2
Mar
2014
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BJ Fogg and evangelism

Screen Shot 2013-12-16 at 4.45.07 PMOne of the recent breakthrough ideas in human behavior comes out of Stanford University. In 2007 Professor B.J. Fogg began teaching what became known as “the Facebook Class.” Students in Fogg’s class developed apps for Facebook and Zinga resulting in products that made students wealthy overnight. These nouveau riche Stanford students could now live a lifestyle that only the wealthy afford—discarding muffin stems, hiring a team of porters to carry them to class, front row seats at the polo matches, etc. (In the name of full disclosure I’m a Cal grad.) To see Fogg in action to to www.bjfogg.com and watch the two imbedded videos on his front page. Fogg’s insight comes not from technology but from the behavioral sciences. His insights are so powerful that recently a friend and co-worker of mine in Boulder flew to California to spend the weekend with Fogg and a small group of other hungry learners at Fogg’s home in Northern California. She said the $3K tuition was more than worth it. Why?

Fogg posits that all behavior is a product of MOTIVATION plus ABILITY plus a TRIGGER—all at the same time. This simple formula is profound in its applications. Take a look at Fogg’s diagram. To study it is to understand it.

  • The two vectors are MOTIVATION and ABILITY
  • A trigger is an invitation to act (external or internal) to which I can say “yes” or “no”
  • It appears that I have to be highly motivated to do really hard things
  • It appears that although I need a minimum threshold of MOTIVATION, I don’t need to be that motivated to accomplish something that is easy to do
  • There is a threshold to MOTIVATION and ABILITY below which TRIGGERS are ineffective.

To illustrate Fogg uses the illustration of your cell phone ringing—a TRIGGER to respond. Sometimes the phone rings when we are in a meeting or in the shower so although we received a TRIGGER and have the MOTIVATION to answer the phone, we lack the ABILITY to answer the phone. At other times the phone rings and although we have the ABILITY to answer we just don’t have the MOTIVATION to slide that little bar to the right. For a behavior to happen, TRIGGER, MOTIVATION, and ABILITY must happen at the same time.

  • If you have the MOTIVATION and ABILITY but there is no TRIGGER (e.g. the phone does not ring) nothing happens
  • If you have a TRIGGER and MOTIVATION but no ABILITY nothing happens
  • If you have a TRIGGER and ABILITY but no MOTIVATION nothing happens

UlysseusFogg also notes that the key to breaking a bad behavior or habit is by getting rid of either the TRIGGER, ABILITY, or MOTIVATION since behavior needs this kairos triad to act. Think of your own temptations and seductions. Opportunity shakes hands with inclination. If we believe that human nature has not changed since God declared way back in Genesis 6:5 that “every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time” then we need to be diligent in removing the ABILITY and TRIGGERS to follow through. This morning I picked up an insight from Evan Selinger’s article published in The Atlantic titled, “Why it’s OK to let apps make you a better person.” Evan uses the illustration of Odysseus who commanded that his crew fill their ears with wax and tie him to the mast as they rowed past the island of Faiakes because Odysseus knew he lacked the ABILITY (willpower) to quench his MOTIVATION to avoid the siren’s seductive but deadly songs (the TRIGGER). To resist succumbing to temptation Odysseus simply removed his ABILITY to respond.

So what are some practical applications to kingdom ministry?

A few years ago, Pastor Lloyd Shadrach of Fellowship Bible Church in Nashville preached a sermon on shoes. He talked about how kids in the African community the church partnered with couldn’t go to school without shoes…so they wore their parents’ oversized shoes. He told a story of the youth pastor giving his work boots to a New Orleans’ man whose home the church was repairing after Katrina. He told a story of the greatest need at the homeless shelter in the wintertime was for shoes. He had gotten the attention of the 5,000 congregants that morning and God’s people were highly MOTIVATED to do something about shoelessness. So because they were highly MOTIVATED Pastor Shadrach invited them (a TRIGGER) to do something hard but all of them had the potential ABILITY to do what he asked. He invited them, at that moment, to take off their shoes and put them in a plastic bag and leave their shoes at the church. Some shoes would go to Africa, others to New Orleans…others to the shelter. This was a hard ask. Some people were going out to lunch after church…some were going to a ballgame…some asked if they could write a check instead but Pastor Shadrach stuck to his guns and that day 95% of the weekend attendees took off their shoes and left them at the church. MOTIVATION plus ABILITY plus TRIGGER…all at the same time.

Now let’s think about evangelism. If you don’t think “Hard to do” evangelism like door-to-door cold-calling, beach evangelism, initiating a gospel conversation about Christ isn’t difficult you’ve never done it. Most of God’s people will do hard evangelism, with somebody else, as part of their training (Evangelism Explosion, Billy Graham training, Cru’s 4 Spiritual Laws training, etc). They have just listened messages on the lostness of people and their faith is buoyed up by the others in the training class. They now have the ABILITY to share their faith along with the TRIGGER (“OK we are going to pair up and go to the mall with this spiritual interest survey. Let’s pray….”). And it’s a great day. God’s people have shared their faith and perhaps the church even saw some people trust Christ. The problem is that although these folks now have the ability, they may never again have the motivation to do something that uncomfortable and hard. The few may continue but the majority will not. So what do we do?

What if your church offered different evangelistic strategies all along the “Activation Line” so that everyone could do something at all times…in season and out of season? So even when a person’s motivation (or could we say “faith”) to talk about spiritual things was very low, he or she could still initiate a small act of kindness that might lead to future engagement at another time…or even with another Christ-follower. So what is something easy? Recently I saw a an mobile app that allowed people to record a concise video of their testimony or spiritual journey and tie their story to a readable QR code and attach it to one’s business card. So even the least MOTIVATED or least ABLE person could hand another their card and say, “Here’s my card and if you scan that QR code you’ll see the story of my spiritual journey…or what makes me tick,” etc. Moving away from technology into history, Plato said, “Be kind. Everyone you meet is fighting a battle.” Jesus said, “Whoever receives one of these little ones, receives me and whoever receives me, receives him who sent me.” Jesus took note of the widow’s mite, the boy’s lunch, the faith that was only the size of a mustard seed. Mother Teresa said, “Small deeds done with great love change the world.” The big idea here is that every Christ-follower could do something at some time to advance kingdom conversations. To do this we must have several different options along the activation line for people to engage in. Could your church design ways of engaging people in spiritual conversations all along the activation line?

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