From the Resurgence: This is a fantastically helpful list of questions for assistants to ask their pastors to help define roles clearly, clarify expectations, and know how best to serve them.
Mark Driscoll developed this list along with AJ Hamilton, one of his former assistants, back in 2005 — and apparently wrote a 65 page paper along with it (way to go!).
Drucker:
Throughout history, the great majority of people never had to ask the question.
What should I contribute? They were told what to contribute, and their tasks were dictated either by the work itself as it was for the peasant or artisan — or by a master or a mistress — as it was for domestic servants. And until very recently, it was taken for granted that most people were subordinates who did as they were told. Even in the 1950s and 1960s, the new knowledge workers (the so- called organization men) looked to their company’s personnel department to plan their careers.
Then in the late 1960s, no one wanted to be told what to do any longer. Young men and women began to ask. What do / want to do? And what they heard was that the way to contribute was to “do your own thing.” But this solution was as wrong as the organization men’s had been. Very few of the people who believed that doing one’s own thing would lead to contribution, self-fulfilment, and success achieved any of the three.
But still, there is no return to the old answer of doing what you are told or assigned to do. Knowledge workers in particular have to learn to ask a question that has not been asked before: What should my contribution be? To answer it, they must address three distinct elements: What does the situation require? Given my strengths, my way of performing, and my values, how can I make the greatest contribution to what needs to be done? And finally, What results have to be achieved to make a difference?
Consider the experience of a newly appointed hospital administrator. The hospital was big and prestigious, but it had been coasting on its reputation for 30 years. The new administrator decided that his contribution should be to establish a standard of excellence in one important area within two years. He chose to focus on the emergency room, which was big, visible, and sloppy. He decided that every patient who came into the ER had to be seen by a qualified nurse within 60 seconds. Within 12 months, the hospital’s emergency room had become a model for all hospitals in the United States, and within another two years, the whole hospital had been trans- formed.
As this example suggests, it is rarely possible — or even particularly fruitful — to look too far ahead. A plan can usually cover no more than 18 months and still be reasonably clear and specific. So the question in most cases should be. Where and how can I achieve results that will make a difference within the next year and a half? The answer must balance several things. First, the results should be hard to achieve — they should require “stretching,” to use the current buzzword.
But also, they should be within reach. To aim at results that cannot be achieved — or that can be only under the most unlikely circumstances — is not being ambitious; it is being foolish. Second, the results should be meaningful.
They should make a difference. Finally, results should be visible and, if at all possible, measurable. From this will come a course of action: what to do, where and how to start, and what goals and deadlines to set.
This is actually a very fascinating question. I have a lot I’d like to say on this, but here are just a few thoughts for now.
Sometimes you hear it said that “God requires faithfulness, not fruitfulness.” But the reality is that God requires both. God requires both faithfulness and fruitfulness.
However, the point behind the statement and what most people actually mean when they say that is true and critically important. Here are four reasons for that which, I hope, also flesh things out a bit more accurately.
First, faithfulness is the path to fruitfulness. So the wording of the question itself is slightly off. It implies that faithfulness and fruitfulness are somehow disconnected; that we are of course to be faithful, but that somehow being fruitful happens by some other means.
This would be a radical misunderstanding. For it implies that faithfulness is not enough for fruitfulness. And if faithfulness is not enough, then what else is there? Only unfaithfulness, which would be horrible. Fruitfulness comes through the path of faithfulness, and no other way. In this sense, we truly can say “God requires faithfulness only.” We can say that, not because fruitfulness is optional, but because faithfulness necessarily results in fruitfulness. Which leads to the second point.
Second, faithfulness always results in fruitfulness. It is not only that faithfulness is the path to fruitfulness. Rather, it is that faithfulness always and inevitably results in fruitfulness. Always.
The NT has no categories for the unfruitful Christian. The unfruitful Christian simply does not exist. Notice, for example, how Jesus talks in the Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13:1-9; 18-23). There are four categories of people. All of them ultimately prove to be unbelievers, except the last: the good soil. And in relation to the good soil, Jesus says “This is the one who hears the word and understands it. He indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty” (Matthew 13:23).
The issue is not whether the good soil bears fruit or not. It is simply how much. Everyone who is good soil — who truly understands and accepts the Word — bears fruit: either thirty, or sixty, or a hundred.
