We have trust issues as a society.

Trust in organisations and their leaders is at an all-time low, “on the verge of an existential crisis” according to the Edelman Global Trust Barometer.

In 2017 over two-thirds of the general population did not have confidence in leaders. One in three employees does not trust their employer.  Even though the leadership development industry is bigger than ever, all this development does not seem to be reversing the trend.

This isn’t great news for the Church.  In an increasingly secular environment, the Church already seems to be fighting a losing battle when it comes to perception and trust.  Affected by the general decline across all sectors, the issue of how to rebuild trust in the Church needs to be taken seriously.

 

3 Ways Entrepreneurs Build Trust

Is trust really disappearing or is it simply changing?  Author and researcher, Rachel Botsman, has found that while we may be losing faith in brands, leaders, and systems, we’ll still rent the home of a complete stranger through AirBnB, hop into a random car with an Uber driver, and trust the review of somebody we’ve never met when choosing a restaurant.

No, we haven’t lost our ability to trust; we’ve just redefined the rules around how it’s earned and how it’s kept.

Entrepreneurs are scrambling to understand and adapt to these changes, but how about the Church?  In a time when our leaders are caught in scandals, and our historical “brand” seems to be doing more harm than good, how do we help people re-envision the Church as the good and beautiful community that it was intended to be?

In her recent book, Who Can You Trust?, Rachel Botsman lays out three conditions that enable trust in new and different ideas: the California Roll principle, the WIIFM factor (“what’s in it for me”), and trust influencers.

What are these three and how can the Church learn from them?

 

The California Roll principle

When sushi was introduced to Americans in the 1960s, the reception wasn’t exactly warm.  Turns out the idea of raw fish wrapped in seaweed just wasn’t that appealing.  It was too strange, too different, too “un-American.”  What turned it around?  Enter the California Roll.  Suddenly, sushi made with familiar ingredients – avocado, cucumber, crab – changed the story and the industry exploded.  Americans today eat over $2 billion worth of sushi annually.

The principle here is simple: we trust things that seem familiar.

Others have called this the mere exposure effect, and it explains why we think more positively about things – ideas, names, faces – when we can link them back in our minds to something we have seen or heard before.  This is why:

• There is a difference between how we interact with a stranger that is entirely new to us vs. one with a recognizable face (“Have we met before?”).
• We like new songs more after we’ve heard them a few times.
• We like buying products from brands we’ve heard of.
• Kids will say they don’t like a new food before they’ve ever tried it.
• You’re more likely to trust the wild story your buddy is telling you if it’s not the first time you’ve heard it.

Studies have shown this effect to hold true even if the first “exposure” to something or someone was subliminal or unconscious.  In other words, you don’t even need to know or remember that you’ve seen somebody before and you’ll still be more likely to view them positively the next time you meet them.

Science is creepy like that.

So, what can the Church learn from sushi?

 

A California Roll Church

First, we need to recognize the fact that the concepts of Church and Jesus feel very foreign to many who have not grown up with it. In a post-Christian culture, particularly up here in Canada, this is a larger number of people every year.  We can no longer bank on the fact that the church and Christianity will naturally show up somewhere in a kid’s life.  The number of teens that associated themselves with Christianity was cut in half in Canada from 1984 to 2008.

The Church has relied on history and tradition to give itself the benefit of familiarity for a long time, but those days are disappearing quickly. 

Where we were once a “comfort food” for many, we have now become raw fish, and people aren’t quite sure that they want any of it.

The same reason Americans didn’t trust sushi in the 60s might be why people don’t trust your church today. Share on X

Missionaries throughout history have wrestled with this regularly, even going back to Paul in Athens, and have sought to utilize familiar aspects of culture to make the message of Jesus more approachable for people.  One scholar even claims that the reason our current symbol of the cross has an elongated lower portion, rather than the previous version with four equidistant sections, is to make it look more like a tree so that it would resonate with people in ancient tree-worshipping cultures.  Can you imagine this?  Being willing to change the most central symbol of your faith in order to make it easier for people to trust you, and perhaps even to trust Jesus?

There are many examples in history of the Church making the foreign seem familiar, but have we lost that missional perspective today?  Are we more concerned with telling people how we’re different and where we disagree on political issues than we are with building bridges and highlighting the many areas of agreement that exist between the Church and culture?

For some, the fear is that making the foreign seem familiar causes us to lose our distinctiveness or “waters down” the gospel.  Can we make the good news of Jesus more accessible without “selling out”?

I believe we can.  After all, sushi didn’t need to become a hot dog to be trusted.  It just needed to be a little less weird.

 

WIIFM

“What’s in it for me?”

This second principle is easy – people are more likely to trust when they recognize that they have something to gain.

In other words, they have to trust the organization or idea will benefit them rather than harm them.

If there is enough benefit to us, we will trust almost anything.

• In Libby, Montana, residents trusted the vermiculite mining industry because it provided an immense economic benefit for their town and didn’t want to believe that the asbestos involved was slowly poisoning everyone.
• Autonomous, self-driving, vehicles seem scary at first, but the concern is not that people won’t trust them, but that they will trust them too much.  We’re so eager to recapture our lost time spent in commuting, we might just check-out entirely and end up taking a nap.
• Telephone marketing scams only work because of this principle – we’re so enticed by the potential benefit that we temporarily suspend our disbelief (“all you need is my credit card and social insurance number and you’ll transfer me $100,000? Deal!”).

