The World Is Flat and Fat

By Rick Chromey

Columbus was wrong. Well, sort of.

The world really is flat. Flat and fat.

Since the late 1980s, globalization and technological innovations have created a radical new paradigm for life, work, and ministry. We”ve moved from vertical “control and command” structures to horizontal “connect and collaborate” systems. The world has become one family.

Thomas L. Friedman, in his best-selling book The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century, proposes three great historical globalizations:¹

“¢ 1492″“1800 (Columbus and countries)

“¢ 1800″“2000 (industrial revolution and companies)

“¢ 2000 (cyberspace and consumers)

In the first globalization, sparked by European explorations, whole countries shifted. The British Empire. New England. Spanish Central America. French Canada.

During the second globalization, fired by the industrial revolution and faster transportation and communication (telegraph, telephone, television), companies moved across borders. The aftermath of World War II created a whole new “flatter” world as companies like Toyota, Audi, Rolls-Royce, and Mercedes emerged. The Olympics, world wars, and even the Beatles invasion revealed this shift.

Columbus made the world round and small. The industrial revolution reduced it more. However, since 2000 there has been a perfect storm of events, circumstances, and technological changes that have completely flattened our globe. The advent of digital technology, cyber communication, and wireless innovations have made it so.

At the heart of the world throughout the first two globalizations was control. Hierarchy, political powers, and kings controlled national borders. CEOs, bosses, and management structure steered companies. Power was executed from the top. The rich, renowned, and regal commandeered prosperity, population, and progress.

In case you haven”t noticed, that world is gone. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the globe has transformed beneath 10 forces, identified by Friedman, that decimated modern control and influence:²

“¢ The Berlin Wall falls, giving way to the Berlin Mall (November 9, 1989)

“¢ Netscape opens cyberspace (August 9, 1995)

“¢ Work flow software allows computers and programs to interact

“¢ Open-sourcing creates self-organizing, collaborative communities

“¢ Outsourcing of work energizes an international marketplace

“¢ Offshoring of work infuses an international marketplace

“¢ Supply-chaining creates faster markets

“¢ In-sourcing makes big businesses small and small businesses big

“¢ Informing via Web searches (Google, Yahoo!) multiplies information availability

“¢ Digital, mobile, personal, and virtual technology explode

Who Has Control Now?

You do. I do. Consumers. The little guy. Average Joes. Every person on the planet with mouse and modem. The world is flat.

You don”t need professors to gain knowledge; all you need is a search engine. You don”t need middle men to purchase flights, buy books, or sell items, all you need is Travelocity, Amazon, and eBay. Who ran American Idol? Not Simon, Paula, and Randy. Who decides when and where to watch television in an age of TiVo and iPods? Not television execs. Who controls public opinion in a world of blogs and e-mail? Not political pundits, commentators, or spinsters. Rush Limbaugh is so 1990s. Thousands of “Limbaughs” podcast conservative views daily.

What does this mean to church and ministry in the 21st century?

If the world is flat, then it”s also fat: f-a-t. The question is, can your ministries adapt?

Fast

Our world travels at the speed of life.

And life is supersonic, super-sized, and super-speed. A new computer downloads a digital photo in a second (compared to a minute only a few years ago). E-mail, instant messaging, cell phones, and text-messaging create instant connection. Need the lyrics for an obscure song? Just Google it. Need your e-mail on the road? Find a Wi-Fi hot spot. I”m typing this article at 65 mph in my car. (No, I”m not driving!)

The irony is a fast world seeks slow living.

We read Fast Company and Slow Cooking. NASCAR races and PGA golf are popular. Our fast-food culture hungers for leisure lunches around Japanese grills, Italian bistros, and Cracker Barrels. Starbucks brews speedy coffee but invites casual conversation, connection, and contemplation. KOA Kampgrounds are booming beneath “luxury camping.” The Charlotte, North Carolina, airport features rocking chairs for weary travelers.

The desire for retreat, relaxation, and renewal is a valuable commodity.³ We may live 24/7 but we still need power naps. The Sabbath is making a comeback. If church wears out the leaders and staff, is that honorable? I once served in a church that cancelled Sunday school for the summer (and encouraged family activities following church). It was a refreshing break.

So can your church be both fast and slow?

If you”re still primarily communicating with snail mail, you”re in trouble. It”s far cheaper and faster to e-mail church newsletters or provide downloadable Web site PDFs.⁴ If your Web site isn”t updated weekly (or even daily), you”re losing opportunity. Nothing communicates irrelevancy like outdated Web material. Are there more efficient strategies for announcements on Sunday morning? Could you develop online polls to evaluate your congregation”s temperature, values, and desires?

On the other hand, can you create Sabbath moments? Many church calendars are tyrants. We”ve also lost the spiritual disciplines of reflection, solitude, fasting, and silence. Are your worship services so timed they limit the Holy Spirit? One of the advantages of smaller churches is their spontaneous nature. Too many large congregations orchestrate worship and lose the Spirit to a stopwatch.

A fast culture wants to retreat. Like Coke, they seek the “pause that refreshes.” Our week may run like rabbits, but Sundays are for turtles.

Accessible

A flat world is instantly available.

Just download “Google Earth” and you”ll understand.⁵ This program allows users to zoom to street level (depending on resolution). Forget Mapquest. With Google Earth you can see everything. And it”s perfect. No darkness. No weather. No problems.

All information (and misinformation) is now available via the Web. I recently bought a new car. In 1998 I purchased a car and never used the Internet. But this time I surfed for knowledge and insight. I knew that car better than the dealer. Blogs by owners helped significantly and were more valuable than a dealer”s sales pitch.

