Purpose Driven Change Management, or Fighting the Forces of Hell

When most of us try to initiate change in an organization, we rarely find ourselves facing the forces of hell.  Not so the Revs. Roddy Clyde and Glen Sartain of Church Transitions, a North Carolina organization that works closely with Rev. Rick Warren, author of the best-selling "The Purpose Driven Life" and pastor of the Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, CA.

Whatever you think of Warren's pop spirituality, his efforts to change the culture and practices of contemporary evangelical churches have been hugely influential over the past 20 years.  According to a front-page article by Suzanne Sataline in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, Warren has sold 25 million copies of "Purpose Driven," some 20,000 worshippers attend services at Saddleback each weekend, and he claims to have trained 400,000 pastors around the world through his church and nonprofit organizations.

This is where the Revs. Clyde and Sartain come in--you might call them "church management consultants" who work with local church leaders to implement Warren's practices.  Sataline quotes them as advising the audience at a seminar that "the transition will be rough," and "to trust very few people with their plans" because...

"All the forces of hell are going to come at you when you wake up that church," said Mr. Sartain...

And you thought your job was tough.

But the spread of Warren's methods is causing a backlash among some churchgoers who resent the prominence of contemporary interpersonal issues in sermons, the short shrift given to traditional themes of sin and salvation, changes in church music and attire, and a strong emphasis on "Madison Avenue" marketing techniques to increase attendance.  Some churches that have tried to become more "purpose-driven" have found themselves torn apart in the process, with Warren advocates and opponents struggling for control of their local institution.

Spiritually speaking, I'm pretty middle-of-the-road.  I'm not a churchgoer, but I'm respectful of religous practice; I was a confirmed existentialist as a kid, but I've become a hopeful believer in a vaguely Deist sense; and I regularly turn to the writings of Pema Chödrön, a Buddhist nun, for comfort.  So I don't really have a dog in the fight over Warren and his philosophy.

But from a professional perspective, I'm interested in several underlying aspects of this story:

• How'd We Get Here?  The mere existence of an anti-Warren backlash begs the question of how he's been so successful at spreading his philosophy in the first place.  (I'll focus on earthly factors for the purpose of this post.)  Weak competition in the form of stuffy mainline Protestant denominations, and an ecumenical approach to issues of Biblical doctrine surely paved the way, but they're not really meaningful issues in most other industries.  However, I'd argue that we should all be looking at Warren's emphasis on congregants' needs as individuals (and as consumers, and as an audience) in order to create a sense of enthusiastic fellowship, and on his loosely-networked organizing structure that provides pastors with a shared set of values and tools without bogging them down in a centralized, hierarchical bureaucracy.  It's really a very Cluetrain approach to meeting peoples' needs and a World of Ends approach to managing a network--perhaps Warren is a big Doc Searls and David Weinberger fan.  (I'm not joking--the guy's very net-savvy.)

• What Do We Really Mean By "Marketing" These Days?  Sataline's WSJ article quotes traditional churchgoers who find Warren's "Madison Avenue" tactics aimed at increasing church attendance unseemly, and that resonates with our shared assumptions about "marketing"--namely, it's a passel of lies--and for that reason alone churches really shouldn't have anything to do with it.  But even marketers don't believe in "marketing" anymore.  Just ask Seth Godin.  Or Tara Hunt.  Contemporary marketing isn't about convincing people to buy what you've already built and are compelled to sell; it's about engaging them in a dialogue, listening to their needs and responding accordingly.  In that sense, Warren's not a conventional "Madison Avenue" marketer at all--as noted above, he's a lot more consumer-friendly.  (Of course, from the perspective of traditional churchgoers, who do believe that a church's role is to convince people to buy [or rather, accept] something that's already been built [so to speak], perhaps that's the root of the problem.)  I'm not sure that Sataline and her interviewees fully appreciate the differences between the old and new methods of marketing, but I'd bet that Warren does.
  

• Change Isn't Easy.  Change management is often thought of as a "soft" discipline, focused on making people comfortable and insuring smooth transitions.  Well, not according to the Revs. Clyde and Sartain.  Maybe it just comes with the territory when you're fighting the forces of hell, but these guys are definitely not soft.  According to Sataline's article:
  

  During a [seminar] session titled "Dealing with Opposition," Mr. Clyde recommended that the pastor speak to critical members, then help them leave if they don't stop objecting.  Then when those congregants join a new church, Mr. Clyde instructed, pastors should call their new minister and suggest that the congregants be barred from any leadership role.