Likewise, in the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14 – 30), every servant was fruitful — except the last one, who was an unbeliever. One made five talents more and another two talents more. The last person, who received one talent, hid the talent and did nothing with it. He is not an example of an unfruitful Christian, but an unbeliever (vv. 26 – 30).
God does require fruitfulness. But that fruitfulness is certain to follow if we are faithful.
This is, of course, simply the traditional doctrine of justification and good works. We are not justified by our works, but those who have been justified by faith will inevitably and always live a life of good works (Ephesians 2:8-10; etc.). To say that God requires fruitfulness, not just faithfulness, is simply another statement of this truth.
Which of course leads to the question: What, then, is fruitfulness? Perhaps another reason people say “God requires faithfulness, not fruitfulness,” is to guard against wrong concepts of fruitfulness being used as the measure of what God requires. That’s an important issue, which leads to our next point.
Third, faithfulness is a form of fruitfulness.
This points out another issue in the way the original question is worded: It implies that faithfulness and fruitfulness are necessarily two different things. I think they can be distinguished in some ways (as we will see next), but it is also important to realize that faithfulness itself is a form of real fruitfulness. Faithfulness is one of the “fruits” that God produces in us and requires of us. Faithfulness is a form of fruitfulness. This is an important point that is not to be overlooked.
Related to this, another component of our fruitfulness is our character and just plain the godly responses to the situations we are in, whatever they may be. This is a form of fruit that is not necessarily broadly visible, but it matters and is even more important than the often more visible ministry “results” of walking faithfully.
Finally, though, fruitfulness does also include the results of our faithfulness — the effects in the world of following Christ and trusting him and loving him and obeying him. If you look at John 15, for example, where Jesus discusses our bearing much fruit, the fruit includes things like answers to prayer (John 15:7-8) and loving others (John 15:10, 12, etc.). And in the Parable of the Talents, the “fruit” in view seems to naturally include the results of our obedience and work in the Lord, as well as the faithfulness itself.
But here again there is a critically important truth that is safeguarded by those who say “God requires faithfulness, not fruitfulness.” We should of course seek to be as fruitful as we can possibly be. But notice that in the Parable of the Sower, there is not a hint of judgment or disappointment regarding those who bear thirty-fold or sixty-fold fruit rather than a hundred-fold. Jesus simply says “He indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty” (Matthew 13:23). All of these yields are considered good and significant. The one who bears thirty-fold is not judged or looked down upon for not bearing one-hundred fold.
So also in the Parable of the Talents, Jesus doesn’t say to the one who gained two talents “Well, you should have gained five talents, but I guess this is good enough.” Not at all. He says, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your Master” (Matthew 25:23).
So the other key intention behind the statement that “God requires faithfulness, not fruitfulness” that is fantastically, critically true is: You aren’t more accepted by God for producing more fruit or less loved by him for producing less. If you are faithful, the fruit that results from your faithfulness is good and acceptable to him. If you are faithful, you shouldn’t worry about the “amount” of fruit you see or don’t see. As long as you are faithful and doing what God requires, you shouldn’t ever feel that you just aren’t “fruitful enough.” We don’t have control over the results; our responsibility is to be faithful to do what God has said.
Related to this is the fact that we are simply not in a position to judge our fruitfulness. It is reported that Billy Graham once said to his staff at the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association that “many of you will have greater reward in heaven than me.” Many looked skeptical when he said this; some of the people there were responsible for stuffing envelops and other such tasks. How could they be rewarded more than Billy Graham? So he reiterated his point and said: “I mean that. The reason is that God rewards faithfulness, not fruitfulness.”
I think he meant that statement in the right way, the way we are unpacking it here. And his main point was: God decides what our reward is. The way things look now are not necessarily indications of how God views things. Someone who is stuffing envelops in faith may indeed be rewarded far beyond someone whose visible results, right now, appear to be greater. For it is faith that makes our works good, and God may be doing incredible things through our seemingly mundane efforts that we simply will not see until we get to heaven.
So, another critical thing underscored by the statement that “God requires faithfulness, not fruitfulness,” is that we are not in a position here to judge our fruitfulness and feel that our fruitfulness is low simply because the visible results don’t seem to be large at this time.
