I'm a marketer; it's what I do. I couch it in religious terms like "missions mobilizer," but at the end of the day, I do marketing. I used to have a problem with that, until I realized marketing wasn't evil. It's just communicating a message to a group of people in a way that prompts action on their part. Still, I have to measure and track everything that I do. I have to answer questions about scalability, conversion, and retention. And if I'm not careful, it can get to me.
 
Quit hijacking our communitiesI begin to measure everything -- my blog readers, facebook friends, ezine subscribers, and even the amount of emails I answer every day. If this goes for awhile unchecked, I start seeing people as "numbers" and communities as "target demographics." When I get to this point, I usually need to detox.
 
That's the danger in having the world at your fingertips. You start abusing it, instead of treating it as a privilege to have access to so many with such ease. If you're not careful with stewarding these connections, people stop listening to you.
 
Sure, they may still subscribe to your email blasts, attend your church, or even hang out with you. But inevitably, if the community is about the numbers, people stop listening.
 
Marketer Seth Godin quotes Dave Balter in using the term "scalejacking" and explains the dangers of measuring everything:
 
Because marketers were raised on the scale of mass-TV, radio, newspapers, they have a churn and burn mentality. The internet turns this upside down. The internet is about who, not how many. The internet lets you take really good care of 100 people instead of harassing 2,000.

Yet, panicked marketers still look for scale (How many followers can we get? What can we do with a Facebook fan page?) and then hijack that attention, hoping to filter out the masses and get a few sales.

Scalejacking inevitably tarnishes most communities, because individuals (people) hate being treated like numbers just standing by to be filtered.

 
I confess that I'm guilty of this. Despite my shortcomings, something interesting has been happening at our little community of Wrecked.org lately -- more conversations are happening. The comments are abounding; there are disagreements and debates; and people are coming together from all around the world to challenge and encourage each other.
 
Would you believe that our monthly unique visitors are lower than usual? As the editor and co-founder of this website, that eats at me a little, but when I see all the comments and conversations happening, I wouldn't trade it for a few more visitors. What's the point if no one's responding? Were they ever really listening in the first place?
 
We leaders, marketers, and revolutionaries need to be awfully careful that we do not measure the "success" of our efforts based solely on metrics. We need to avoid delving into this comomditization of the community, where we treat everyone like a number. The consequences are fatal to those that are trusting us to lead and guide them. And pretty soon, our marketing is ineffective and our message is meaningless. "Community" becomes another byword for "customer base", and once again Christians are being called (rightfully so) hypocritical.
 
I propose that we stop counting. I'm not just talking about church -- I'm talking about small groups, blogs, monastic communities, cook-outs, online message boards, parties, email lists, and so on. Let's take a break from evaluating everything by a number. Sure, there's good in setting goals, tracking success, and so forth, but numbers are not the end; relationships are. So, let's pick something else to measure -- conversations, interactions, actual lives changed. Chances are, you're not doing what you do for the numbers; you're doing it for a vision or to create change.
 
As an American, I've been inundated with the idea of capitalism since I was a boy. There's nothing wrong with that -- living in a free market society has a lot of perks, advantages, and opportunities. It's actually quite a blessing. However, given the competitive nature of business in the United States, this consumeristic, "more" mentality can invade other parts of our lives, too -- like our friendships, our families, and even our spiritual lives.
  
More doesn't necessarily mean better. Actually, it just means more.
Jeff graduated from Illinois College, a small liberal arts school, with a degree in Spanish and Religion. He lives in Nashville, TN with his wife Ashley. He works for Adventures in Missions, edits this silly little magazine, and loves to do new things. Check out his blog: Pilgrimage of the Heart.