Case study: BlackBerry demonstrates the importance of regular church revitalization

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Research In Motion (RIM) was at the top of its game. After introducing the first two-way pager in 1996, the company launched the BlackBerry 850. Between its universally applauded keyboard and its ability to receive emails on the go, the BlackBerry quickly became a darling of corporate executives by introducing the world to the mobile internet. As a result, RIM not only dominated the smartphone market. It was the smartphone market.

In the mid-2000s, as mobile phones began to saturate the culture, RIM remained in a class by itself. While other manufacturers introduced the ability to text, receive email, and even surf the web, their solutions were clumsy, to say the least. (Some of us still shudder at the notion of using the numeric keypad to send a text message.) Between RIMs patented keyboard and much more robust software, the competition was utterly incapable of competing.

That all changed, however, in 2007 when Apple introduced the first iPhone. Between its svelte appearance and endlessly flexible apps, the iPhone represented a seismic shift in the smartphone market, and when Google in 2008 released Android and empowered other phone manufacturers to leverage these same advances, RIM had some real competition.

Even as the smartphone market exploded, though, it still seemed that RIM was positioned to be the dominant powers in smartphones. In 2008, unit sales were more than double those posted in 2007. In 2009, they jumped another 30%. Another 40% increase was seen in 2010.

There were, however, signs of trouble. RIM marketed its devices as the only smartphones that could interface with the Exchange servers that dominated the corporate world. By 2008, however, that advantage was neutralized, and the rise of cloud email providers (e.g., GMail) negated it altogether. RIM touted its class-leading security, but both iPhones and Android devices soon matched and even exceeded RIM’s offerings in security. Indeed, while RIM tried to tout it as a feature, the competition’s perennial updates introducing new features and functions quickly made stability seem like stagnation.

The results of this stagnation were catastrophic. By 2010, just three years after its release, iPhone sales virtually matched RIM’s. Then in 2011, iPhone sales nearly doubled, jumping from 47 million units sold to 93 million, but RIM’s sales grew less than 10%. Worse, 2012 was the high-water mark for RIM. The following year, sales actually dropped, plummeting an astonishing 36%, and in 2013, RIM fell out of the rankings altogether, relegated in just two years to the list of “Others” in the smartphone market.

Today, RIM – now renamed BlackBerry – stopped supporting its devices altogether (source: https://seekingalpha.com/news/3785256-blackberry-turns-out-the-lights-on-its-iconic-phones). Despite modest attempts to revive its smartphone business, the company has given up, focusing its attention instead security software. The problem, however, is that there are myriad other security software companies, and Blackberry is once again just another “also ran.” Indeed, the company’s latest earnings reports have been nothing short of grim, and its outlook grave.

The truth is that RIM became stagnant. It was so confident in its own offerings that it saw no need to continue improving or innovating. For example, even as consumers flocked to the glass-faced slabs of iPhones and Android devices, RIM refused to introduce a virtual keyboard for fear of angering fans of its physical keyboards, and the result of this stagnancy has been profound decline and eventually, if nothing changes, death.

Churches that become stagnant will follow the same pattern. If they fail to continue improving the ways that they are making more and better disciples, or if they fail to pursue new and innovative ways of making more and better disciples if their old ways are no longer effective, they will find themselves plateauing, declining, and eventually dying.

Fortunately, it does not have to be that way. The church that is already in decline – knocking on death’s door, even – can still revisit its biblical purpose of making more and better disciples and devise new strategies to accomplish that objective. It is, however, radically easier for everyone if the church never reaches that stage of decline. In order to prevent this, congregations must plan to regularly revisit their biblical purpose, improve their current strategies that are working, and innovate new ones. How regularly?

Every year, a church should spend at least a day assessing the congregation’s major ministries to determine if they are still accomplishing the biblical purpose of making more and better disciples. In most cases, the leaders will need only to answer, “Who are the new and better disciples produced by this ministry in the last year?” If they can provide a list of names, then the ministry is considered effective. If they cannot, then the ministry is added to a watchlist for a little more scrutiny next year.

Every 2-3 years, churches must also plan to complete incremental evaluations. The leaders of the congregation should take a few weeks or a couple of months to evaluate how effective the church is at accomplishing its mandate to make more and better disciples. Is the church doing as well as expected? If it is, is there any way things can be improved? If it is not, can ministries be tweaked tweaked to make them effective, or should they be scrapped altogether? Special focus should be given to those ministries that were placed on the watchlist the previous year. The idea here is that improvements and innovations made 2-3 years ago have by this time had opportunity to begin to gain traction, and if they have not done so, midcourse corrections will be made.

Finally, churches must conduct a major review at least every 5 years. The exact interval may vary, but should not exceed 5 years. Further, a major review should be conducted every time the pastor resigns and prior to the hiring or a new pastor so that the church can leverage its findings to search for a pastor suitable for leading the congregation into the future. During this review, the leadership will be reminded of the biblical purpose of making more and better disciples. They will then evaluate every ministry and budget line to determine if and how it accomplishes that purpose. Further, every ministry and budget line will be assessed to determine how it may be improved or if there is some new ministry or expenditure that should take its place. In some cases, this may be done in as little as two months. In other cases, it may take as long as six months. The point is that it should be absolutely comprehensive, and so it is imperative that it is neither rushed nor stalled.

Imagine how RIM’s trajectory would have changed if it had committed to such a regimen of assessments, evaluations, and reviews. Would it have devised an app store so that others could make its devices infinitely useful? Would they have developed the multi-touch screen and virtual keyboard that is the hallmark of the modern smartphone? Would they have introduced something even more revolutionary? Would they have responded to new competition? Would they still dominate the smartphone market today?

Now, imagine how your church’s trajectory will change over the next few years. Will your congregation choose stagnation and so fall into decline or even death? Or will you embrace regular assessments, evaluations, and reviews to ensure that you continue to make more and better disciples for years to come?