{"id":1075,"date":"2008-02-02T20:00:45","date_gmt":"2008-02-03T04:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2008\/02\/02\/when-copies-are-free-what-is-valuable\/"},"modified":"2009-06-27T01:04:02","modified_gmt":"2009-06-27T09:04:02","slug":"when-copies-are-free-what-is-valuable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2008\/02\/02\/when-copies-are-free-what-is-valuable","title":{"rendered":"When Copies Are Free, What is Valuable?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kevin Kelly, an influential thinker about all things digital, just posted an essay called Better than Free<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s quite good.<\/p>\n

The gist is that technology is making copies easier and easier to create. In fact, copies of most things are so cheap that they\u2019re essentially free.<\/p>\n

In his words:<\/p>\n

When copies are super abundant, they become worthless.
\nWhen copies are super abundant, stuff which can\u2019t be copied becomes scarce and valuable<\/p>\n

\u2026<\/p>\n

Well, what can\u2019t be copied? <\/p>\n

There are a number of qualities that can\u2019t be copied. Consider \u201ctrust.\u201d Trust cannot be copied. You can\u2019t purchase it. Trust must be earned, over time. It cannot be downloaded. Or faked. Or counterfeited (at least for long). If everything else is equal, you\u2019ll always prefer to deal with someone you can trust. So trust is an intangible that has increasing value in a copy saturated world. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Kelly identifies 8 similar difficult-to-copy qualities which add value to products and services:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Immediacy: getting it now (as it is produced or created)<\/li>\n
  2. Personalization: getting it made just for you<\/li>\n
  3. Interpretation: having it explained in a way that makes sense to you<\/li>\n
  4. Authenticity: knowing it\u2019s the real deal or a copy of the real deal (as opposed to a song being done by a cover band or something)<\/li>\n
  5. Accessibility: it\u2019s convenient to experience<\/li>\n
  6. Embodiment: it\u2019s something you can experience on a uniquely intense level (you can shake the hand of the athlete who just scored the game-winning point, etc)<\/li>\n
  7. Patronage: you believe that by consuming it you\u2019re enabling more of it (whatever it is you value) to be produced<\/li>\n
  8. Findability: it gets on your radar somehow<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Kelly is mostly speaking about business in his essay, but it occurs to me that this is a pretty good checklist for ministry.<\/p>\n

    A sea of ministry copies is floating around your community. There\u2019s Christian radio (carrying copies of some the best worship music and preaching to be found), there\u2019s Christian television (carrying copies), there are Christian books and magazines (carrying copies of wise people\u2019s opinions and Bible interpretations), and there are blogs that give everyone the opportunity to interact with any number of other esteemed Christian leaders. On top of that, there\u2019s the multi-site church movement which at its heart is about copying ministry.<\/p>\n

    And this is to say nothing of the ministry clones that abound in every community. You know the ones I speak of. They are the Starbucks of churches, the McDonald\u2019s of ministry. Each of them looks and feels the same no matter what community they nominally inhabit. They could care less whether they are in El Paso or Austin. They will treat Boston and Springfield, MO alike.<\/p>\n

    In this copy-laden context, what true value does your ministry offer? <\/p>\n

    There are certainly other things we need to consider than Kelly\u2019s list. Some of them are of exceeding importance, such as whether we\u2019re proclaiming the gospel clearly and faithfully.<\/p>\n

    But his list still nags at me. It seems to me to be a helpful way to examine ourselves from a purely pragmatic perspective. <\/p>\n

    I think ministries do well by these standards. For example, most ministries I know are strong at<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Immediacy: people are there while we preach it \u2014 live. Our worship team is performing \u2014 live. Our prayers are spontaneous. People are operating in the gifts of the Spirit \u2014 live and without rehearsal.<\/li>\n
    2. Personalization: people are meeting with mentors who are showing them how to understand the Bible given their particular situation in life (although they\u2019re not usually called mentors \u2014 they\u2019re usually called youth sponsors, sunday school teachers, next-door neighbors, friends, co-workers, or something else that\u2019s not very trendy to be callled)<\/li>\n
    3. Interpretation: people are not only given a Bible, they\u2019re given a whole learning environment with it \u2014 sermons, Bible studies, Sunday School, seminars, conferences, Christian media, websites<\/li>\n
    4. Authenticity: it\u2019s become cliche to knock around the established church for being inauthentic, but I just don\u2019t see it. Most people love their pastor for a reason. Notable examples aside, most ministers aren\u2019t hypocrites and are serving up the goods of a life lived in humilty before God.<\/li>\n
    5. Patronage: giving in the offering pays the salary of the pastoral team and allows the ministries of the church to operate. Giving in offerings allows missionaries to take the gospel around the world.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      I think a lot of ministries could use work on the other parts of the list, however.<\/p>\n

        \n
      1. Accessibility: we too often make ministry inconvenient for the people we say we\u2019re trying to reach. Our service times are funky. Our dress code is off-putting. Our lingo is difficult to decode.<\/li>\n
      2. Embodiment: too many churches seem obsessed with making church as bland and palatable as possible. This is especially true of my Pentecostal comrades: we\u2019ve become embarrassed about our spirituality. To them, I can only quote Curt Harlow<\/a>: don\u2019t tone it down, sincere it up. Make coming to church significantly more lively and rewarding than watching a church service broadcast on a big screen tv at home with surround-sound.<\/li>\n
      3. Findability: not nearly as many people know about your ministry as you think. Existing is not enough to produce awareness.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        So to my ministerial friends, I pose this simple question: in a world of copies, what makes your ministry valuable? Is it something that can\u2019t be copied out from under you?<\/p>\n

        The things I find myself obsessing over are all too often the things that are the most copyable. Did my sermon sound like one of Rick Warren\u2019s\/John Ortberg\u2019s\/John Piper\u2019s\/etc? Does my worship team sound like they just rolled off the Passion Tour\/IHOP Prayer Room\/etc?<\/p>\n

        What I should be asking is: if Rick Warren set up on my campus, would I still be adding value to students\u2019 lives? If Dave Crowder decided to lead worship for another ministry on my campus, would I still be adding value to students\u2019 lives?<\/p>\n

        What\u2019s not copyable about what I\u2019m doing?<\/p>\n

        Anyway, just some off-the-cuff thoughts inspired by his essay. Read the article<\/a> ladykillers the download free<\/a><\/u> .<\/p>\n

        bugsy malone dvdrip download<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        Kevin Kelly, an influential thinker about all things digital, just posted an essay called Better than Free. It\u2019s quite good. The gist is that technology is making copies easier and easier to create. In fact, copies of most things are so cheap that they\u2019re essentially free. In his words: When copies are super abundant, they become worthless. \u2026 Continue reading \u201cWhen Copies Are Free, What is Valuable?\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rants-opinions-and-general-contrariness"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Ded-hl","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1075"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1765,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1075\/revisions\/1765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}