the children of the older generations of Christians are not returning to the faith of their parents. So, how do you engage with a culture that is disengaging from the church? The answer may be found in looking at the church through the lens of the book, Business Model Generation, by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur (2010).

The vision of the organization revolves around the value that the community brings as an expression of God’s love to the world. “What matters is faith expressing itself in love” (Galations 5:6). The key activities of the organization involve education, teaching, building relationships and sustaining communities. The service that the organization delivers is to meet the needs of the local and global communities by providing educational resources and leadership skills through a process of learning and mentoring, and by sustaining the engagement of the community through opportunities to meet together, imagine, create, and put our collective knowledge and skills to work to build our community and meet each other’s needs. This includes basic human needs of food, clothing, shelter, work and relationships. But it also includes our transcendent need for meaning and purpose that we express through art, music, culture, ideas and, ultimately, through our faith in the God who made us to know him. The needs that the organization meets go beyond the idea of markets and customers, because there are some things that money can’t buy, as Michael Sandel might argue (Ha, 2013). The vision of the organization involves the needs of the world, so the market cannot be limited to a particular segment, since that would fundamentally violate the principles of justice, equality and freedom. We have a key partner in the Spirit of God who will provide the key resources to do the key activity of love that He has in mind for us to do. The commitment will cost us everything that we have, but the revenue streams will flow endlessly in a life that we live together and with the God who gives us life and love.

Issue Identification

One issue that represents both a future challenge and an opportunity for the church in Canada is the public perception of the organization that appears to be the cause of declining numbers (Stunt, 2012, para. 13). The underlying issues are many: division and a lack of a unified vision; lack of brand cohesion and failure to deliver on the brand promise of love and community; few opportunities for learning and mentoring; customer dissatisfaction; family disintegration. Yet the key issue may be the typical business model of the church in Canada. The church meets once a week on Sunday mornings. Is that enough to really create a cohesive community? Dialog, friendship and community are created where people find common ground. But if Christians are primarily known for being “anti-homosexual, judgmental, hypocritical, too political and boring” (Tippett, 2012, para. 16), we will continue to fail in our ability to connect with this generation and to communicate God’s love to people. The issue is the focus on what divides us rather than on what brings us together. Jesus already told us how to do this: to love God and to love people (Matthew 22:37–40). Faith is not the issue, if 80% of Canadians believe in God (Valpy & Friesen, 2010, para. 7). People take issue with how that faith is expressed. Shawn Neumann gave some advice to artists who want to be entrepreneurs: “I think we can often limit our own potential. You can blame other things, but fundamentally, 90 percent of what is holding us back is ourselves. That could be anything from not utilizing your potential or recognizing that you’re doing things that you shouldn’t be doing” (Vandas, 2012, p. 71). In the same way, the church is limiting itself. The church was once the economic engine of a community, employing people to build the physical structures — church buildings and cathedrals — that were the central focus of civic life. The church has failed to compete with the industrial economy by retreating to activities that involve the sphere of personal life. By disengaging from economic and civic life, the church wields diminishing influence in public life. And the competition for attention in the personal realm has rendered the church’s influence in the private lives of the majority virtually obsolete.

The Result Objective

The organization needs a rebranding. It’s not about a new logo. It’s about the frontline staff. Does each member of the team represent the brand and vision of the organization to love God and to love people? Do they faithfully represent God’s love for the world? Now, to limit the scope, I need to bring that back to myself. Do I faithfully represent God’s love for the world? No, I do not. And that is the real issue that I need to change. I am overwhelmed by the problems in my own life, let alone those of others. Yet, to fulfill the vision of the organization, I must love God and love my neighbours.

In my neighbourhood, it is difficult to ignore the problems in my local community of Abbotsford and in the metropolitan area of Vancouver where my family lives. These are problems of poverty, homelessness, mental illness, addiction, and crime (Kumagai, J. & McGuire, J., 2012). What do I know of meeting the needs of these people? But if everyone thinks the same thing, who will meet their needs? As a designer, I typically create work to serve the clients who can afford it. How else can you succeed in business? The market economy and the democratic system tend not to serve those on the margins and at the bottom of the social and economic scale. Yet, I’ve often wondered how to shift the focus to serve those who do not have a voice in our culture. The objective is counter-cultural: to love those who need love most.

Environmental Scan

The global economy is complex because of the infrastructure required to sustain a high standard of living. We talk about sustainability, but we don’t have the resources of time, effort and money to sustain this level of complexity on a global scale. If I’ve learned anything from web design and development, it is that maintainable code requires a lean system that enables flexibility and a simple design that keeps maintenance manageable. The global population is growing exponentially, so we need to live much more simply. As the political and economic power shifts to Asia, the strength of the Canadian economy may diminish in relationship to these growing economic engines. Learning to be happy with less may become a new reality, and we would do well to get ahead of the changes by adapting to a new way of life that relies less on scarce resources. The shift in behavior from consumption to connection could have the benefit of lower debt levels and stress levels and higher levels of joy and contentment. Competition can be less of a factor when sharing of knowledge and resources becomes the means of building community. By creating a self-sustaining and self-organizing community, people become increasingly grateful for the contributions and accomplishments of all members of the community. With resources shared in common, members of the community become accountable to each other.