Now, if there is all this good behind the statement that “God requires faithfulness, not fruitfulness,” what’s the problem with talking that way at all? I think in general, that phrase can obscure some of the four things we have just seen, especially the fact that faithfulness always results in fruitfulness of some form and to some degree, and that faithfulness is the path to fruitfulness, and that we should take courage from knowing that we will always see some degree of fruit.
But there is one other thing that statement can obscure. What should we do when we aren’t seeing fruit?
The first thing to say is that there will be times when we seem to experience a visible lack of fruitfulness. There can even be times when Christians seem to be going backwards in their obedience and seem to be flagging in the fruitfulness of faithfulness itself. But God will always keep his children faithful and persevering to the end. So I don’t want the reality that true fruitfulness will always follow faithfulness to be taken to mean that there are never times of little fruitfulness in the life of a Christian.
But the other thing to say here is that one way faithfulness responds to an apparent lack of fruitfulness is by saying “do I need to change how I’m doing anything here?”
God’s commands are unchanging, and so that I’m not talking about changing at the level of obedience. But at the level of application, there are ways to do things that may be more helpful to people or less helpful; more edifying or less edifying; more likely to help people come to see the truth of the gospel or less likely.
We shouldn’t let the essential call to focus on faithfulness rather than fruitfulness become a call to ignore the need to make legitimate changes that are likely to help us do better in our lives and ministries.
Which is the last point: One thing that faithfulness does is have a view to it’s fruitfulness. Many times our fruitfulness is out of our hands; the results are God’s alone. Sometimes, though, there are things we can adapt or improve in order to do better, and the result will be more fruit. Faithfulness keeps alert to ways to adapt and improve in order to serve others more effectively, and thus more fruitfully.
Wherever knowledge workers perform well in large organizations, senior executives take time out, on a regular schedule, to sit down with them, sometimes all the way down to the green juniors, and ask:
- “What should we at the head of this organization know about your work?
- What do you want to tell me regarding the organization?
- Where do you see opportunities we do not exploit?
- Where do you see dangers to which we are still blind?
- And, all together, what do you want to know from me about this organization?”
Update: I think it’s important to add one more thing, and I hope it’s not too blunt.
If the employees in an organization don’t feel that they can be honest with those at the top about genuine problems in the organization, then I suggest the organization has the wrong leaders.
I don’t think leaders should be second-guessing themselves all the time. But the truth is that there are some people in leadership, either by accident or who knows what, that simply shouldn’t be there.
One outcome of this exercise may be that the leaders realize they are the wrong people to head the organization. This would be the rare instance (or should be rare!), but if the leaders simply assume they are competent and somehow “appointed” to lead, despite lacking actual competence and having failed to create a work environment that truly builds people up and treats them with respect and unleashes their talents for good and makes them excited about their work and the organization, then the most important thing they might need to think about is whether they are the right leaders at all.
Andy Stanley, in Visioneering: God’s Blueprint for Developing and Maintaining Vision
If God has birthed a vision in your heart, the day will come when you will be called upon to make a sacrifice to achieve it. And you will have to make the sacrifice with no guarantee of success.
I talk to people all the time who have what seem to be “God ideas” but who are unwilling to commit with both hands and feet. The conversation often begins with, “If I had a million dollars.”
A well-meaning lady once said to me, “You know, I am so burdened by the problems in the inner city. If I had a million dollars, I would love to go down there and start a school for underprivileged kids.”
As sensitively as I knew how, I said, “I know people with far less than you have now who have started schools for inner-city kids. You don’t need a million dollars to start a school.” What she needed was the courage to act on her vision.
The difference between those with a burden for inner-city kids and those who actually do something is not resources. It is a willingness to take risks and make sacrifices. The people who make a difference in this world commit to what could be before they know where the money is coming from. Their vision is enough to cause them to jump in. Money usually follows vision. It rarely happens the other way around. Consequently, vision always involves sacrifice and risk-taking.
My post today at the Global Leadership Summit blog.
In my article “Management in Light of the Supremacy of God,” I place significant emphasis on how the core of great management involves extending people’s autonomy rather than exercising detailed control over people.
One reader recently asked: “How does this relate to the reality of sin? How should the doctrine of sin and the fallen human heart affect our understanding of management?”
