{"id":24758,"date":"2019-11-07T11:40:26","date_gmt":"2019-11-07T19:40:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=24758"},"modified":"2019-11-07T11:41:25","modified_gmt":"2019-11-07T19:41:25","slug":"the-competitive-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/the-competitive-church\/","title":{"rendered":"The Competitive Church"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0the 1st Four Horseman I ever knew<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

In a recent podcast of Building a StoryBrand <\/em>Donald Miller, the guest explained that even though Amazon stock was at an all-time high, this was still the best time to buy the stock. When pressed for the reason why the guest said because this is the lowest it will ever be. He continued and said in the next ten years, 4 billion new people would be connected online, and Amazon is positioning themselves to be everyone’s supplier! I could not believe my ears, so a quick google search relieved articles like so (check here) backing what the interviewer claims.<\/p>\n

Scott Galloway, clinical professor\u00a0of marketing at the\u00a0New York University Stern School of Business, in his book The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google,<\/em> talks about the impact, influence, and insight these companies have<\/p>\n

\"\"

Chapters Six to Eight are dedicated to the study of the business environment of the digital economies, including an anthropological analysis of how every business appeals to one of three human organs: the brain, the heart or the genitals.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

over our lives. The book is divided into two sections. Chapters one through five are used to sketch out the rise of these companies and the formation of their identity. Devaki Nadkarni, Assistant Professor, IES Management College and Research Centre, Mumbai, writes in his review, \u201cthe author (Scott Galloway) critically analyses the ascent of these four companies which he calls as four horsemen, from their inception, how they have conquered\/beaten the competition and reached to the present position\u201d.[1]<\/a> The second portion of the book looks at the business environment of these companies, and Galloway offers his prediction of a so-called Fifth horseman, and also provides advice on how we can personally incorporate these business practices to become successful as well.<\/p>\n

One cannot deny the impact these companies have had on the world. While some countries have banned them from operating inside their borders, they have created a similar platform for profit. In my own life, I am both grateful for the luxuries or distraction these companies afford me but also get angry when Amazon’s next day service does not show up the next day. Filipe Domingues aptly writes, “The Four have, indeed, improved our lives in many ways, especially when it comes to comfort and efficiency. But they did not do it for charity. In the words of Pope Francis, whom the author briefly quotes at least twice, these companies act as if they were guided by an ‘idolatry of money.’<\/p>\n

In reading this book, I was reminded of Cal Newport’s book, Digital Minimalism, <\/em>and his challenge to digitally declutter our lives. One theme I noticed over and over again between these four companies was competition. Once they devoured the other companies in their space, they are now only competing with each other. On the one hand, I understand why this “ok” in the business world, but on the other hand, the impact on local\/small business owners is not ok because it forces many of them to close. I fear that this business’s mindsight of competition has overtaken the church as well.<\/p>\n

\"\"With the rise of the church growth movement and Mega-churches in American and the advent of social media where everyone has a platform, it has led to the competitive nature of us versus them to \u201cwin\u201d the souls of people. Pastors seem to care more about view count and comments rather than Christ touching and transforming his people. Pastors behave more like CEO\u2019s leaders of corporations rather than guides to God\u2019s people.\u00a0 The emerging generation in the latest research from Barna in partnership with World Vision revels, \u201cFour out of five affirm\u2014and nearly half strongly affirm\u2014that \u201csociety is facing a crisis of leadership because there are not enough good leaders right now\u201d (82%)\u201d probing deeper when asked what are the biggest challenges to leadership the research stats, \u201cMost of the 18\u201335-year-olds Barna surveyed around the world\u2014on average, half (50%)\u2014believe that \u201ceveryone is too busy and distracted\u201d and \u201c Everyone has to compete in a global marketplace (43%).”[2]<\/a> This all leads me to the question, is pastoring synonymous with leadership, or are they different things? If pastoring involves leadership, what type of leadership should it conform too?<\/p>\n

———<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Devaki Nadkarni, The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google (<\/em>Anvesha 10, no. 3, 2017), 55.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Barna Research, The Connected Generation: How Christian Leaders Around the World Can Strengthen Faith and Well-Being Among 18-35-Year-Olds<\/em> (Ventura, CA: Barna Group, 2019), 124<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a recent podcast of Building a StoryBrand Donald Miller, the guest explained that even though Amazon stock was at an all-time high, this was still the best time to buy the stock. When pressed for the reason why the guest said because this is the lowest it will ever be. He continued and said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":117,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[1484,1321,1408,1541,1409],"class_list":["post-24758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biography-drama-history","tag-digital-minimalism","tag-dminlgp9","tag-galloway","tag-spirit-led-leadership","tag-the-four","cohort-lgp9"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/117"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24758"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24763,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24758\/revisions\/24763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}