SWOT Analysis

Strengths

1. Increasingly knowledge and experience with branding, design and technology
2. Experimental, creative and innovative “staff” who also understand their own weaknesses and limitations. These people are passionate about their faith and tend to be patient, forgiving and compassionate.
3. Financial resources may be available to allow small, agile, adaptable communities to work together.

Weaknesses

1. Divisions undermine the strength of the network of partners. A diminished sense of unity.
2. Little experience running businesses and hesitancy to venture ahead with unproven business models.
3. Focusing inwardly on differentiation from the culture insulates the community from engagement with people outside of the community. The primary customers are being underserved as a result.

Opportunities

1. Shifting values of the culture away from traditional economic models
2. The current openness to creativity, innovation and technology and an opportunity to transform the process of creating and funding new business models
3. A gap in the current market for discussions about faith, hope and love and demonstrating the value of a different approach to life and community

Threats

1. Hostility toward religion in public discourse
2. Competition from the religious, social and economic values of the culture
3. Limited capital and revenue

Scenario Planning

Option 1: Business as Usual

The first option is the status quo. In the traditional model, church attendance involves two to three hours of worship and preaching on a Sunday morning and some optional mid-week activities and meetings for age-specific or interest-oriented groups. The church facilitates meetings and weekly events, which encourage and inform, using a meeting structure that involves music, teaching and prayer.

Advantages

• Comfortable and familiar
• Maintains the stability of the current social and economic context
• Excellent worship team
• Well-organized meetings and events

Constraints

• Limits interaction with people outside of the community
• Individuality and independence of members limit activities to those of self-interest
• Declining interest in social events and lower attendance
• Creates followers, not leaders
• Meetings become the center point of the community
• Few mentoring opportunities

Option 2: Mission Shaped Communities

Another model involves the reorganization of the church away from a centralized hub of activity to smaller groups of mission shaped communities (MSCs), based on the work to revitalize St Andrews, an Anglican parish in Chorleywood, England (Williams, 2010, para. 4). The challenge was to “transform passive followers into active leaders,” “maintain unity,” “create self-organizing communities,” and “sustain morale and momentum during a trial and error approach to change” (para. 31–38). The model has proven to be successful at St Andrews “by replacing hierarchy with communities of passion, and unleashing the capabilities of its congregation to have a powerful impact beyond church walls” (para. 1).

Advantages

• Enable communities of passion
• Make direction setting bottom-up and outside-in
• Disaggregate the organization
• Opportunity to grow the organization by as much as 300% within 5 years (Williams, 2010)

Constraints

• Risk of fragmenting the organization into factions
• Fear of losing membership
• Lack of precise plans to organize communities
• Trial and error will result in failures

Mimi Halper Silbert serves as the chairman of the board, president, and CEO of the Delancey Street Foundation. Photography by Christie Hemm Klok.

Option 3: Community as Social Enterprise

Another option is to reimagine the church as a self-sustaining and self-organizing community. Taking inspiration from the Delancey Street Foundation (2007), the challenge is to focus on the problems of poverty, homelessness, addiction, mental illness and crime in Abbotsford and Vancouver and to find a way to build a community that serves the needs of the people who live on the margins of society. The business model starts with a desire to build a community that goes beyond the conventional approaches to these problems and focuses on the worth of each individual, regardless of their current circumstances. The model works without funding from other organizations. Because the well-being of the community rises and falls on the efforts of every individual, it is the responsibility of every member to share, encourage, educate, and work together to help elevate the community and to contribute to the common good.

Advantages

• Creates a sense of interdependence and community
• Shared resources and responsibility
• Accountability to each other
• Solves social problems: high cost of education, economic instability and unemployment, meaninglessness, purposelessness, lack of confidence, lack of skills, lack of social cohesion.

Constraints

• Unfamiliar and unconventional business model
• Requires a high level of commitment and personal sacrifice: time, effort and money
• Potentially puts people in harm’s way
• Initial skepticism and resistance of the public
• Danger of becoming a cult

Preferred Path

Given the result objective of following the example that Jesus gave to sacrifice everything for the sake of saving the lost, the preferred path is probably the most radical of the three: the Community as Social Enterprise. Interestingly, this model is based on the Delancey Street Foundation, which is not a faith-based community, but it seems to most closely resemble the organizational model of the early church. However, while this model might be the ideal, it might not be the most practical. The personal sacrifice and commitment required will not likely be an attractive option to most members of the organization. The model is also based on a community of people who are outside of the formal structure of the organization of the church and depends on minimal direct involvement from those outside the community. However, if we each recognize that we are no better than anyone else, we are prisoners who have been set free, we must also recognize our responsibility to give of what we have within this community who find themselves imprisoned in behaviours and circumstances that have fallen out of their control. The preferred path depends on whether value is found in money or in God and his people. Stated this way, the preferred path is the Community as Social Enterprise.