That’s a great question. I typed up a very quick response. Here’s what I said:
Glad you enjoyed the article, and thanks for your question.
Briefly, I’d say the reality of sin is addressed by the “accountability for results” component. We should maximize people’s freedom, but this is freedom within a framework. The framework is not only necessary because of sin — people are served by helpful structures and systems in themselves. But this also is one of the ways sin is kept in check as well.
A couple other thoughts. The emphasis on expanding freedom also takes into account the reality of sin, because as Paul teaches, the law actually makes sin increase. He is talking broadly there about God’s law and the human heart in general, but it does have an application to management: creating detailed rules is more likely to stir up sin in employee’s hearts than control sin. There is a place for rules, and sometimes even pretty strict ones (for example: in relation to financial reporting), but when there isn’t someone’s life at stake (airplane checklists, for example) or laws/ethical realities, the disposition should be to allow people freedom to identify their own way to accomplish the outcomes.
Another issue is: what are the specific sins of most people in the workplace? While all people are sinners, I don’t think that, for most people, their sin manifests itself as laziness and unwillingness to work. I think most people want to do good work and seek increased responsibility. Much sin in the workplace falls in the realm of motives and such things as that — a lot of which is outside the purview of management. So giving people freedom within a healthy overall framework will typically not be abused because of sin; and when it is abused by a few, it doesn’t serve the organization to punish everyone for a few bad apples.
One last thought: We also need to think of the sins of management. Sometimes people think “let’s tightly control people, because they are sinners,” not realizing that the managers themselves who are the ones to exercise this “tight control” are also sinners. So a tightly controlled approach as a response to sin runs into its own problems. Freedom within a healthy framework takes account of sin in the best way, in my view, because most people will excel when given the chance and since this also minimizes the opportunity for management to sin by overly controlling their people and viewing them mainly as means.
This is a guest post by Dan Cruver, director of Together for Adoption.
Want to learn more about missional living and our call as Christians to care for orphans in their distress?
Last year over 1,000 gathered together in Austin, TX to consider The Gospel, the Church, and the Global Orphan Crisis. Join us this October 21-22 at Redemption Church (Gilbert Campus) in Phoenix for Together for Adoption (T4A) Conference 2011 as we explore the theme Missional Living, the Gospel and Orphan Care.
As written in Reclaiming Adoption: Missional Living Through the Rediscovery of Abba Father, “To live missionally means to live each waking moment in light of the gospel so that it increasingly affects every part of our lives for the glory of God’s grace in our fallen world” (p 17). James 1:27 tells us that the practice of true religion necessarily involves caring for orphans in their distress. Therefore, to live missionally means that the Gospel is increasingly moving and empowering us to care for those who live on the razor-sharp edge of our world’s brokenness. Whether we are conscious of it or not, the Gospel is at the center of missional living and the evangelical orphan care movement.
General session speakers include: Darrin Patrick, Tullian Tchividjian, Tim Chester, Bryan Loritts, Juan Sanchez, and Jeff Vanderstelt
Worship Leaders: Shaun Groves, Aaron Ivey, and Jimmy McNeal
General Session Hosts: Shaun Groves and Johnny Carr (National Director of Church Partnerships at Bethany Christian Services)
Save $30 by registering this week for Together for Adoption’s October 21-22 orphan care/adoption conference (read full-details here). You may now register for just $75 today, July 26th, through Saturday, July 30th. This limited-time discount is over $30 less than our current early bird special. Take advantage of this super early bird price and help us spread the word about it this week. This sale ends on Saturday, July 30th at 11:59pm. Register here for this super early bird rate.
Note: If you are coming with a group from your church, this would be the perfect opportunity for your group’s members to register.
Here’s the message I gave at the Christian Web Conference on “How the Gospel Should Shape Your Web Strategy — Not Just Your Web Content”:
Here are some of the things I talk about:
Here are my slides (there’s just a few for this one):
And here is my manuscript/notes for the message:
Most of us aim for the content of our sites to be true to the gospel and gospel-centered. The gospel—the truth that Christ died and rose again for us, and that through faith in him we enter a right relationship with God—is at the heart of what we are here to say. Everything else that we say is founded on this. That’s what makes us Christian ministries and organizations, and just plain Christians, period.
