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| JOEL-NEWS-INTERNATIONAL-372 * 27 JULY 2001 * WWW.JOELNEWS.ORG IN THIS EDITION: JN372-1. The local church and it's future ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- SPECIAL EDITION - In this special edition we focus on George Barna's important new book 'Boiling Point'. A must for Church leaders who desire to be effective in ministry in the New Millennium. With thanks to the National Pastors Prayer Network (www.nppn.org). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- DONATE - Support Joel News with a yearly donation. Check out the options at http://www.joelnews.org/donation-jni.htm. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- JN372-1. The local church and it's future By George Barna Editorial note: We are pleased to provide you with possibly the most critical chapter in this new can't-ignore book by George Barna. Pastors and prayer leaders must prepare to respond to the shifting cultural realities, technologies, lifestyles, and core values. As you read, ask yourself questions like: - "What does it mean to be a House of prayer in the 21st Century? - "When is the best time to gather people for prayer and intercession?" Think and pray through: - Where Are We Headed? - What Can You Do? Interact with Barna's conclusions - Add your insights to the NPPN 'Feedback Forum' at: http://www.nppn.org/book-e-view.htm Boiling Point - What You Need to Know About Life in the Third Millennium George Barna / Gospel Light, Hard Cover / 0830726500 $19.99 / 344 pp - Sequel to the 100,000-copy best-seller The Frog in the Kettle - A spiritual navigation tool for the third millennium that assesses where the Church is and where we need to be - Jack Hayford says, "You can't afford not to read Barna!" - How the Church can regain its cultural relevance at this critical moment in history To order: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0830726500/ qid=996243151/sr=2-1/103-6758695-0423830 Chapter 11 ~ The Local Church and Its Future FUTURE GLIMPSE Carl and Jill were slumped on the living room couch, peering passively at the TV while Carl flipped through the 70-plus channels they received. "So many channels, so little to watch," he muttered while Jill suppressed her frustration at his two-second attention span and the trigger-happy thumb that was relentlessly working the remote. Suddenly, he got up, gently tossed the remote into Jill's lap, and said he was going to check his e-mail since there was nothing on worth watching. He had stopped on a channel showing a documentary about major religious figures of the twentieth century. Jill watched the images of religious leaders pass before her eyes: Billy Graham, two popes, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi and others she did not recognize. What had happened to the Church in this country, she wondered silently. She was no student of Church history but it seemed to her as if the Christian Church in America had fallen apart. It had gone from a handful of denominations with clear distinctions to dozens of interchangeable groups. The message of the Church had become fuzzy and was overshadowed by all the factionalism and infighting. And it was pretty much impossible to think of anyone whose life was so influenced by faith that the person was unarguably a true Christian. Most church people talked, looked and behaved just like everyone else. What had happened, indeed. The TV camera panned the main streets and churches of a town whose name she didn't catch. It reminded her of her hometown. It caused her to think about the churches in her Denver suburb. What churches were there? She couldn't recall the name of a single one. There was the big brick one they had visited, Community or Cornerstone or Crossroads, something with a C; they all sounded alike these days. She recalled her last visit to a church. It was a huge place, reminiscent of some of the basketball arenas she had visited. She liked the pastor and the people seemed nice enough. It was wonderful being able to check it out under the cover of anonymity that the sheer size of the congregation provided her. But she'd left the place confident it was not right for her. First of all, they kept referring to people like her as lost, what an insult! And their primary means of ministry seemed to be in small groups that met during the week. Who had time for that? And it sounded kind of scary, baring your soul in front of a group of peers. Not at this stage in my life, thank you. Carl, aware of her frequent musings about spiritual things, had turned her on to a few religious websites, e-churches, he called them. She had to admit, some of the discussions and streamed presentations were stimulating. Her friend at work, Fran, had invited her to a forum that was held occasionally at a nearby coffeehouse. Jill went once and found it, too, to be appealing, free-flowing, open, genuine. Fran called it her "church." That had startled Jill, there were no organs, pews, hymns, sermons, Sunday School, not even a pastor, from what she could tell. But Fran explained it was a collection of people earnestly seeking to understand and apply the Bible, and they just had a different way of growing. Whatever. During her reverie the program had reached its conclusion and the credits now rolled down the screen. Jill took Carl's place thumbing through the channels. Meanwhile she wondered what had happened to the Christian Church and where it was going. THE PULSE OF THE CHURCH The Church, manifested largely through the local church, is God's chosen instrument for people to experience a taste of His kingdom on Earth and to prepare the way for the return of Jesus before ushering in God's perfect and unassailable rule throughout all creation. It is a primary means through which we are to be ministered to and through which we may minister to others. The local church is to be a source of strength and continuity, a place of love, safety, security and growth for all who follow Jesus, and all who wish to explore the possibilities. Frankly, the local church in the U.S. has come on hard times. Not financially, it reaps more than ever, but in terms of its image and influence. To understand how the church could lose its edge during a time when interest in spirituality is breaking records, while people are spending literally billions of dollars on faith-related products, and seminaries are experiencing record-breaking enrollment levels, you have to look at the bigger picture. The preceding chapters gave you a taste of America's theological morass and the lotta-talk-little-action spirituality of Americans. The spread of spiritual anarchy has diminished the role and weakened the impact of the local church. But there's more to it than that. To get the big picture and the related challenges, let's summarize the state of the local church. THE CURRENT STATE OF CHRISTIAN CHURCHES In spite of the nation's population increase and a climate of rising interest in spirituality, Christian churches actually decreased in size during the '90s. They went from an average of 99 adults attending on an average Sunday in 1990 to 90 adults present on a Sunday in 2000. The reasons for the shrinkage include the opening of several thousand new churches (which often start out with fewer people than the average existing church has); an increase in the