Reflections on the Blue Ocean Midwest Conference (the first)

“My faith has carried me a long way. It's Sheilaism. Just my own little voice." Sheila's faith has some tenets beyond belief in God, though not many. In defining what she calls "my own Sheilaism," she said: "It's just try to love yourself and be gentle with yourself. You know, I guess, take care of each other. I think God would want us to take care of each other."
-habits of the heart

“I just thought it was funny to write a song that said today is the greatest day of your life because it can't get any worse…” Billy Corgan, smashing pumpkins, about ‘today’

A few days ago, I had the pleasure of attending the Midwest blue Ocean conference at Mercy Vineyard in Minneapolis, MN. If you unfamiliar with the “Blue Ocean Churches” folks you can find out more about them on their blog and website here. Essentially, the idea of blue ocean churches is borrowed from business and marketing concepts. In business, the ‘Red’ ocean is where all the people are fishing- it’s the traditional tried and true markets and products. In contrast, ‘blue ocean’ companies “fish” where no one else is fishing- that is to say, Blue ocean companies create new products, markets, and demand. The classic example of a “blue ocean” company, is, as you can probably guess Apple Computer. Steve J. & co took some pre-existing materials- (the Mp3 file format, and the internet) and created a whole new market. First, they created ITunes which allowed consumers to legally purchase and use copywrited music- unlike Napster. Then, they provided consumers a means, other than the PC or laptop, to take these downloaded music files with them- the IPod. Later came video, the IPhone, the IPad, and so on. Many other retailers and manufacturers have since entered this market in many sectors, (hence created more blood, more red if you will) however, Apple essentially created and exploited this market, and that gave them a huge competitive advantage- it forced Apple’s competitors to compete on Apple’s terms, at least for a while. Classic Blue Ocean Strategy.

In church talk then, “Blue ocean churches” attempt to fish where there’s fish…but few other fisher-people. Think of “traditionally underrepresented” groups that often seem to be outside the normal reach of your typical American evangelical protestant church. In other words, think of peoples and groups that are routinely identified as the enemies Of All That is True and Good and purveyors of filth and debauchery by self-proclaimed representatives of the American Protestant Taliban.

Blue Ocean churches are seeking to bring the kingdom of God to previously un-fished territories, and they are getting pretty good at it. This is at a time when according to researchers such as the Gallop poll and Barna research group, the fastest growing segment in American religious affiliation is “None” – no religious affiliation. In broad terms, BOC refer to this growing category as “the secular” as in “secular culture”, “secular society” etc. It’s important to note that in no way do BOC’s think of these titles “the secular” as being pejorative in any way- it’s a way to helpfully contrast secular culture with say, Southern “Bible belt” culture. It’s a term for classification that seems to be helpful, nothing more, nothing less.

SO in true BO strategy, BO Churches ask questions like: “Who are the un-fished, who are these none’s anyway?” What makes the “none’s” tick? Where do they live? What are they like? What do they see as the summum bonum of life? What do these “none’s” think about religion, faith, God, church, Christianity? What can we, as followers of Jesus, learn from the “none’s”?

As I understand it, Gallop, Barna, sociologists of religion, and others know a fair amount about the none’s. Quite often, none’s are highly edjumacated. (uh-oh..). They tend to be in highly populated urban areas that are culturally diverse. They often are employed in the fields of science, medicine, technology, or higher education. They have traveled a great deal outside of the U.S., and enjoy other cultures, countries, and ethnic expressions. Politically, they tend to vote liberal. “hot button” issues for secular none’s are things like global warming, global poverty, universal human rights, and freedom of expression. In the U.S. culture particularly, these concerns are often played out by an affirmation of things like Gay marriage, and broad rights for GLBT peoples, as an logical extension of the rights movements of the 60’s. A secularist none may be encouraged by the uncoupling of religion from American politics, and she may be somewhat mystified by attempts to inject religion into the scientific or medical fields. In many ways, none’s are a logical progression from the “Sheilaism” that Bellah discovered back in the 80’s. Only for a growing number of Sheila’s it’s become more authentic, more viable, to ditch the god talk altogether- they have discovered that god didn’t play all that big of a role in sheilaism anyway, so why bother with god talk at all? After all, it seems, if god isn’t necessary to build a fulfilled, meaningful life, why bother with a charade? We can do all that “loving yourself” and being excellent to each other without having to lean on a god fabrication to do so. If the cynics are correct, and god is just a projection of ourselves, or a psychological construction to help us deal with the crushing realities of existence, shouldn’t we look to other, less divisive, less “controversial” and more logical alternatives?

Because this group of folks that identify themselves as “none’s” and make up secular culture is growing, they represent a “blue ocean” of sorts. Very few churches or religious groups are having much success making the life and teachings of jesus compelling to this group. IF, that is, faith groups are even trying. Tragically, in many faith groups in America, secular culture is largely seen as the ENEMY of faith and All That is True and Noble, so little attempt has been made to enter into the world of the none’s, to understand secularity, and to find common ground and encourage dialogue.

This is exactly what Blue Ocean Churches are attempting to do.

I will post some more reflections on this in another post. For now, I’ll finish by asking a few questions. What do you think of this “Blue Ocean Faith” deal? Do you have friends, family members, co-workers etc. that identify themselves as “none”? If so, what type of conversations have you had with these folks regarding questions of meaning, hope, faith, significance, etc.?
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