“Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:32)
The two downcast followers of Jesus said this to one another, after Jesus had drawn near to them on the road to Emmaus, reminded them of God’s promises, broken bread with them, and then vanished from their sight. What stirred them and soon propelled them back to Jerusalem – the place they had fled from in their grief – was not hard proof of Jesus’ resurrection. It was an experience of the Risen Christ drawing near to them and reconnecting them to the promises, the community, the mission of God.
Two colleagues of ours recently lamented, in off-handed ways, how much they miss their Blackberry phones. In 2009, at its peak, Blackberry commanded half the cell phone market in the United States – and for good reason. It was the first handheld device that allowed users to receive email on the spot. Its computer-like QWERTY keyboard was also the first on a mobile phone, allowing for faster typing than the numeric keyboards of other hand-held devices. And, as an article from Harvard’s Digital Initiative notes, “BlackBerry had enormous Network Effects, as millennials loved the chat function BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) and one could only BBM with other BlackBerry devices.”
When Apple introduced its iPhone in 2007, replete with a touchscreen, BlackBerry initially dismissed the threat, insisting that users were attached to their computer-like keyboard. But the iPhone sold well. Belatedly and hastily, BlackBerry released a touchscreen device; it proved unreliable and was met with horrendous reviews. By 2016, Blackberry’s market share in the United States had cratered to less than one percent.
Blackberry’s problem was a failure of imagination, not a failure of technology. While Apple and Google created smartphones with accessible new interfaces and attractive apps, BlackBerry remained doggedly focused on the one thing that it (wrongly) thought kept consumers coming back.
BlackBerry is a study in what happens when an organization mistakes the tool for the need. They thought they were in the keyboard-and-email business. They were actually in the staying-connected-wherever-you-are business. The fall was swift precisely because the iPhone didn’t just compete on tools; it competed on what a smartphone is for.
…Blackberry didn’t actually sell keyboards. They sold the network. It’s easy to see this if you realize that a single Blackberry (with no one to connect to) was worthless, but an iPhone with millions of users and no keyboard is priceless.
And Godin sums up:
We get hooked on our past wins (and our fears of past losses) instead of understanding the value we’re able to provide.
In church life, the value we’re able to provide is rarely programs. Or even stand-alone worship. Or other “constituent services” that church boards often feel pressured to organize. Those Emmaus followers found their hearts burning through re-connection to Jesus, re-connection to God’s promise, and re-connection to a future full of meaning and purpose.
What Blackberry provided was not a keyboard. It was a network that connected people with one another.
Church is something more than (and different from) the sum of any congregation’s activity. It offers connection to a community that is safe, reliable, and trusted. Safe means a welcoming group of people who treasure every person and listen intently to the story each person tells about their life and why they have shown up. Reliable means our connection to one another does not rise or fall based on our agreement on specific issues, because it is grounded in a shared commitment to something much larger than ourselves. And trusted, because our connection is the fruit of safe and reliable interaction over time. When safety, reliability, and trust are present, the opportunity for spiritual growth and deep connection is unlimited.
What do you remember about your first hand-held device? What need or needs did it meet? How have those needs changed over time?
Seth Godin observes that “Blackberry didn’t actually sell keyboards. They sold the network.” What would you say your church actually “sold” you, when you first joined it?
Thinking about your church board discussions these days, what might be your Blackberry keyboard? Put another way, what is the tool you may be focusing on, when you should be thinking about the need?
As a board, how would you complete the following sentence: “Were not our hearts burning within us while….”?
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