Entrepreneurs and start-ups that are making it today begin with identifying a problem that exists for people and then offering a solution.  In other words, they align their product with a strong felt need and help people see why their lives will be better as a result of buying what they offer.

If an organization or business is offering something you don’t think you need, rather than trust them; you’ll simply ignore them.

If your church isn’t seen as solving a problem or meeting a need, instead of trusting you, people will simply ignore you. Share on X

 

A WIIFM Church

Can the “What’s in it for me” factor really be helpful to an organization like the Church that has promoted selflessness for its entire history? I mean, how do we apply WIIFM to our churches when we follow a God who tells us to deny ourselves and consider others’ interests ahead of our own?

And yet, Jesus came to serve us and to save us, didn’t he?

There is a great deal of personal gain wrapped up in the message of the Gospel:

• We are promised a fresh start and a new life.
• We are welcomed into a true community of belonging – a family.
• We are told of our infinite value and personal worth.
• We are told that growth and change are possible and that we can discover our true identities.
• We can find freedom from fear and shame.
• We can be part of something bigger than ourselves and do something meaningful with our lives.
• In short, the message of Jesus offers us a better life, not just after we die, but right here and now.

We can shy away from emphasizing these things out of fear that people may choose the church or Jesus out of wrong motives, but what if we’re missing a key element of building trust with people? What if the initial motivation isn’t that important?  We have highlighted the cost and sacrifice of following Jesus for so long, we have forgotten to tell people that it’s also a fantastic way of life.

Maybe the Church is losing trust today because we haven’t portrayed the good news of Jesus in a way that feels like good news. Share on X

In other words, maybe we may have a marketing problem; both at the individual person-to-person level and at the corporate level.

Imagine if a new business had something that people wanted but they never actually marketed that aspect of their product.  That would be foolish, right?  If a company went to great lengths to ensure that their products were locally-made, with ethically-sourced materials, and produced in an environmentally-friendly fashion, they shouldn’t keep that a secret – people want to know that.  Buying their products will make them feel better about themselves because they’re participating in something that matters.

Entrepreneurs would never shy away from telling people about how their product or service could benefit them.  Neither should the Church.

 

Trust Influencers

The third element is what Botsman calls “trust influencers.”

What convinces people to get on board with something that seems different or unusual quicker than just about anything else?  Seeing someone else do it first.

If a product or idea is trusted by someone you trust, you’re more likely to also trust it.

This is why that door-to-door salesman wants to tell you that your neighbour just bought the vacuum that he’s trying to sell you.

This is why the first location that people search for on AirBnB is their own neighborhood; because they want to know that people like them are also utilizing this new service.

This is why a restaurant claiming to have “the best pizza in the city” doesn’t hold the same weight as a friend telling you where to get the “best pizza in the city.”

This is why we now have an Instant Pot in our house; because people we trusted wouldn’t stop talking about how great they are.

Trust influencers are “groups of people who can disproportionately influence a significant change in the way we do something; they set new social norms.” – Rachel Botsman

 

Trust Influencers and the Church

There is an important concept to pick up on here: people today trust individuals more than they trust organizations.

People aren’t going to trust the church again because we launched a city-wide marketing campaign saying how great we are, but they might take a step towards trust if they see someone they respect doing it first.

This means that the most powerful tool that the Church has in rebuilding trust is relationship.

This means we have to get out of our Christian sub-culture and start hanging out with people that are different than us.  We have to really know people.  We have to really love people (funny, I think Jesus said something about that, didn’t he?).

As church leaders, this could mean a few things:

• Getting people to attend a church event might not be the most important “win”. Getting people to build a relationship with someone from your church around a BBQ in their backyard might be far more important.
• Telling stories might be more effective than telling truths. Sharing stories of how Jesus is changing lives in your city will be more important than telling them about what you think is right and wrong.
• When you do have an event or program worth attending, a personal invite trumps all other promotions. One study showed that 67% of people would come to church if someone they trusted invited them.  Do you know how many people will come if you put up a big billboard in your city?  Neither do I, but I guarantee you it’s a lot less than 67%.

 

Conclusion

“These three ideas — the California Roll principle, the WIIFM factor and Trust Influencers — can also be seen as “What is it?”, “What do I gain?”, “Who else is doing it?”. They offer a way to see how an idea once dismissed as preposterous can turn into something strangely familiar.” – Rachel Botsman.

I have long been inspired by the ingenuity and tenacity of entrepreneurs in our culture.  Willing to take risks and to fail more often than they succeed, they continue to push the envelope, help us to move forward and find ways to help us trust the new and the unknown.

It’s time for the Church to rediscover its entrepreneurial spirit.

 

What’s Your Take?

Now, this is just one perspective.  The conversation around how to rebuild trust in the church is so much bigger than I’ve covered here and so much more complex.  But it is a conversation we need to have.

What would you add?  What has caused you to either gain trust or lose trust in the Church (or any organization, for that matter)?  Leave a comment or share this post on social media.  Let’s learn together!

PS – if you want to keep learning with me, sign up here and I’ll make sure to send future posts straight to your email.

 

Thanks for being here,

-Dan