My Church is Chipotle
By: Rob Rynders
Tags: On Demand Economy, Spirituality, Christianity, Religion, United Methodist Church

This past week I’ve heard/read the following:

My church is a tattoo parlor.

My church is a podcast network.

My church is Chipotle.

Okay that last one is a bit of a stretch, but we’ll come back to it later.

Note these folks didn’t say “my church worships in a tattoo parlor” or “I listen to my pastor’s sermons on my church’s podcast.”

These are fully secular spaces, places, and outlets.

I was chatting with a family member recently about this and she mentioned a lot of her friends are big fans of the Maximum Fun podcast network. She said for a lot of them the shows on the network are “church.” She sent me this tweet that was posted by one of network’s hosts the day after the 2016 presidential election:

Then she said:

“If this is what the lead on a podcast is offering you the day after an election AND they make you laugh, why would you go to church? You wouldn’t.”

Figuring it Out on Their Own

I believe that more and more people aren’t going to church anymore not because they don’t value the search for meaning, community, or a path to becoming a better person, but because they’re finding all those things elsewhere.

When I was a campus minister I used to get calls from out of town pastors just before fall move-in week. They would tell me about a students who grew up in their churches and were about to begin college at ASU. They wanted to let me know how faithful these students were, how they we’re probably going to be pastors one day. These were students I needed to connect with because they were going to revolutionize my ministry. I’d always put a call into these students and offer to take them to lunch. Some never returned my calls. The ones who did take me up on the offer of free food would usually end up telling me similar versions of this: “Your ministry sounds really cool but my parents have made me go to church all my life and everyone has developed these really big expectations of me. Honestly, I couldn’t wait to get to college so I could choose not to go to church anymore. I’m happy to know you’re here if I need you, but I’m going to figure this all out on my own.”

Helping People Choose

This is where Chipotle comes in. My nine-year-old LOVES him some Chipotle. He likes it because it tastes good but mostly he likes it because he gets to create his own meal. He gets to choose. However, at Chipotle, he can’t choose to make a pizza (although he can go to Mod two doors down and make a pizza, if he wanted). Instead he chooses from a curated menu of high quality options. It’s just enough options for him to feel like he truly has a choice in the matter, but not too many that he’s overwhelmed.

The same could be said of Netflix. There’s endless amounts of content on Netflix, however, they curate lists of recommended content based on what you’ve previously watched and given a thumbs up to. After a few months of binge watching stuff you’re still choosing what you’d like to watch, however, Netflix has narrowed those choices for you, whether you know it or not.

Back to church. In today’s/yesterday’s model, even if your church meets in a tattoo parlor and/or uploads the pastor’s sermons to the internet, there’s still not much choice involved. Outside of very large churches, you probably only have one pastor, a few study/class options, and maybe two service style options. Sure you can choose from fifty different churches in town, but they’re all offering a similar model and experience. You’re still opting-in to the journey they want to take you on and have decided is best for you.

Don’t get me wrong, this model meets the needs and wants of a lot of people and still will for the foreseeable future, but that audience is shrinking.

Project Update

Last week I offered some vague details about a new project I’m working on along with my colleague Rev. David Wasson. The codename for this project is The Orontes Project. We taken on the ambitious task of rebuilding, from the ground up, the way people interact with spirituality and religion. One of our challenges is taking what we might learn from things such as Chipotle and Netflix and applying those learnings to how one might participate in a journey of faith. The question here is how do we create and curate content and experiences that are interesting, compelling, on-demand, and are relevant for each person no matter where they are on life’s journey? How do we create on-demand content and experiences both on someone’s mobile device and in-person (perhaps in a tattoo parlor)? How do we create choice without overwhelming people with too many choices?

These past few months haven’t led to any clear answers to these questions, but until recently we didn’t even know these were the questions that needed asking.

As we move into the next research phase of this project we’re excited to be close to forming an official partnership with some professionals who will help us answer these questions (and help us discover more questions we need to be asking). By the fall we’ll be experimenting with some more advanced prototypes that our partners have helped us create.

Thank You For Your Support

As I mentioned in my last post, we wouldn’t be on this journey without the generosity of our donors. For those who have supported us so far, thank you, from the bottom of our hearts.

If you feel moved to donate even just $5 we’d be deeply honored by your support. You can click here to do that.

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If you still need to wait to see more or you think we’re just plain nuts, then that’s okay too.

We’re thankful for everyone who motivates us to move forward.