APPENDIX 1: THE ART AND SCIENCE OF MEASURING THE UNSEEN & APPENDIX 2: RESEARCH APPROACH AND METHODOLOGY

I trust most readers are familiar with proverbs like these two: “Better is open rebuke than hidden love,” and “Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses” (Prov. 27:5-6).

I mention these because I have been reluctant over the last couple of days to offer several substantial criticisms that have arisen as my reading in Reveal has continued. I certainly don’t what to aid Satan in his work of being an “accuser of the brethren” (Rev. 12:10). What’s more, I commit versions of the same mistakes that I think these authors might be making. In short, I hope the following remarks will be taken as the warnings of a friend and a sinner.

My first few posts focused on this idea of measuring the unseen. Given the intriguing titles of the first two appendices (above), I jumped ahead in my reading.

Here’s what Willow’s consultant Eric Arnson—the business strategist who learned his trade at Procter & Gamble, Beecham Cosmetics, McKinsey & Co., and his own consulting firm—says in these two appendixes:

“I measure the unseen.”

He asks us to consider, in other words, why people turn to the Weather Channel for travel conditions; why they implicitly trust John Deere tractors; why they pay so much for Starbucks coffee. Arnson and his colleagues have discovered

“that motivations and attitudes—in addition to emotions—were also key components of brand loyalty. This expanded our thinking beyond how a product or service made you “feel” (emotions), to what spurred you to try the product in the first place (motivations) and whether or not there is a particular mindset that influenced your actions (attitudes).”

To answer these questions, an organization needs to consider its consumer segments, needs, and other intangibles. And its understanding these things that are “critical to building higher levels of brand commitment” among consumers. Remarkably, Arnson has learned that one can

“go into a product category, sort through statements about emotions, attitudes, motivations, etc. and then empirically predict the likelihood of any commitment level and the basis for commitment to your brand or a competitor’s brand” (ital. orig).

Furthermore,

“the beauty of the analysis was that we could apply it across product categories. We looked at weather information. We looked at TV viewing. We looked at financial services. We looked at shoes. You name the category, and we applied the commitment model to it.”

His consulting firm applied these principles to more than 250 brands in sixty categories. Does that mean—? Yes, that means…

“We wanted to use the commitment model to peer into the hearts of people so we could understand what drives increasing love for God and increasing commitment to Christ…We wanted to discover what was most important—what worked (the “drivers”) and what didn’t work (the “barriers”)—to create a growing level of commitment to Christ.”

In appendix 2, Arnson describes how he applied his model to Willow Creek church, since

“we could use the same research tools that measure attitudes and behaviors in consumers to measure spiritual beliefs and behaviors in individuals.”

Should the “same research tools” used to measure consumers be applied to the church? I see four dangers:

Danger one: Misdiagnosis. I recognize that some of the rational choice methodology which underlies most surveying work can be used to assess supernaturally given attitudes or emotions just as well as it measures natural attitudes and emotions. In other words, a person enabled by the Spirit to truly love God will make decisions in order to maximize pleasure no less than the carnal individual committed only to himself; he just has different criteria for what gives pleasure and minimizes pain (Piper calls it Christian hedonism). What this type of methodology cannot do is distinguish the supernatural emotion from the natural one. It can’t tell the difference between the Spirit-enabled man who says “I love God” and the idolater who says the exact same thing.

The analyst sees Cain’s sacrifice of fruit and Abel’s sacrifice of the flock, hears their heart-felt prayers, and says “Chalk two up for loving God!”

True faith will bear visible fruit. But not all visible, religious fruit is the evidence of true faith. What’s a Pharisee, after all?

Danger two: Mis-prescription. Is this just an obscure theological point? I don’t think so. The point of diagnosing how the church is doing with the tools of social science is to then make prescriptions for what the church should be doing—to determine barriers and drivers to growth, in Reveal’s language. It concerns me, therefore, that the last page of the last chapter of Reveal reads, “What we have found has changed the way Willow Creek looks at its role as a church.”

Really? Shouldn’t the Bible be playing the role of what church leaders think of the church’s role, not social science surveys?

When we apply the “same research tools” of the market to the church, we’ll be tempted to do whatever we can in order to get people to say and believe spiritual things like “I love God.” We’ll be tempted to rely on natural means, which, in turn, often yield little more than natural belief.