This is as it should be. But I want to take us a step further and argue that the gospel should not only shape our web content, but should also shape our web strategy—that is, it should shape how we go about our websites altogether.
In other words, the gospel has implications not only for what we say on our sites, but also for the strategy behind how we architect our sites and design our sites and build our sites and utilize our sites. It should be behind everything about our sites, not just the content.
In particular, I want to look at two primary ways the gospel should shape our web strategy. First, the gospel implies that we should make our sites maximally usable. In fact, we should take pains to do this. Second, the gospel implies that we should make our sites free—even at sacrifice to ourselves.
And these two factors—a site that is maximally usable and free, combined with excellent content—are the pillars of an effective web strategy. That is, they not only are fitting ways to reflect the gospel, they are also what work best. There is no ultimate conflict behind a web strategy that seeks to embody the gospel and a web strategy that works.
We should take pains to make our sites usable. But what is usability? What do I mean when I talk about usability?
What is Usability?
Here’s one definition of usability, from Web Design: The Complete Reference: “Usability is the extent to which a site can be used by a specified group of users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in a specified context of use” (Powell, Web Design: The Complete Reference, 50).
But as Steve Krug has so simply shown in his book Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, one simple sentence sums up the definition of usability: A usable website is one that doesn’t make people think about how to use it.
In other words, it doesn’t raise question marks in people’s minds about how to do this or that, how to get here are there, or how to respond to the information on the page. They see the page, and know what they need to do, and how to do it.
[Here’s an example of a hard to use page]
[Here’s an example of an easy to use page]
This principle is “the ultimate tie-breaker in deciding whether something works or doesn’t in a Web design” (Krug, Don’t Make Me Think, 11). It is the very definition of what a usable site is.
Krug fills out the meaning of this principle more fully:
It means that as far as is humanly possible, when I look at a Web page it should be self-evident. Obvious. Self-explanatory.
I should be able to ‘get it’—what it is and how to use it—without expending any effort thinking about it.
Just how self-evident are we talking about?
Well, self-evident enough, for instance, that your next door neighbor, who has no interest in the subject of your site and who barely knows how to use the Back button, could like at your site’s Home page and say, ‘Oh, it’s a _____.” (With any luck, she’ll say, ‘Oh, it’s a _____. Neat.” But that’s another subject.)
Everything boils down to this: Don’t make people think. A usable site minimizes the amount of thinking people have to do to use the site.
But why should we make our sites usable? One reason is that making your site usable is simply good strategy in general.
Why This is Good Strategy in General
1. If your site is not usable, it distracts from the content.
Hard to use sites add to people’s cognitive workload. This causes frustration and is distracting. Here’s how Steve Krug puts it: “When we’re using the Web every question mark adds to our cognitive workload, distracting our attention from the task at hand. The distractions may be slight but they add up, and sometimes it doesn’t take much to throw us” (Krug, 15).
People are doing important things. When our sites are hard to use, it makes it harder for them to do what they are doing—such as doing research for a sermon, or preparing a Bible study, or trying to find answers to questions their friends have asked them about the Bible or apologetics or such. We don’t want to make these important tasks even harder for people. We want to enable them to focus on their task rather than adding to their already significant cognitive workload.
2. In fact, if your site is not usable, people might not even invest the time to find and benefit from the content.
Not only are you making things harder for your user if your site is hard to use, you are also shooting yourself in the foot. When the user has a hard time with your site, he or she might just give up altogether and go somewhere else.
A hard to use website can cost you site visitors.
And even if it doesn’t cost you site visitors, it will cost you user satisfaction. People won’t like coming to your site as much, and they will be less likely to tell others because they won’t be having a good experience.
Conversely:
3. When your site is usable, everything just seems better.
Usability creates a better impression all around for the user. The user might not even be able to point to why they like the site, but they will walk away with a better experience and more enthusiasm for the site because it met their needs.
Here’s how Krug puts it: “Making pages self-evident is like having good lighting in a store: It just makes everything seem better. Using a site that doesn’t make us think about unimportant things feels effortless, whereas puzzling over things that don’t matter to us tends to sap our energy and enthusiasm—and time” (Krug, 19).
