{"id":629,"date":"2013-10-17T17:47:57","date_gmt":"2013-10-17T17:47:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.dminlgp.com\/?p=629"},"modified":"2014-08-13T22:02:56","modified_gmt":"2014-08-13T22:02:56","slug":"the-church-mall-of-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/the-church-mall-of-america\/","title":{"rendered":"The Church Mall of America"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Hirschman\u2019s book addresses the topic of organizational realignment in the light of market share loss. \u00a0He writes that there are three basic responses and some conflagrations of the three that could result in organizational success. \u00a0The basic options are for the customer to \u201cexit\u201d which means the customer goes somewhere else for the goods or services. \u00a0Or, the customer could \u201cvoice\u201d complaints about deteriorating quality or service. \u00a0Finally, the customer could continue to stay with the product or service even when the quality goes down.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The book is primarily focused on the for profit sector but is easily adaptable to the non-profict arena as well. \u00a0I immediately began to think about how the three dynamics apply to believers in a local church setting and with a special eye on the ministry of discipleship. \u00a0It is also important to consider the cultural setting as options would change based on the context. \u00a0For instance, in America, there are many church options almost regardless where one lives. \u00a0The biggest mall in America is The Mall of America in Minneapolis. \u00a0The whole country could be called a mall when it comes to choices of churches! \u00a0This has huge implications for \u201cexit.\u201d \u00a0It is easy to bail out of one church and into another. \u00a0There is, however, an interesting and mediating factor in American culture, that of independent thinking that demands to be heard! \u00a0Though it may be easy to bail, the church provides a perfect setting to have one\u2019s \u201cvoice.\u201d<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Then there is the issue of loyalty. \u00a0Denominational loyalty is an interesting study at the present time. \u00a0Denominations are generally in decline. \u00a0However, the declining demographic indicates that the younger population is less loyal than the older generation when it comes to denominational loyalty. \u00a0One possibility is that the older generation, by leveraging their loyalty, are inhibiting positive change! \u00a0They don\u2019t exit and their voice is static as opposed to dynamic to meet the present needs.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>In other places in the world, there may be few or no other church options. \u00a0This reduces or eliminates the \u201cexit\u201d option. \u00a0The ramifications are that the \u201cvoice\u201d option is then used more since exiting is not an option. \u00a0This could be a very positive option because it may force an errant individual to deal with his\/her issues or it could, conversely, result in \u201cvoice\u201d to church leadership that is sorely needed and would not otherwise be heard if exit were an option. \u00a0Loyalty is also impacted by context. \u00a0Where there are fewer brands there is less chance of breaking loyalty.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>So much more could be said about Hirschman\u2019s three responses as applied to the local church but I now want to turn to the issue of discipleship. \u00a0I wonder how many people exit a church specifically because they are unhappy with the quality of discipleship (regardless how the discipleship ministry is accomplished)? \u00a0Likewise, I wonder how many people use their \u201cvoice\u201d to utter their discontent with the quality of discipleship being accomplished? \u00a0I do not have empirical evidence to substantiate my response to those questions. \u00a0I do postulate that the percentage is very low. \u00a0If I am correct that the ministry of discipleship (however it is accomplished) is not very effective (in this case, Barna does offer empirical evidence for North America that demonstrates that discipleship is in awful shape) why do church attendees not either exercise \u201cexit\u201d nor \u201cvoice\u201d due to the low quality of discipleship?<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Statistics do show that people are moving from church to church, but not necessarily due to the quality of discipleship. \u00a0My guess is that the worship experience and youth ministry may garner most of those who are moving. \u00a0Why shouldn\u2019t discipleship, if is as important as Jesus Christ makes it out to be, prompt response from \u201ccustomers\u201d when the quality needs improvement? \u00a0Is loyalty keeping people? \u00a0The author indicates that if the organization requires a high bar to enter and\/or negative ramifications to exit, that loyalty is high, albeit for negative reasons. \u00a0Could it be that the culture of some churches is such that if someone leaves there is enough social backlash as to inhibit a lapse of loyalty? \u00a0This could be the case where there are few \u201cexit\u201d options as in a small community.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Concerning the issues of \u201cexit,\u201d \u201cvoice,\u201d and \u201cloyalty what do you think is the reason for so little movement or input concerning the issue of discipleship? \u00a0Do people regard that ministry as a central issue in their church affiliation? \u00a0Do you see examples where loyalty is inhibiting change?<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Exit, Voice, and Loyalty by Albert O Hirschmnan<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hirschman\u2019s book addresses the topic of organizational realignment in the light of market share loss. \u00a0He writes that there are three basic responses and some conflagrations of the three that could result in organizational success. \u00a0The basic options are for the customer to \u201cexit\u201d which means the customer goes somewhere else for the goods or [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"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":[1],"tags":[2,251],"class_list":["post-629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dminlgp","tag-hirschman","cohort-lgp3"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629","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\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=629"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1961,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629\/revisions\/1961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}