Collide Magazine

The Church In 2034 Predictions

Scott McClellan - Originally posted Monday, June 22, 2009 -

We asked four of our favorite blogging savants to give us their predictions of what the Church in 2034 might look like. Here's what they had to say.

John Saddington - www.human3rror.com & www.churchcrunch.com

In 25 years, the Church will look very similar to the Church today, and that's very much a good thing! We have about 2,000 years of proven historical precedent (methodology and theology) that has helped the Church grow and fulfill its purposes, one of which is to reconcile lost men and women to a merciful and loving God.

The way in which we actually do that has changed and will continue to change. Speaking from a pure web-technology perspective, we've already seen the pains of childbirth as digital entrepreneurs have pushed the boundaries of how we engage with both the lost and the current body of believers. We've seen the rise of digital-evangelism and the use of blogging as a creative and powerful platform to communicate encouraging words and attract thousands to the Scriptures, either directly or indirectly. We've seen the use of microblogging services rise (and perhaps fall by 2034) and other semantic web technologies adapted and used by the Church at large.

In 25 years, the practice and use of web technologies will be much more refined as innovators, thought-leaders, and ministries will have the ability to leverage a quarter-century's worth of best practices, lessons-learned, and examples of wise and poor technology usage

In addition, the Church will be much more ubiquitous in its technological presence in 2034 than it is today. As portable devices get faster, better, and smarter (and smaller), and as transferability of identity increases and usability becomes paramount in engineering, the result will be a phenomenal rise in the level of connection to the Internet. And the Church will be right there.

We'll be one click away from our local body, our congregation, our pastoral staff, and those we are ministering to wherever we go, and we’ll have the ability to easily perform tasks once thought improbable (and even without having to "touch" anything: Hyperspeech Transfer Protocol).

In 25 years, we'll begin to do things with web technology that we do not do today (think about the Kindle and reading books), and the Church, being forever refined by the Holy Spirit, will stand victorious over the technological battle scars that the previous 25 years produced.
 

C. Wess Daniels - www.gatheringinlight.com

My sense about the future is that the church, whatever is left of it in 25 years, will be built around a kind of nebulous, decentralized participation in God's mission. I imagine there will be a lot less full-time CEO pastors and more people who see themselves as co-cultivators of kingdom imaginations—people who band together in a world where there is little money, time, or space for full-time ministry to embody this call.

At the heart of what we might call "mission communities" won't be buildings or budgets but high amounts of inter-connectivity, utilizing and disseminating the church's wisdom and critique through whatever devices and networks are available. Being tied-down to physical space will be seen less as an asset and more as a disadvantage. I think these people will use whatever space is available to them, and while being committed to particular (local) areas, they won't be fixed to one location.

Building on this sense of participating within these mobile ecclesial groups will be a strong emphasis on communal creativity, rather than the individualistic focus of the do-it-yourself, they will be focused on a do-it-ourselves mentality. In 25 years, the Church will not count on social services, setup within Christendom, to do its work for it any longer. The Church will have to embody God's mission, creativity, justice, non-violence, and hospitality as a community of people committed to being disciples of Jesus.

Because these Christians will be less separated from the world it will be important to build communities and practices of resistance: people who read Scripture together to be reminded and shaped as people of "The Way" while learning how to survive in the empire, who share their food, their belongings, and who reject the speed and consumption of hyper-capitalism. They will be non-conformists while living within and seeking to transform the world.

Finally, while this gathered, diasporic people will focus on their particular local concerns they will also join with other "mission communities" for collective fronts on important and timely issues of their days. They will disband and regroup as needs arise. Thus even denominations will work more like social networks, cultivating disciples, artists, theologians, leaders, and imaginations for survival in a world in need of the gospel.

John Dyer - www.donteatthefruit.com

To look ahead to the church in 2034, I first need look back to 1984.
I grew up in the American South, where kids asked each other, “What religion are you?” and the only acceptable answers were “Baptist” or “Catholic.” I also attended a Christian school, and for me and my friends, it was just another extracurricular activity we begrudgingly attended.

My wife, on the other hand, grew up in Southern Oregon, where she was one of about five Christians among the 2,000 students in her high school. For the math majors, that’s fewer Christians per capita than China.

For her, church wasn’t another thing she had to do—it was her refuge from a pretty tough world. While I sat around with my friends figuring out how to bend the rules, she sat alone deciding whether or not to mention her faith in class and risk receiving a low grade from a teacher with a 1960s education. I dreamed of getting to go to public school were everything was cool. Her dream was to go to a Christian college where she could learn in freedom among people of faith. My friends and I never really talked about our faith. To this day, everyone remembers Amber as one of the kindest people at her school.

Churches in 2034 will probably look more like those in Oregon than those in Texas. The statistics being bandied about these days proclaiming the decline of Christianity are probably just reporting a winnowing of those who go to church because it is culturally required (as I did in the South) from those who go because it is the place where love and truth are found (as my wife did in the Northwest). In 2034, we probably won’t need to be entertained on Sunday morning or criticize every little thing we don’t like. This is already happening in post-Christian areas where vibrant churches are notably different from and sometimes even appreciated by the world around them. Here in the South, we still have a ways to go.

Cynthia Ware - thedigitalsanctuary.org

Although we see through a glass dimly, it’s inspiring to anticipate, however inaccurately, what the Body of Christ will look like in the future. The ‘traditional’ Western Church, under siege for the last four decades, continues to experience declining numbers and operates with less than potent impact. Some people are beginning to anticipate that this could be the end of the world as we’ve known it.

Driven by technological innovation, coupled with its rapid diffusion and adoption, it’s the Internet that will likely shape the operation of all social institutions (the worldwide Body of Christ being no exception). This certainly affects the practice of Christianity and influences the future of our faith communities.

To the astute, the marriage of the Internet and faith is both unimaginably futuristic and yet, oddly ancient. For example, fluid micro-communities that blossom spontaneously online mirror the emergence of the New Testament church. These collections of Christians are basically the opposite of “planned communities.” They collect, converge, coagulate, and disperse without organizational strategy, finances, or assigned leaders. They materialize wherever ministry is necessary and then dissolve just as quickly.

Thus, need-based ministry goals can be accomplished quite easily via the inherently decentralized Internet community. Rather than bureaucratic or hierarchical chain-of-command ministry structures, online ministry portals allow individual needs and their solutions to be matched by crowdsourcing from a global community of participating servants. Ancient New Testament cells operated underground in similar fashion.

On the other hand, there are new opportunities at hand. Traditional time and space limitations are evaporating, and we have opportunity to unite faith communities like never before via online, interactive, and participatory clusters of like-minded believers, untethered to geospatial boundaries but powerfully connected through both beliefs and values. These futuristic communities allow the priesthood of every believer unparalleled opportunity for the distribution of gifts, skills, talents, and calling.

Paramount in the evaluation of our digital future is the emerging global wireless technology, WiMAX, forecasted for the next decade. And, just as significantly, is the certainty of the mobile ubiquity to follow. Cell phone coverage has already leapfrogged past laptop diffusion in many parts of the world. As Internet technologies and the hardware that access them proliferate, we are afforded the ability to create a world of super-interconnectivity.

Like the tribe of the men of Issachar, who understood the times and knew what Israel must do (1 Chronicles 12:32), we must occupy until He comes, claiming every opportunity to use the Internet for Kingdom gain.

READ The Church in 2034