I know Seth Godin's Tribes was reviewed not too long ago here, but I just wrapped it up and thought it was phenomenal.
The premise to the book is simple enough, a Tribe is a group of people connected to each other, to a leader and to an idea.
It's odd that the church of Jesus Christ has the greatest leader, with the greatest ideas, with such a splintered and weak tribes people.
One 'innovation' from the book is the idea of tightening the tribe. I wonder if after centuries of focusing on mass evangelization and conversions we've ruined our own tribe.
"Ultimately, people are most easily led where they wanted to go all along."
So often it seems like the church at large tries to get people to go where they have no interest in going in the first place.
What would it look like if we were really trying to create and lead a distinct and peculiar tribe with our churches rather than maintain programs or grow numbers?
Godin created his own triiibes network (which I was a day late on getting in before the book came out). Even though he advertises for people to join in the book, you'll notice that it's closed for new comers, because his tribe voted to keep it 'tight'.
Now I want in even more. If only our churches were this appealing.
Lon Wong / http://solarcrash.com
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