Curator & Presenter: Ken Howard (FaithX).
Guest Presenters: Spencer Burke (HatcheryLA) and Toby Rubin (UpStart Bay Area).
Weds | Nov 18 | Afternoon Session
Author, extrapreneurial faith leader, and church futurist, Ken Howard, led a curated discussion of the fertile ground that lies at the boundaries of faith and business. He was joined by entrepreneur and community innovator Toby Rubin, of UpStart Bay Area, and innovator and author Spencer Burke, of HatcheryLA.
Do business entrepreneurs employ faith? Can faith leaders be entrepreneurial? How are faith-based startups and business startups alike? How are they different? What practical lessons can each learn from the other? These are just a few of the questions Ken and his guests will be discussing at this first-of-its-kind program at the LeanStartup Conference.
Brief audiovisual presentations will be followed by interactive discussion as presenters discuss questions fielded and framed by the curator from those submitted by participants.
2. Why a panel on #LeanFaith
Which requires more faith to launch?
A Faith Community? A Startup Business?
3. Q. What is a curated discussion?
A. a panel discussion on steroids.
Brief presentations.
Submitted questions.
Curator may reframe.
4. Submitting your questions
a few instructions
Each person take a few.
As you have a question, write down, pass to center.
We’ll collect them as we go.
Consolidate and frame.
Follow-ups are fine.
13. Vision-Guided Experimentation
Seven strategies to survive the singularity
1. Minimum Viable Belief
2. Getting outside the worship center
3. Minimum Viable Program
4. Rapid Iteration Prototyping
5. Lean-ing from the inside out
6. Leading from the outside in
7. Measuring what mattersI N T E R S T E L L A R
14. 1. Minimum Viable Belief
Program
Process
Purpose
PASSION
(Reason for being)
What
How
Why
Why
of
Whys
Business could learn from this!
15. Your Community’s MVB is its…
Why of Whys. Reason for being.
Transcendent single belief or principle that
drives everything else.
How we want to change the world vision.
Purpose that makes its people passionate.
16. Vision = Minimum Viable Belief
because vision creates culture
a lean, transcendent vision
can create a
flexible, durable, self-guiding culture that
outlasts its founder
17. 2. Getting outside the worship center
Testing hypotheses about
No facts exist
inside the building,
only opinions.
– Steve Blank
Outside
Context
Inside
Context
18. Getting outside the worship center
Outer
Context
Inner
Context
Demo-
graphics
Strengths
Needs
19. Getting outside the worship center
Getting to “why”
Program: Ministries
Process: Organizing
Purpose: Reason(s)
What
How
Why
20. 3. Minimum Viable Program
…or ministryMinimum Viable Program
Simplest
Possible
Prototype
Containing
All Required
Features
MVP
21. 4. Rapid Iteration Prototyping
RIP: because it’s okay to let bad ideas die
APPLY
seasonal experiment
ASSESS
our assumptions
ADAPT
program/product
Toss?
Tweak?
22. 5. Lean-ing from the inside out
by stewarding…
Gifts & Skills
Match positions
to people
Time
Reduce
permissions
Effort
Prevent
perfectionism
Business could learn from this!
23. 6. Leading from the outside in
Extrapreneurial leadership
Synergism Networking Centered Set
Business could learn from this!
24. 7. Measuring What Matters
beyond butts in the pews
From Attendance To Engagement
25. Measuring what matters
Engagement: beyond butts in the pews
Seeker
Guest
Inquirer
Regular
Engaged
Member
Leader
Relationship to the Congregation
LevelofEngagement
27. Being Jewish
more about culture & ancestry than religion
Source: Pew Research Center 2013 Survey of U.S. Jews.
28.
29. How might we
bring Jewish wisdom to life
in a way that inspires
contemporary American Jews and others
to choose to benefit
from the rich tradition
that is today’s Judaism?
