From static to portable to wearable and embedded. This is the innovation progression we have been witnessing in this rapidly ever-evolving technology landscape we are living in.
Technological devices have become our personal assistants, communicators, emotional fulfillers and lifesavers. And as the pace of life increases, that which cannot keep up is quickly being sent to the graveyard.
They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Indeed, the nation witnessed this when, during a church fundraising, an ugly altercation between two grown supposedly honourable men, broke out.
This obnoxious incident occurred in Gatui Catholic Church in Muranga county, where two political rival factions of the ruling Jubilee Party, satirically labeled Kieleweke and Tangatanga, clashed.
The confrontation was between Kiharu MP Ndindi Nyoro and his nominated counterpart Maina Kamanda. The narrative being peddled is that the fracas was occasioned by quibbling over protocol. But subsequent theories being touted are that there is state intimidation towards those perceived to be aligned in support of the Deputy President William Ruto's 2022 presidential bid.
In months past, the discourse from bar rooms to chamas and television talk shows has been how much money and the frequency with which the Deputy President has donated to churches for their growth and expansion.
Questions have been raised about his source of generosity, his motives, his proxies’ sycophantic loyalty, and the profane epithets spoken in these consecrated premises.
I submit, however, that we are asking the wrong questions to the wrong people. The focus should not be on the donor, but the recipient. And the questions should not be on their morality or lack of it for accepting donations, whose sources are unknown or thought to be contaminated. It should be on their adaptation readiness for the future execution of their calling.
Allow me to unpack this for you.
Despite being a nation where 85 per cent profess the Christian faith, the maximum amount of time the majority of Kenyans spend inside a church in a week is two hours. This means the church is highly underutilised for the rest 166 hours. This is a misallocation of resources.
For anyone older than 40 years, you can remember growing up seeing shopping catalog inserts in newspapers for Christmas offers or back to school shopping. Today, this is an alien concept.
Subsequently, a new shopping culture emerged. The malls.
They sprouted everywhere. And in return, we trooped in droves to buy all we needed under one roof. They became the favourite family hangout, particularly on Sundays after attending the church service.
Today, the mall bubble has burst. Sales are down, the tenancy occupancy rate is very low, leaving most of them largely underutilised. Reasons abound for this market failure, ranging from an oversupply of malls, to poor location choices and a lack of unique themes.
Whereas all these reasons are somewhat true, the more accurate reality is the emergence of a different model of doing business. The online alternative.
In economic-speak, this is called creative disruption. It is an evolutionary process that dismantles long-standing practices and traditions to make way for innovation, that punishes less efficient ways of organising resources.
The process inevitably creates a disequilibrium, resulting in losers and winners. Along the innovation curve, losers are known as the laggards who are traditionalists, and the last to adopt innovation; while winners are the early adopters who embrace change opportunities because they are aware of the need to change, and are very comfortable in adopting new ideas.
Churches hold fundraisers to expand their square feet and to upgrade or equip the static brick and mortar buildings.
There is a false notion that the bigger the physical congregation one can accommodate, the more aesthetic the building looks, and the better equipped it is, the more successful the church is deemed to be.
The paradox, however, is the Christ, who the clergy is allegedly building a house of worship for, seldom preached under brick and mortar. He preached to the 5,000 on a boat; to the Samaritan woman at a well; to the crowds on the mount; and to the disabled at the pool of Bethsaida. He preached on demand. He preached on the go.
MODERN-DAY GRANDIOSE EFIFICES
On the contrary, our modern-day clergy prefer beautiful grandiose edifices. They have a set time, a set day, a set sermon and a choreographed programme. Most appear oblivious to the creative disruption happening all around them.
Like the malls, the church is not immune to the creative disruption caused by the internet. According to the US-based Population Reference Bureau (PRB), Kenya’s youth were 10.1 million in 2017.
This makes it the highest proportion to the population globally, at 20.3 per cent compared to the world’s average of 15.8 per cent and 19.2 per cent for Africa. This generation has a longer life span left, and a higher tendency to have fewer children than the present churchgoers.
It is also the cohort that is the key mover of social media. They are not big on physical connections and gatherings. Their preference is online intimacy. And rightly so because, after all, isn’t God omnipresent, immanent and transcendent?
Resultantly, their attendance in church, if it hasn’t already, is set to decline. A 2016 study undertaken by the Barna Group showed that 60 per cent of millennials that grew up in church no longer attend regular church services.
They would rather watch host parties online, televised sermons, listen to podcast sermons and tithe through M-Pesa. Their need to be constricted in a physical space, on a given day for a number of hours is growing less attractive daily.
This is the generation that churches ought to be preparing for, through technological advancement, rather than focusing on expanding the physical size of the church buildings, to accommodate a higher church attendance.
If the church embraces this creative disruption, the influx of church harambess by politicians will soon be in the obituaries. And those seeking to disinfect their unmerited wealth will have to find new avenues to take their Kieleweke and Tangatanga doctrines.
Finally, my unsolicited advice to the church is, the gap between how quickly you change and how quickly things change around you is called irrelevance.
In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists – Eric Hoffer
