Repotting: A new platform for a growing community
I (Dawn) spent 20 years serving a religious institution that was desperate to grow. As the giant bubble of baby boomers and older Gen X are dying and also leaving the church, and very few in the younger generations are jumping on board, mainline churches are in what my friend has called “catastrophic decline.” I call it free fall.
I received a lot of direction from consultants, bishops, and colleagues who had figured out the magic formula and were not in deficit. That direction was always based on capitalist models of growing a business. I learned about branding, market research, focus groups, inculturation, adaptive leadership and, of course, visioning. And although they always said, “Growth is not just numbers, but also discipleship,” the annual return was all numbers—rates of growth and decline.
All this made me pretty skeptical. I was never interested in boosting numbers to fill the coffers to support the massive upkeep on inefficient buildings on stolen land. When I joined Harbor, I was relieved from that dissonance and, when I joined the pastoral team, focused on building relationships, not bank accounts.
And guess what? Harbor grew! And we keep growing! From a living room to a basic Zoom account and a Facebook group to dozens of people joining us every month for Thursday gatherings, brunch, and small groups and a couple hundred more besides. All of our online gatherings are attracting more people, and all these people are forming relationships with one another.
A seedling needs the small space of the tray to start growing, but it can’t stay there. Eventually, it needs to be repotted. Just like that seedling, we have outgrown our current platforms and it’s time to re-pot ourselves. We are switching to a private online networking platform called Circle. This will mitigate several of the growing pinches we’ve been experiencing. For example:
Zoom has become essential infrastructure for churches, homes, and businesses. However, it is difficult to share leadership of discussions outside the pastoral team.
There is a growing desire in our community to make online connections informally outside of regular gatherings.
There are still many people who are not on Facebook and so are excluded from our current informal spaces.
Every word posted in our online spaces on Facebook is content to feed an algorithm which is increasingly invasive and promotes violence against marginalized people.
There are other free tools, but none that does everything we need. And the more tools we use, we risk fracturing the bonds that have grown.
Circle, on the other hand, has room for us to grow, allows greater interaction between members, is totally integrated and we own the content.
Unlike similar platforms, there is no cost for Harboristas to join and no benefit levels. On Circle we have video conferencing, direct messaging, posting spaces for all kinds of discussions, and more capacity to add moderators and leadership.
We will continue to use Zoom for our Thursday gatherings and brunches. The Harbor Hangout will remain on Facebook (as will our public page), although we expect most of the discussion that happens there to move to Circle.
If we have your email address, you will receive an email by the end of February inviting you to join our Circle community. If you just can’t wait and want an invitation now, send us an email and we will get you set up.
Remember in early 2020 when we all had to use Zoom and there were so many glitches? Remember Zoom-bombing? It required a lot of patience and adjustment for all of us to learn. Now, most of us can’t live or work without it! Joining this new platform might require that kind of patience. But there will be lots of support, especially as we are all learning together.
