The Sum is Never Zero

First of all, as always I am addressing everyone, including the global community of Jesus followers.

I’m not certain whether zero sum thinking in business has been around forever or if it is a relatively new product of the Modern Nietzschean philosophy of power. This is the philosophy that there are only limited resources in the world so that every bit of gain for one person represents an equal amount of loss for other people. This might be true to some extent when it comes to material resources, if material resources weren’t constantly destroyed in the production of other resources which may have greater or lesser value. But it should be obvious when it comes to information resources that giving something away doesn’t necessarily mean that you don’t have it anymore. And the gains due to good will and public opinion may be vastly greater than the potential profit lost. And even the potential profit is only potential. 

I am always please when I see a business demonstrate that they realize that this is the 21st Century and giving their paying customers a good experience is more important than ensuring that no one will get anything for free. Free WiFi is an example of a good business practice. Heavy-handed DRM is an example of a bad business practice. If you are going to have WiFi already, why not make it open and allow your customers to use it; they’re already paying you. What if some people use it without paying? Well, you haven’t lost anything have you? Just potential profit that was never really there. And even then, you’ve got those people coming to your place of business and you’re generating good will. The debate over DRM is so hot I won’t get into it here, you can read one of the thousands of other articles on the subject.

Churches are probably too influenced by business culture anyway but this becomes an obvious impediment their own goals when they act as if they must enforce the desired outcomes. Have you ever gone to a church-sponsored event and then felt uncomfortably herded toward a presentation on either morality or becoming a Christian (depending on the brand of Christianity)? Perhaps it wasn’t uncomfortable if it was your event, but did you notice that other people looked uncomfortable? I know the response I will get from some evangelicals: the Gospel is supposed to make people uncomfortable! At some level this is true, but I fear that in these situations, the challenge of Jesus is not what is making people uncomfortable. People are uncomfortable when they feel that they have been duped into something.

Perhaps this isn’t as bad as zero sum thinking. Afterall, the motivation is not financial profit. (If the motivation is financial profit, it’s not even Christianity, it’s something else.) But the result is similar. People have a bad experience and think less of that church and likely all Christians, and nothing is really gained because the message was not really heard. I want my position to be clear here: I want nothing more than for the whole world to know and follow Jesus, because I think that nothing will benefit their lives more than the freedom that He brings, and because I believe that everyone will be judged at the end of time and Jesus is the only hope for good sentence. And I think that most of the things that have been done by Christians that have earned them so much bad press was probably done with the best of intentions. But good intentions don’t really count for anyone except the intender.

So here’s the solution for businesses and churches alike. If you have something you can’t sell, give it away. They will pay you in good will. Don’t sacrifice people’s opinion about you for the possibility of profit. If you say that you’re giving something away, expect people to take you up on it; and don’t expect an immediate or obvious return. If you expect a return, make it clear from the beginning. Yes, it may cut down on attendance, but the the audience will be a quality audience because they know what they’re getting into. Remember, they may not be the majority, but many people are more than happy to pay for what they get.