43. FaithX
a forthcoming book on
developing experimental faith
communities
FaithX.net
a forthcoming faith-based
network for experimental faith
communities
Why a panel on borderlines?
Both kinds of organization can learn from each other.
And what takes more faith than a start up
What’s different about a curated discussion?
A curated discussion is like a panel discussion on steroids.
Brief, targeted discussions by expert panelists. Questions upvoted from the participants.
Discussion questions and responses curated by a strong moderator: able to frame questions and responses to them.
Consider the forces at work…
Like startups, today’s churches and faith communities
live in a chaotic the intersection of escalating uncertainty and accelerating change,
within and without. (Just like startups)
Examples:
Change and uncertainty driven by:
Increasing rate of fragmentation into new sects
Increasing dissatisfaction with the influence of religion in society
Increasing numbers choosing none or done on the above on religion surveys
Increasing numbers identifying a spiritual but not religious
Decreasing membership
Decreasing attendance (weekly is the new monthly)
Decreasing belief in God
Decreasing confidence in chosen faith or denomination
Change…
All faiths fracture…
Christianity’s no different.
First slowly: 1,600 denominations, 1,900 years.
Then it went exponential, jumping to 45,000 by 2014.
A singularity. (And we’re beyond the event horizon.)
Driving down:
Members per denomination: 18,000 by end of century
Members per worship center: 64!
Black hole: business model of denominations is unsustainable in any form
Wormhole: business model for worship centers unsustainable in current form: time for a new paradigm
Easy to see a chaotic environment and give up.
But the chaordic space, the intersection of chaos and order, is actually were creativity and transformation starts.
Been exploring Lean or lean-like practices faith communities are adapting or creating
Lean, transcendent vision
creates flexible, durable, self-guiding culture
that can outlast its founder… from startup to maturity…
Minimum Viable Belief.
Getting outside the worship center means testing our hypotheses about two communities:
The community inside the worship center (inside context)
The community outside the worship center (outside context)
Learning what God is trying to tell you about your inner and outer communities:
Indirectly: through demographic and lifestyle analysis (e.g., Mission InSite)
Directly: through face-to-face identification of strengths and needs (e.g. Asset-Based Community Development)
By digging beneath “What” you do and “How” you do it (which are always based on assumptions), to “Why” you do it.
After you’ve tested your assumptions, design a minimum viable program (or ministry) that is as simple as you can make it but contain the essential features.
This is tricky for two reasons:
Distinguishing between “gotta haves” and “wanna haves”
Balancing the needs of the inside community and the outside community.
Everything revolved around our MVB.
A cycle of experimentation: ADAPT… APPLY… ASSESS…
Which we called Rapid Iteration Programming (RIP)…
to remind ourselves it was okay to bad ideas die.
Get Lean by stewarding:
Gifts & Skills
Assess strengths
Match Positions People
Proactive placement within 6 weeks
Learning how to lead and manage without money.
Time
Clear Vision & Goals
Clear delegation
Clear, quick approval
Effort
Define & Communicate Good Enough
Model Good Enough
Businesses could learn from this!
Seeking to find bring together people, programs, and organizations in new ways that are multiplicative rather than additive.
Seeking to connect with and resource other organizations of complementary vision and purpose in order to succeed together.
Defining community not by the boundaries that separate you from others but by what (or who) you seek in common at the center.
And for those of us doing this work, we have no choice but to pursue our passion for re-designing and re-defining non-orthodox Jewish life in America because we believe that Judaism—just as Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and others-- offers a powerful and proven framework for finding answers to the enduring questions that face humanity as we strive to lead fully realized lives.
Destruction of 2nd Temple—end of temple Judaism—rabbinic Judaism
Enlightenment—introduction of streams—innovations of conservative and reform Judaism, renewal
Holocaust-Israel and the building of new institutions for safe places of belonging
Now-assimilation---Jewish experience must be meaningful, we belong everywhere now.