4. When your site is usable, it increases site usage and user satisfaction
This is not just theory. We have seen results of this in the real world. For example, in 2006 we redesigned our entire site on the basis of sound principles of usability. Within four months of releasing the new site, visits increased 99%, audio listens increased 356%, and page views increased 359%.
To this day, we receive a continual stream of comments from people on how easy to use the site is. In other words, usability not only increased site usage, but also increased user satisfaction. People go away from the site with a more satisfying experience that makes them more inclined to tell others and come back to the site.
So there is a strong strategic case for focusing on usability. But there are also biblical reasons for making your site usable. And this is what is most important.
Why This is Biblical
So usability is good strategy. But that’s not the main point I want to make. The main point I want to make is that usability is biblical. In other words, there is a biblical case for usable websites.
1. Good usability is a matter of loving your neighbor as yourself
Jesus said the Great Commandment is to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and “your neighbor as yourself” (Mt 22:37-39). The Golden Rule is another way to put that: “do unto others as you would have them do unto you. This is the law and the prophets.”
How do we want people to do unto us? Do we want them taking shortcuts on their web design so that we have to muddle through their hard to use sites? Do we want people making things easier for us or harder for us?
Is there anyone here who likes hard to use websites?
Making our sites easy to use is simply a way of doing unto others as we would have them do unto us. It is a way of loving our neighbor.
Here’s the thing: we often think we have to go to Africa to obey the command to love your neighbor; that’s a rare and special thing you have to pick up and leave town to do. You don’t, you don’t, you don’t. It’s great to go to Africa. But don’t limit your notion of service to large and complex and uncommon acts of mercy, like missions trips. We are to spend ourselves for the good of others right where we’re at: that is, in our vocations. And if you are in charge of your organizations website, that means making it usable.
Wilberforce said “Where is it that in such a world as this, health, and leisure, and affluence may not find some ignorance to instruct, some wrong to redress, some want to supply, some misery to alleviate?” Do this with your websites. You don’t have to Africa to do this. Start in your vocations. Make a difference where you are.
Now, it is interesting that this also syncs with good web strategy. Most people point out that the key to an effective blog or website is to serve the reader. You need to be about your users and creating value for them, not first for yourself. Sites that are about themselves don’t work. Sites that put the reader first are the sites that succeed.
Well, that’s not just good strategy. That’s biblical. That’s a matter of loving your neighbor—of loving your users.
And this extends not just to content, but to site architecture, site design, site construction. Everything.
We should be always seeking to make things better for people. Life is hard enough. Seek to make things better, not harder for people.
GPS: time crunch, tired. I don’t need the added difficulty of the buttons being hard to push.
Hotel room lights: Always hard to find. Last night I walked in, it was totally dark, no light switches turned a light on, and I had to feel around for the lamps.
My house: The hose box. The sump pump. (My whole neighborhood with sump pumps.)
In everything, we should seek to be making things work well for people.
2. Good usability is a matter of serving your user
This is simply another angle on what I have already said. Making your site usable is a matter of serving your user.
This angle also adds another dimension: it shows that we should make our site usable even at cost to ourselves. This comes out when we look at some of the texts on serving.
For example, Matthew 20:28 says:
“For the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”
We see this teaching continued throughout the NT:
“Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, ‘the reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me’” (Romans 15:2-3).
“Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor” (1 Cor 10:24).
“So then, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Give no offense to Jews or Greeks or to the church of God, just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved. Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Corinthians 10:31-11:1).
“Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who … made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant” (Phil 2:4-7).
Spend yourself for the good of others.
And where are we to have this mindset? Only when we do large and complex things, like going into missions or going on a short term trip? Certainly not. This is a mindset we are to have every day, in everything that is before us. And so one of the primary avenues in which we exhibit this mindset is in our vocations—our day-to-day responsibilities of life. The very fabric of our lives and work, and therefore of our strategies and approaches to our websites—is the arena for manifesting this mindset.
Be looking out for the interests of your users. Be genuinely concerned about their welfare, as Timothy was for the Philippians (Phil 2:20), and as Epaphroditus was, even to the point of risking his life (Eph 2:30). This is not about you. It is about them. Many web strategists rightly point out that the key to an effective site is to serve your users. Focus on them. Do what will benefit them and add value for them, not first yourself. That’s good strategy. And now we see that this is also biblical. What secular web strategists have recognized is simply an echo of the greater realities that the Bible teaches. So how much more, as Christians, ought we to be devoted to our users?