Action Plan

Result Objective

• The church to fulfill its brand promise to be a community of faith, hope and love for those who need it most.

Preferred Path

• Community as Social Enterprise

Action Items

• Call to action
• Generate business models
• Build the community

Critical Success Factors

• People who have a desire to get involved.
• Diverse set of interests and ideas to form successful businesses.
• People actively engaged in sharing, encouraging, teaching, and working together.

Feedback / Measurement

• Number of people who sign up and provide encouragement for the idea.
• Viable business models to sustain the venture.
• Growing character, community and businesses.

Resources Required

• Faith, hope and love to share. A desire to learn and grow.
• Leadership. Investment of time, effort, money and heart.
• Character and commitment. Perseverance to overcome obstacles and failures.

Conclusion

As someone who tends to see things from the perspective of the big picture, I couldn’t help but critique the idea of business model generation at the very point where the model fails. There are values that money can’t buy, such as faith, hope and love. In God’s economy, where he holds the world in his hands, things are upside down, and you can’t always plan for things like when you will be born or when you are going to die. In between our entrance and exit from this world, we have some decisions to make. And here is where the model becomes useful. In a world that is in a constant state of change, we need an approach to planning that is able to adapt to changing conditions. For the church, the current context represents a huge challenge, but also an amazing opportunity. By understanding our context, we can identify the key issue that challenges our organization and set in motion a plan to meet critical result objectives within the specific environment in which we find ourselves. In many ways, I think the church has lost its way by losing focus on what matters: faith expressing itself in love. By analyzing the organization and its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, we can start to come up with ideas and scenarios to meet the challenges that the organization faces. By drawing on similar models that have been proven to work, we can understand the advantages and constraints of each scenario, and we can make an informed decision about the preferred path forward. The action plan establishes a framework for action items, the key factors that will lead to successful implementation of each step, the metrics that the organization will measure to gauge success and the resources required to meet each objective. The plan is admittedly very rough at this point, since it deals with such a large issue, but I believe we can refine and iterate the recommended model, and ultimately change the world by transforming our organization into a community of people who faithfully represent the God who calls us to faith, hope and love (Bau, 2013).

References

Bau, S. (2013). Faith Hope Love. Retrieved from http://faithhopelove.ca/

Covey, S. & Link, G. (2012, March 5). Creating smart trust. Training magazine. Retrieved from http://www.trainingmag.com/article/creating-smart-trust

Christianity by country. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved July 5, 2013, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_by_country

Delancey Street Foundation. (2007). Retrieved from http://www.delanceystreetfoundation.org/

George, B. (2007). True north. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Ha, Thu-Huong. (2013, June 14). The real price of market values: Michael Sandel at TEDGlobal 2013. TED Blog. Retrieved from http://blog.ted.com/2013/06/14/the-real-price-of-market-values-michael-sandel-at-tedglobal-2013/

Harvard Business School Press. (2006). Leading teams: Expert solutions to everyday challenges. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing.

Kumagai, J. & McGuire, J. (2012). The Downtown Eastside: A community in need of balance [PDF document]. Retrieved from http://strathconabia.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/DTES-A-Community-in-Need-of-Balance.pdf

List of religious populations. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved July 5, 2013, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_religious_populations

Osterwalder, A. & Pigneur, Y. (2010). Business model generation. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Schwartz, T. & McCarthy, C. (2007, October). Manage your energy, not your time. Harvard business review. Retrieved from http://hbr.org/2007/10/manage-your-energy-not-your-time

Stunt, V. (2012, December 10). Generation y and religion: As church attendance falls, young believers ponder the future of faith. Huffington Post. Retrieved 2013, July 8, from http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/12/10/generation-y-religion-canada-millennials-faith_n_2244548.html

Tippett, K. (2012, September 20). Transcript for the next christians with Jim Daly and Gabe Lyons. On Being. Retrieved July 8, 2013, from http://www.onbeing.org/program/next-christians-jim-daly-and-gabe-lyons/transcript/4852

Valpy, M. & Friesen, J. (2010, December 10). Canada marching from religion to secularization. Globe and mail. Retrieved July 8, 2013, from http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/canada-marching-from-religion-to-secularization/article1320108/

Vandas, D. (2012). WeMakeStuff volume 01. Vancouver, BC: Vandas Creative.

Williams, D. (2010, July 10). Restoring faith in the institution: How mission shaped communities revitalized St Andrews. Management innovation exchange. Retrieved July 8, 2013, from http://www.managementexchange.com/story/restoring-faith-institution-how-mission-shaped-communities-revitalized-st-andrews-0

Addendum

Resources related to the Delancey Street Foundation.

Delancey Street Foundation — Home

Mimi Silbert — Wikipedia

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