  "There are moments when you've got to play hardball," said the Rev. Dan Southerland, Church Transitions' president, in an interview.  "You cannot transition a church...and placate every whiny Christian along the way."

  Put that in your pipe and smoke it, you whiny Christians.  I'd have to think long and hard before recommending similar tactics to a client who was considering a change initiative that was likely to meet resistance--and I'm left wondering if such tactics are at the root of the anti-Warren backlash Sataline describes--but it's interesting to know that they've been used successfully in at least some cases.

Comments

[Matthew Florence]

Ed, nice post. I'm intrigued by the book now. My sister, a fundamenatlisst Christian, gave it to everyone for Christmas a few years ago. Don't know where my copy is, though.

But I was equally intruigued by your whole post. I think you hit the nail on the head in terms of what marketing is these days: "Contemporary marketing isn't about convincing people to buy what you've already built and are compelled to sell; it's about engaging them in a dialogue, listening to their needs and responding accordingly." Well said.

Understanding that concept is what landed me my job doing social marketing. And social marketers should get it even more so since it's all about community education. But I think they're still in the dark, old interruption marketing days.

[Ed Batista]

Thanks, Matthew--if you follow up with the book, I'd love to know what you think of it.

And I agree that far too many nonprofit and social marketers are fixated on old-school, intrusive, interruptive tactics. They really need to get with it.

Ed

[Glen Sartain]

Ed,

Thanks for your observations. I appreciate hearing the perspective of folks who question the norm and don't have a dog in the hunt.

A couple of comments from a participant in the article...

How did we get here? We got here through humanistic denominationalism. The truth is that God did not create the hierarchy of denominations and all the baggage that goes with them. Humans did. The resulting legalistic approach has led to rules and regulations and do's and don't being thrust upon church-goers to the degree that they can't possibly live a life of peace because they are too worried about whether they are stepping outside the lines or not. When you give a fresh perspective of living the life that God intended for us to live, some folks just can’t exist outside the box that their church has created for them.

Marketing – Most of the people mentioned in the WSJ article that are in opposition to the Purpose Driven Life and Rick Warren decry the use of “Madison Avenue” marketing tactics. But when asked what it is they have a problem with will instantly launch into consumerism with the list of things they like and do not like. Funny thing is, we are attempting to teach them that it is in meeting other’s needs that we find true happiness. And you are correct in your assessment that they do not understand marketing either new or old. Seth Godin is one of my favorites.

Change is NOT easy – While we are not soft on those who want to cause trouble in the church, we are extremely patient with folks that are new and trying to “get it.” I would submit to you that the teachers of the Bible that some of these folks want to misquote are a whole lot tougher than we could ever be.

In summary…the only major objection to the WSJ article is us being called Reverands. We would prefer to be called Rick, Glen, Dan and Roddy. You might even call us “irreverent.”

[Ed Batista]

Hi Glen,

Thanks for your comments. I particularly like your observation that people often rely on a "consumerist" approach and list their likes and dislikes even when they're ostensibly criticizing consumerism!

You also raise a point that I think has both secular and spiritual relevance: "[I]t is in meeting other's needs that we find true happiness." I suspect we'd agree that the world could use a little more service on behalf of others,and a little less self-indulgence. (And I'm not holding myself up as a paragon of the former--I have a long way to go on that path.)

And I'm glad to see you cite Godin, because I've been trying to convince people for years that his ideas are relevant no matter what you're doing--selling widgets, saving the world, or saving souls. (A little poetic license there--I don't know if that's how you'd describe your work.)

I appreciate you taking the time to write and look forward to staying in touch and learning more.

Ed

[Steve E]

Very interesting. I disagree with the practice of calling ahead to a leaving member's new church and telling the gaining Pastor to bar the person from leadership. Perhaps the new church is a better fit for the person than your church was. What happened to grace,forgiveness and restoration. Why would you seek to have a person permanantly banned from having a clean slate and a fresh start?