what pastors can learn from steve jobs without becoming steve jobs. (part four.)
In late 1979, Steve Jobs walked into Xerox PARC in Palo Alto and basically had the corporate version of discovering fire.
Not a slightly better typewriter, or a more ergonomic calculator, but fire.
Most people would’ve walked out saying, “Wow, that was fascinating.” Steve Jobs walked out thinking, “This is going to change everything.” And to be fair, he was right.
But Xerox PARC was not some sketchy garage operation accidentally doodling the future on a napkin. PARC was packed with brilliant people. They were building truly groundbreaking technology. Graphical user interfaces, windows, icons, the mouse, Ethernet, laser printing, object-oriented programming, were all dreamed up and built here. They were living in 1995 while the rest of the world was still emotionally attached to blinking cursors and command lines.
The famous visit happened in December 1979. Apple was already growing fast off the success of the Apple II, (the first computer I used in the Nimitz Elementary School library to play The Oregon Trail.) Xerox had invested in Apple ahead of its IPO. As part of that arrangement, Jobs and some Apple engineers got access to PARC. There, they were shown technology that felt less like “the next step” and more like “the next planet.”
Jobs saw a computer screen with windows. He saw a mouse moving a cursor around. He saw a machine normal people might someday be able to use without needing a pocket protector and tape on the bridge of their glasses. And when he saw it, he didn’t just think, “That’s cool.” He thought, “This is it. This is how computers should work.”
That’s what made Jobs different.
He didn’t invent the GUI. He didn’t invent the mouse. Xerox PARC had already done the hard, nerdy, glorious work of creating the thing. Jobs’ genius was seeing what it meant. He could recognize the future when the future was still just potential.
And Xerox, bless them, could not.
That’s the tragedy of the whole story. Xerox had this astonishing treasure sitting in the building and couldn’t really capitalize on it. Why? Because inventing something and building a company around it are two very different disciplines. PARC was full of researchers. Xerox leadership was still thinking like a copier company. Those are not the same instinct. One group was inventing tomorrow. The other was wondering whether tomorrow fit into this quarter’s business model.
So Xerox made some attempts to bring these new ideas to market. The Xerox Star came out in 1981 and used a lot of these ideas. But it was expensive, complicated, and aimed at a business market that wasn’t ready to embrace it. Xerox had the ingredients, but they never really made the meal. Apple, on the other hand, took the vision and started pushing it toward products people could actually imagine using.
That eventually led to Lisa and then the Macintosh, and from there the whole industry began to change. The computer stopped being just a machine for specialists and became a tool for normal humans. Which is a pretty big pivot.
Now here’s where this gets uncomfortably relevant for church leaders.
A lot of churches are Xerox PARC. Not because they’re brilliant, although some are. Not because they’re innovative, although some try. But because they are often sitting on gifts, people, ideas, and opportunities we don’t fully recognize.
We have volunteers with ridiculous leadership potential, but we keep them stuck greeting at a door for six years because “they’re so faithful.” We have young creatives who understand branding, video, storytelling, and digital culture, but they get treated like the announcement slide intern. We have wise older church members with deep spiritual maturity, but instead of deploying them as mentors, we sideline them for the latest trend. The church has a whole toolbox and keeps using it like a paperweight.
And sometimes the issue is not a lack of resources. It’s a lack of vision. Sometimes a church doesn’t know what it has. Sometimes it knows what it has but can’t imagine what it could become. And sometimes, it can imagine it just fine but doesn’t want to spend the money, release the control, or endure the discomfort of change. That’s how opportunities die. Not always in crisis. Sometimes in committee.
A church might miss the chance to build a real pathway for new believers because it’s too busy protecting the old way of doing things. It might miss the next great ministry leader because no one can see past their age. It might miss a chance to reach young families, disciple men, strengthen marriages, or serve the community because the energy of the room is spent preserving the church calendar like it’s one of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
“Steve Jobs walked into Xerox PARC and saw more than cool technology. He saw what it could become in the hands of ordinary people.”
That’s the challenge for pastors and church leaders too.
Can you look at your church and see more than what it is right now? Can you spot the hidden gifts, the overlooked people, the awkward little prototypes that could become something powerful? Can you tell the difference between “that’s interesting” and “that could change everything”?
Because sometimes the breakthrough is already in the building. And everyone else is still arguing over the copier.
dc.