But there’s a difference between natural belief and supernatural belief. Listen to what George Whitefield said as he looked out at fields filled with his nominally Christian fellow countrymen:

“My friends, we mistake a historical faith for a true faith, wrought in the heart by the Spirit of God. You fancy you believe, because you believe there is such a book as we call the Bible, because you go to church; all this you may do, and have no true faith in Christ. Merely to believe there was such a person as Christ, merely to believe there is a book called the Bible, will do you no good, more than to believe there was such a man a Caesar or Alexander the Great…My dear friends, there must be a principle wrought in the heart by the Spirit of the living God.”

It’s worth asking again, can we really measure the unseen? Ask Nicodemus what Jesus told him (John 3:8).

Danger three: Misconstruing. Taking this type of market-driven thinking into the church, even in something as simple as asking, “how satisfied are you with the church and its attributes,” potentially misconstrues the role of the church and the human condition. That is, it makes the church an institutional service provider (and not a fellowshipping, worshipping family); and it assumes that people rightly recognize their real wants and needs (and not that their sin fundamentally distorts their desires). In all of this, it suggests to people that Christianity will meet their needs on their terms (as opposed to God’s). I say “potentially” because all this is not necessarily a result of such a survey. I’m simply suggesting that this type of thinking can (and often does) lead in this direction.

What’s the alternative for churches? The alternative is to rely on God’s ordained means: Word and Spirit. It’s to set forth the truth plainly, relying on the Spirit to make a foolish-sounding gospel good news (2 Cor. 4:2-6). It’s to recognize that true Christian growth always begins and continues with a biblical call to repentance—a call to lay down one’s idols and to change directions toward Christ and his Word.

Danger four: Manipulation.

My first thought when I read these two appendices? Honestly? I thought about what a non-Christian might think from reading this. Is it possible he or she would think something like this? “So if I walk into one of these churches, they are going to use the scads of research data that they have collected on people like me in order to appeal to my emotional needs, exploit insecurities, and generally manipulate my sense of identity—all to get me to adopt and grow in their religion.” (In fact, see an analogous observation made by a professor of English and advertising at the University of Florida; ht: JT.)

Think for a moment of Charles Finney leaning into people’s faces and trying to scare them into the kingdom. Or think of any old school preacher who uses various forms of psychological pressure to induce people to “walk the aisle” and “make a decision.” As I read through these appendices, I couldn’t help but wonder if Reveal wasn’t talking about the exact same thing for the sake of both conversion and growth. Only, it’s not peoples’ fears that are potentially being manipulated; it’s the more pleasant emotions or desires of feeling relaxed, hip, important, or just plain “satisfied,” like a well-served customer. 

Arnson presents Starbucks as an example of a company that the church can learn from. Starbucks has learned to be successful not by selling “cups of coffee”; rather it sells half-caf grande pumpkin spice lattes from friendly baristas with Ella crooning in the background, thereby establishing, in Arnson’s words, a “functional platform” of “order customized just for me,” an “emotional platform” of “makes me feel important,” and the “permission” to “indulge and escape.”

I’ll let Christian businessman work out whether or not this particular example is an ethical way of treating people made in God’s image in the marketplace, and whether or not they want to reduplicate this type of thinking which the world takes for granted. His description of Starbuck’s method sounds a little like exploiting people’s idols to get them to buy their product. At the same time, I understand, it’s entirely legitimate in many instances to ask or even predict what “customers” want or need and to give it to them. That’s what the market is for. Everyone knows what they’re getting into. This SBux example aside, I would go so far as to say that Mr. Arnson’s job sounds cool, and he’s putting his God given gifts of intelligence and creativity to productive use.

And don’t misunderstand: I’m not saying that surveying what people want in order to offer it to them in a church is wholesale manipulation. Every church has ways it can learn and grow, and I think I would say that Willow’s heart to do this is example-worthy. It’s good to invite criticism, personally and corporately.

It’s simply Willow’s way of going about this that I question. Somewhere there is a line between the person, politician, or pastor who leads by taking polls and the person, politician, or pastor who leads by principle yet knows how to ask for feedback. Somewhere there’s a line between being a Jew to the Jew or Gentile to the Gentile and letting the Jew or Gentile tell you how to be the church. Where’s that line? I’m not sure, but will viewing attitudes, emotions, and motivations in precisely the same fashion that Starbucks, Nike, and Fisher Price view them help us to find it? Will adopting the supply/demand mindset of the market help us to find it?

Bottom line. I’ve just listed several dangers that I believe come with the methodology articulated in these two appendices. I don’t mean to suggest that Willow or the other churches surveyed have succumbed to these dangers entirely and totally. But as a sinner who knows, for instance, what it is to manipulate, I pray that these words of warning may be useful for others.