Thursday, March 14, 2013

Where Does Your Church Need To "Pull a Google"

Todd Rhodes:
Google instantly confused and irritated (and profusely angered) millions of people yesterday.

It announced that it is shutting down Google Reader.

I did not see this coming.

I love Google Reader. I use it to aggregate all the feeds that I use to find great stuff for this blog, and for Ministry Briefing.

How could they do this?

Why could they do this?

And I was not alone. Do a search on Twitter, and you’ll see the rampage that people went on.

It was not pretty.

People are PLEADING with Google not to do this.

Please don’t take away something we use and love.

Why did Google do it?

“While the product has a loyal following, over the years usage has declined.”

Google evidently saw something that I (or a few million others didn’t). Most people were NOT using Google Reader… in fact, less and less. And to continue putting leadership and resources into this program did not make sense.

Huh.

Sometimes as church leaders we have to make the same determination.

Canning a program that some people absolutely LOVE… yet it’s taking up too many resources, or has dwindled over the years.

People will be upset. They will plead. They will cry.

But you still know it’s the right thing to do.

Maybe you need to pull a Google in your church.

You’ll make some people upset… but you know it’s the only way that you can do what you really think you need to do.

QUESTION: Where could your church free up some resources by stopping something that some people think is working?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

When I was with my last church the youth would put on a Valentine’s day banquet to raise money for IJM. We had done it for about four years. I noticed that we were only raising, on average, about $100 dollars but putting in weeks of effort. It seemed like a good thing, but we could do better. My recommendation to stop that event and think of new ways to invest our time and energy was given to me as a reason for why I was being let go of. Pulling a Google is dangerous in a system that thrives on what has always worked.