The Internet has revolutionized intellectual capital. In the modern culture, knowledge was controlled by the academics; however, the Internet has flattened that world. The rise of e-learning will radically alter pedagogy and training in the 21st century. Learning institutions are currently blinded to the rising “tech gen” that will transform schools from information dispensers to information managers. The student is in control. Because of file-transferring, time-shifting, place-shifting technology (iPod, TiVo), the classroom will be everywhere at anytime. A professor (and preacher) will no longer be the sage from the stage but the guide from the side.⁶

Church Web sites are, again, a key component.

What does your Web site say about your church? Frankly, the best investment a church (or school) can make is in Web design. It”s the front door. It”s the church sign. Ever stop and wonder how many people overlook your church because your Web site turned them off? Believe me, it happens. The churches I visit on the road all persuaded my attendance through their Web sites.

Web sites also manage information, including messages. In an MP3 age, any sermon can be uploaded and distributed easily via the Net. Many people already listen and view their favorite preachers online. Could you create a weekly downloadable PowerPoint worship or lesson for those traveling or shut-in?

How about making your church a local Wi-Fi hotspot (and then advertise it to the community)? Fazoli”s and Wendy”s restaurants, among others, are gaining customers because they offer free Wi-Fi. People need Net access. Your church should be a community center for computer instruction. Sunday school was created to teach people literacy skills. Churches need to lead in training computing skills.

Imagine if your worship area were a Wi-Fi hotspot. What if you encouraged members to bring their laptops to worship and created sermon chatrooms? During the message, people could discuss what you”re saying. I love to sit in chapel at Kentucky Christian University and watch the text messaging. Students are talking and few staff know it. Is it possible to harness this instant communication?

Many who question these technological innovations in regards to worship and preaching fail to understand the church has always been historically slow to embrace technological advancement. The telephone and television were demonic. Flying by plane was wrong. I remember churches splitting in the 1980s when overhead projectors were introduced for worship lyrics.

Technology is merely a tool. The tools will change as time unfolds.

Temporary

Nothing is more temporary than a computerized world.

Most of my graduate notes are now lost. Why? I archived them in formats now unreadable (remember 5.25 floppy disks?). As technology moved to 3.5 disks then CD-R and now 300 gig hard drives, I failed to translate older information.

I”ve also experienced two major hard drive crashes that were as destructive as any house fire. Even if you save your files, you can lose them. CD-Rs can be misplaced, scratched, or deteriorate. Jump drives too. A few years ago I painstakingly transferred hundreds of family photographs into JPEG. I”ve converted my entire music collection (thousands of titles) into MP3. I”m making MPEG movies of old family videos (stored on a 150 gig external hard drive). About half are saved in CD-R. If there”s a house fire, I grab my family, my Bible, and that hard drive!

Ironically, the more digital and temporary our world becomes, the more we hunger for real and permanent footing. Fantasy sports fade and are forgotten. My laptop has a two-year lifespan. And why do we call them “recycle bins?”

Unfortunately, too many churches offer temporary spiritual moments that rarely invoke lasting lifestyle change. Can you remember the sermon from last Sunday? How about the memory verses you learned in Sunday school? Is your church the place where your closest friends hang? According to a 2004 Group/Gallup survey, 72 percent of American adults who regularly attend worship claim their best friends are found at church.⁷ When your life is in crisis, do you find comfort or combat in your faith? Are your church experiences memorable?

A high-tech world invokes high-touch opportunity. Digitization creates moments for human digits (fingers) to interlock.

Imagine how a flat, fat world changes missions. You can be a missionary to a different culture and never leave the house. Naturally, that doesn”t negate on-site connection (indeed, every Christian should experience a missions trip), but it does allow short-term missions to be long-term situations. Chats and discussion boards allow global, instant communication. Digitized media permit Christian messages to enter countries previously hostile to Jesus. The fact you can”t censor the Internet is a blessing.

With Skype or Vonage, it”s possible for missionaries to personally deliver mission announcements via real-time video. Why wait for furlough? Using Google Earth, a congregation can travel to Africa or Albania, Zimbabwe or Zurich. Can you imagine what your church could do internationally just by hiring a minister of modem?

Jesus said the fields are white for harvest. It”s full and ready to pick. It”s fat. We live at a special crossroads in history. If we think fast, accessible, and temporary but live slow, purposeful, and real our postmodern culture will find our faith attractive.

The world is flat and we”d better be moving. As Will Rogers once quipped, “It isn”t good enough to be moving in the right direction””if you”re not moving fast enough, you can still get run over.”

And if that happens, then who”s flat now?

________

¹ Thomas L. Friedman, The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005), 9-11.

² Ibid., 49-172.

³ Lifebridge church in Longmont, Colorado, offers a unique soul relaxation ministry under the direction of Dan Gillium called “Sanctum: A Contemplative Gathering.” Learn more at www.lbcc.org.

⁴ It may still be necessary to mail church newsletters, but only to those individuals without Web access or those who”ve personally requested it.

⁵ Download Google Earth at http://earth.google.com.

⁶ Doug Paggitt, in his book Preaching Re-Imagined, argues for a new form of preaching that he calls “progressive dialogue.” He tags current preaching as really just a “religious speech” or “speaching.” Speaching is speaker-centered, one-way communication while progressive dialogue is audience-centered, two-way discussion.

⁷ Friendship: Creating a Culture of Connectivity (Loveland: Group, 2005), 25.

 
Rick Chromey is assistant professor of youth and family ministries at Kentucky Christian University in Grayson.