Wow! Netflix reached more people last night than the Church has in 50 yrs.
Reaching others with story as people of creativity and faith while standing on the shoulders of giants.
Last night Netflix reached more people than the North American Church has in the last 50 years. The Big 5 streaming services have reached more people in a week than the global Church has in 100 years.1
Big Tech and Big Data platforms demonstrate an important lesson: new technology and distribution methods can reach people directly, without barriers, in powerful ways.
Of course this isn’t a stunning new revelation, but I do think about this a lot.
People have so much access to story, and these stories have incredible impact on audiences, shaping perceptions of the world and views about identity. The reach these platforms have is enormous and the culture-shaping power they wield is tremendous.
However, for the purposes of this article I’m not as interested in looking at what they are doing now to reach others through the technology they’re developing, or to set up a competition between the streamers and the Church.
I’m fascinated about how a group of people in the past leveraged emerging technology in order to change the world.
If you’re a communicator whose currency is creativity, faith or advocacy, then I think it’s important to look back right now and, more importantly, to look down. At your feet. To see the shoulders of the giants you’re standing on.
By looking back and understanding our inheritance and by looking down at who has handed treasured wisdom and experience to us, I think we can take hold of valuable lessons as communicators in these exciting times.
From there, we may start considering how to best leverage the technology and channels available to us.
The Clapham Group (a very quick overview)
In the 1700s, a group of misfits emerged that changed the course of history. They belonged to privileged groups of culture and power: political, religious, literary, academic and economic circles where they wielded real influence.
But despite their connections, their wealth, their privilege and their position in society, they still didn’t quite belong. And they couldn’t quite keep quiet.
They were horrified at the injustices of slavery. And they were critical of the institutions that perpetuated it: the Crown, the government, the Church, the academy, the whole economic infrastructure.
Adam Hochschild writes in Bury the Chains, that:
A latent feeling was in the air, but intellectuals disapproving of slavery was something very different from the belief that anything could ever be done about it. 2
This group, famously know as the Clapham Group did something about it. And we, today, have inherited so much from them.
Coordinated, purposeful, organized, the Clapham Group’s members included William Wilberforce, Hannah More, Thomas Clarkson, Josiah Wedgewood, to name but a few.
The eclectic group was willing to try new things. (See the footnote below for short introductions to who they were and what their individual impact was).3
They used technology, the messaging vehicles available (pamphlets, plays, poetry, letters, the bully pulpit), the distribution channels they could access, and then put them to use in innovative ways.
They also targeted the lower and middle classes, who, socially, were gaining more power (in the form of literacy and discretionary income) and who also had access to emerging technologies or distribution methods.
Clap at that impact
Here’s an incomplete list of things the Clapham Group innovated in the years 1787 to 1788, which was huge moment in time for the abolition movement:
Hannah More released “Slavery” a long poem that highlighted the humanity of slaves and the injustice to black bodies and the terror inflicted upon women and families through slavery.
Organized 103 petitions with close to 100K signatures.
Helped publish, distribute and tour Ottobah Cugoano’s book about his experiences as a slave, which went through 3 printings in 1787.
Clarkson finished his long trip to slave ports and reported back what he saw, which greatly shaped perceptions of just how evil slavery was.
Created thought leadership pieces and op-eds in newspapers.
Wrote the first mail-out newsletter.
Distributed history’s first direct-mail fundraising letter with an appeal to nearly 2000 people in 39 countries to request a contribution to the cause.
Released Wedgewood’s Am I Not a Man and Brother, which some consider the first political pin or logo used for a political cause.4
These weren’t out-of-the-world ideas. They were natural, sometimes obvious innovations that developed because of the needs the movement had, within community, to serve a specific purpose.
Passion, willingness to leverage the tools at hand and a just cause
This group of passionate, faith-filled advocates used the things in their culture and put them to use for their cause. The Clapham Group didn’t develop the printing press, poetry or even the pamphlet. But they used these things in ways that no one else did.
What they did have was passion and a clear vision to address injustice. They also were willing to leverage the tools at hand. They brought their message to people right where they were at.
Take the pamphlet, for instance. As the lower and middle classes started to have more expendable income and became more and more literate, publishers saw an opportunity to make money with the innovation of the tract. The penny dreadfuls were cheap and tended to be trashy. Hannah More and her friends wrote material that spoke to the soul, appealed to the humanity and hearts of this emerging market and influenced them for their causes. They didn’t just temporarily titillate for entertainment.
Their use of tracts, poems, guerrilla theatre, lapel pins, diagrams, petitions and newsletters, boycotts and book tours meant innovation and disruption. And it all added up.
They kept at it. And 40+ years of intense belief and energy saw one of the greatest giants of injustice fall to its knees. The transatlantic slave trade was abolished in 1807.
So what does it mean for us?
If you want to reach people with your message, if you have a just and noble cause:
Be willing to use the tools and technologies around you.
View the people on the end of those channels, whatever the channel may be, as people with hearts and souls that can and ought to be influenced for good.
Find community and like-minded people to create and ideate with.
Have a dream and a goal worth giving your life and time to, then give those things to it.
As creators, communicators and advocates for justice, we have an incredible inheritance. We stand on shoulders of so many giants, the Clapham group just a few of those inspiring figures who serve as models for us today.
The technology at hand and in our pockets gives us incredible reach.
May we use it in innovative and purposeful ways!
The global church has grown from 611 Million to 2.3 Billion people in the last 100 years according to Pew Research. As of April 2023, Statista estimates that the number of OTT video users worldwide stood at around 3.5 billion people. OTT video is “over-the-top” content that is streamed directly to users on platforms including subscription services like Netflix, Disney+, Prime, etc.
Bury the Chains by Adam Hochschild, p. 106.
Hannah More: A single woman who made a living off her writing (which didn’t happen back then) and influenced society through poems, plays and tracts.
Thomas Clarkson and award-winning essayist who documented the horrors of slavery on famous field trips and who captured the attention of famous thinkers like Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Jane Austen, Ralph Waldo Emerson – and who “brought the anti-slavery movement into being.”
Josiah Wedgewood – A visual artist, famous for pottery, who designed the “Am I Not a Man and a Brother” seal – which Benjamin Franklin described as “equal to that of the best written Pamphlet.”
William Wilberforce – the British MP and businessman who became the voice of the movement in England and whose speeches spoke directly to the conscience of the nation.
See Hochschild’s Bury the Chains