Platforms vs. Programs

My love/hate relationship with Apple is well-documented. I have a knack for buying lemons from Apple (on my ninth iPhone) and have even worse luck with their customer service trying to remedy my problems. And yet, I keep going back. I've tried to leave on multiple occasions, but keep going back for one primary reason.

Apple's philosophy is to create platforms that let the customer leverage the technology in a way that makes it useful to them.

Apple doesn't try to hang onto all the power. They don't try to corner every possible market. To do so would cause them to stretch far too thin and create a wide variety of mediocre, highly specialized products. They would be Microsoft.

Rather than trying to meet every imaginable need, Apple has created highly customizable tools that allow people who truly understand the specialized market to leverage Apple technology in a way that is useful to them. They empower the customer to maximize their platform.

I feel like a lot of our churches stretch themselves far too thin. Rather than thinking about platforms, we spend our time thinking about highly specialized programs that cause us to stretch too thin and create a bunch of mediocre stuff.

I wonder what it would look like if we focused more on creating platforms that allowed people the flexibility and adaptability to customize it to their specific needs as they seek to become Christ-centered people.

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