Recently I was cleaning out some boxes that I had packed up 4 years ago when I moved. These boxes had remained in storage since that time and while I pretty much knew that I didn't want most of the junk that was in them, I knew I needed to go through them and organize the junk into trash and donations.
In the process of doing this laborious task, I stumbled upon a relic from the ancient times of 2010. It was my Blockbuster card. If you’re older than 25 then you probably have a memory of these stores. It’s where you drove, in a car, to pick out movies to rent, for a day, and drive again, to return them.
I took a moment to recall my last few moments with this retail store and lament their slow death. Blockbuster is a great story for businesses and churches to remember often. It’s a story of what not to do, to keep your head out of the sand and pay attention to what is going on around you.
I am not going to write an exhaustive history of Blockbuster since you can read the public account here.
So what happened?
Netflix, Redbox, Streaming boxes, and technology, to name just a few. The management team at Blockbuster either couldn't or wouldn't see what was happening around them.
Their heads were in the sand.
People didn't have to drive to the brick and mortar to rent a movie anymore. Netflix rolled out a basic streaming option in 2008 , you could have a special DVD player that could run a Netflix program and you could watch stuff on your list anytime you wanted. (This was the precursor to what we know today).
I wrote earlier, “Blockbuster is a great story for businesses and churches to remember often. It’s a story of what not to do, to keep your head out of the sand and pay attention to what is going around you.”
It’s obvious why I call out businesses, they exist to transact, to make the owner, or stockholders a profit.
Why do I call out churches? Well, a lot of churches are acting like Blockbuster. They are sitting and watching the world around them change, and can't figure out why no one is listening. Might it be that the timeless message of Jesus is still being shared and communicated the same as it was 50 years ago - and times they are changing?
I’m not sure if you're paying attention but the communication methods we used just 15 years ago have changed and some done even exist anymore. And we have entirely new tools today. Case in point; payphones, cellphones, youtube, Skype, etc - things change.
So here is my challenge;
Observe the communication methods and styles going around you, do your best to understand them
Adapt your message to fit new mediums - don't try and call people on payphones or run ads in newspapers. The message of Jesus hasn't changed since He left us, and it won’t, but the medium has to of we want people to hear you
If you can't understand the new thing, ASK SOMEONE that doesto help you understand it
Don't dismiss new things as trends or fads - you and I have no idea what the next big thing will be or the next set of things will be - but ignoring them is foolish
Accept that you will have to BE/GO WHERE PEOPLE ARE, you can’t expect them to always come to you or necessarily come to you at prescribed times
As I wrap up, ponder this. Want to know why Redbox’s disk rental is still so popular and profitable? They knew early on their strategy had to be located where people actually had to go. Their tactical implementation was locating at grocery stores and drugstores - and they’ve even launched a decent on-demand streaming service.
So be like RedBox, think about your customer, or your audience, and be where they are, don’t be like Blockbuster insisting people come to you, only when you're open.