And we should take pains to serve them, because this is the biblical ethic of putting others before ourselves. We make our own lives harder in order to make other’s lives easier. We are to take the burdens of the user on ourselves.
Which means: instead of creating a site that the user has to spend time figuring out, spend that time yourself on the front end to iron out the problems. This may take you a lot of time, but it will save thousands and perhaps even hundreds of thousands of people lots of time and trouble. And that’s a pretty good investment: a few people taking time to iron out the difficulties saves time for thousands of people. That’s a pretty good investment.
That’s why at DG we took an inside-out approach to technology rather than an outside-in approach. Explain.
3. Good usability adorns the gospel
Mt 5:16: the meaning of good works again, and their role in relation to the gospel.
Dan Cathy example.
4. Good usability is simply good workmanship
“He who is slack in his work is a cousin to him who destroys” (Proverbs 18:9). Hard to use websites are slack work. If your website is hard to use, you are a cousin to him who destroys because slack work makes life harder for people. Life is hard enough. Don’t make it harder.
5. Good usability enables maximum spreading of the gospel
Because it reduces friction.
This is all about reducing friction so the content can be primary. Eliminate anything that gets in the way of accessing and spreading the content.
Making your site maximally effective for spreading the gospel.
6. Good usability echoes the gospel
1. Don’t Make People Think. This is the guiding principle, and we have already discussed this above. Seek to eliminate question marks. Etc.
2. Provide good orientation. Global navigation and local navigation.
3. Use good principles of classification.
4. Make obvious what is clickable.
5. Use the smallest effective difference.
The first principle for an effective web strategy is: create excellent content and make your site usable. You want users to think hard about your content—not about how to use your site. But usability doesn’t only make your site better and more effective. It is also important for biblical reasons because it is a way of serving your users and demonstrating the gospel that we exist to proclaim.
In other words, the gospel has something to say about how you do your website. Not just what content you put on your site, but what your overall web strategy is.
That’s what we’re going to talk about in this session. We will look at how the gospel should shape our web strategies and how we have sought to do this so far at Desiring God. This will take us on a tour of the biblical and strategic reasons for making your website usable, five simple usability principles that are at the center of every easy-to-use website, the four principles that matter almost as much as usability, and more.
As a bonus, bring your most difficult and challenging questions on web strategy. We’ll spend the last part of the session talking about them.
We Should Make Our Sites Free—Even at Sacrifice to Ourselves
Reasons
Making your site maximally reflect the gospel
Free is a form of usability
Reduces friction and increases spreading
Funding: A Biblical Case and a Business Case for Why This Won’t Bankrupt You
One of the big questions people raise about free is: How do you fund this? What is the funding model to support making everything free? I wish I had time to talk about this, because there are two very cool things here. There is first of all a biblical case to be made for how making everything free can actually create a self-sustaining source of funding, and there is also a business case to be made that shows exactly how making everything free translates into revenue—often more revenue than you would have had if you sold sermons. So there is a biblical case and a business case for free, and if I am able I’ll make those another time.
Our Vision at Desiring God
Our web vision at Desiring God, stemming from these things: Post everything online, for free, without requiring registration, in a maximally usable interface.
This is actually very efficient. I spent 2 weeks I think it was pouring over how to do the architecture for the Desiring God site. During those two weeks, my visible productivity was very low. But the time I invested has saved millions of others substantial time. That is a high leverage activity.
Other Notes
It follows from the Christian principle of service, which is rooted in the gospel.
– First, this is actually rooted in the law. “Love your neighbor.”
– But it is even more rooted in the gospel, because of Christ’s example. And so we have a new commandment, “love one another as I have loved you.”
– So we are here to serve, and our love for ourselves and Christ’s love for us are the two principles that guide us here.
– How do we love ourselves? We don’t make things harder for ourselves, but easier. Now, the Christian ethic doesn’t say: “focus your life now on making things easy for yourself.” Rather, it says, “OK, you love yourself by making things easier for yourself. So now sacrifice that to some degree by spending yourself to make things easier for others.”
Related: See my message from the following year for additional discussion on the nuts and bolts of how to make your site usable.
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