Vertical & Horizontal Morality and the mission of the church, Preview
Take a look at this word: LoFi. Do you know what LoFi is? It’s a kind of calm instrumental music that emphasizes bass beats. LoFi is great background music. Check it out, if you’ve never heard it before.
When I am in the office, I enjoy playing LoFi beats. I find they really help me concentrate.
Last week, when I attempted to turn on some LoFi, I discovered that the app Faith Church uses for streaming music had totally changed, so much so that I couldn’t use it anymore.
About six months ago, we stopped using Spotify and began using Napster for streaming music, which we play every Sunday morning in the sanctuary before worship. We pay for a basic subscription to avoid advertisements. Years ago, we streamed music with a free service, with commercials. Imagine sitting in the sanctuary, preparing for worship, and then commercials come on. Not really conducive to getting your heart and mind ready to praise God, is it?
We made the switch to Napster because it was the same price as Spotify, but it offered higher resolution streaming, and it paid musicians more. It didn’t have as deep a catalogue as Spotify, but we felt it worth the trade-off. Until last week when I attempted to turn on some LoFi, and I got a message that Napster was no longer offering streaming music. Instead, Napster had transformed itself into a music creation company, using Artificial Intelligence.
So I canceled our church subscription, requested a refund for the six months of unused time, and Napster responded approving the refund within the hour. Meanwhile, searching online, I learned why Napster made this dramatic change. Napster is betting on artificial intelligence to be the future for their company. Thus, their mission has changed.
I suspect that most organizations don’t make a massive shift to their mission that rapidly. Instead, when organizations change, it is because of mission drift. Mission drift occurs when an organization slowly, almost imperceptibly, moves away from its originating cause.
Are you drifting? Is your organization? Your church? Join me on the blog this coming week, as I’ll be writing about mission, and how we can keep from drifting.
Photo by Alvaro Reyes on Unsplash
Engaging Scripture 