number of unchurched adults; and the decreased frequency of attendance among churchgoers. Claims of prolific church growth have been grossly exaggerated; not only are most churches not increasing in size, but those that are expanding are doing so at the expense of other churches. More than 80 percent of the adults who get counted as new adherents and thus as part of the growth statistic are really just transplants from other churches, religious consumers in search of the perfect, or at least more exciting or enjoyable, church experience. Disturbingly little church growth is attributable to new converts. All in all, it was not a good decade for church growth. The '90s ushered in three challenging attendance trends that still plague churches: irregular attendance among the regulars (a behavior especially prevalent among Boomers), multiple-church attendance and the development of megachurches. The first of these trends is a reflection of people's increased spiritual options, busy schedules, diminished sense of obligation and general boredom with the predictability of the Sunday morning event. The second pattern describes the one out of every six adults who selects a group of churches (usually anywhere from two to five congregations) and attends each of them sporadically, rather than just one of them all the time. We will address the megachurch phenomenon shortly. Consider how pastors describe their churches. Most of the senior pastors of Protestant churches say their church is theologically conservative (79 percent) and evangelical (83 percent). Half say that their church is seeker sensitive; somewhat fewer (one-third) claim to be seeker driven. One-quarter describe their church as charismatic, and one-quarter say their ministry is Pentecostal. (About one-third who say they are charismatic do not consider their ministry to be Pentecostal and vice versa.) One-third embrace the label "liturgical"; not surprisingly two-thirds of all mainline congregations accept that term. Four out of 5 maintain that they are consistently serving the needy people of their community. However, only 2 out of 5 say that their church is consistently engaged with social and political issues. As you can see, during the past two decades churches have been giving their images a complete makeover. Among the characterizations that churches are more comfortable adopting these days are seeker sensitive, evangelical, charismatic and theologically conservative. It is no longer fashionable to be liturgical, traditional, liberal, or denominational. Even if you are one of those types of churches, you search for a more appealing way to describe it. The focus of local church ministry has also shifted between a variety of needs and interests over the last few decades. In 1990 pastors told us their church's most pressing ministry needs were addressing people's time commitments and apathy toward ministry (25 percent), demographic changes and challenges (8 percent), evangelism (8 percent) and raising more money for ministry (7 percent). Other significant priorities included congregational resistance to change (5 percent) and the deterioration of existing values and morals (5 percent). As the times changed, so did the top 10 issues on church agendas. By the start of the new millennium, ministry priorities had shifted to getting the church to engage more consistently and effectively in evangelism (30 percent, a huge reawakening from the 8 percent level of 10 years earlier); enhancing the spiritual depth or growth of believers (11 percent); addressing the needs of children and teenagers (9 percent); identifying community needs that the church can address (9 percent); and increasing people's involvement in the life of the church (8 percent). Consider this: At no time in the past decade (including the data from surveys conducted in the intervening years) have pastors placed areas such as worship, leadership development, holistic stewardship or effective assessment of the ministry among the church's top priorities. CHURCHES MIGHT SURPRISE YOU Contradictions and surprises abound in the church world, as they do elsewhere in our culture. The assumptions you hold regarding churches may be outdated, or, perhaps, were never accurate in the first place. Here are a few correlations we discovered that might catch you off-guard. Many people believe that churches are large and growing because of the focus on the megachurches. The truth is that only about 2 percent of all Protestant churches have 1,000 or more adults attending in a typical week. Most churches are small, and getting smaller! Pastors are among the best-educated folks in town (60 percent are seminary graduates) but their average compensation package is barely above that of a newly-degreed college student starting his/her first (entry-level) job. True followers of Christ expect the nation's network of Christian churches to ignite and sustain a moral and spiritual revolution. But successful revolutions take money. Although Americans donate more than $50 billion to churches each year, the average ministry outpost is staked to just $120,000 to finance the local revolution. (In constant dollars, that is a 13 percent increase from the budget level in 1987, but still a relatively paltry bank account given the scope of the challenge.) Churches claim that ministry to kids is one of their top priorities, and more than 9 out of 10 churches have ministry programs for kids of all ages. However, fewer than 1 out of every 4 Protestant churches has a full-time, paid youth worker to lead that ministry. Nine out of 10 churches say they are evangelistic, but the typical church spends less money on evangelistic outreach than on maintaining its facilities. Mainline Protestant churches are widely characterized as bastions of theological liberalism. However, 60 percent of mainline senior pastors call their church "theologically conservative" and just 28 percent say they are "theologically liberal." Black churches are thought of as congregations of poor people. The reality is that the average black adult donates more money to his/her church than people of any other racial group donate to their churches. In fact, black churches have the highest annual operating budget of any churches in the country. The great interest in spirituality among Baby Busters is assumed to have led them to embrace churches as their second home. Actually, Busters have the lowest level of church attendance, church giving, Sunday School involvement, small group participation, church volunteerism, Bible reading, discipleship involvement and use of Christian media. In short, in spite of their interest in spiritual matters, Busters are the single most disengaged population group in relation to organized religion. Owing to their rapid population growth and commitment to cultural assimilation, many people assume that Hispanics represent the fastest-growing group of born-again Christians in the nation. Actually, if there was any degree of spiritual revival during the '90s it was most likely among Asian-Americans. While 5 percent of Asians were believers in 1991, that figure ballooned to 27 percent in 2000, a 440 percent increase in nine years. Complaints about the length of sermons are common. Most people believe that the sermon consumes most of the worship service program. In reality, the average service lasts 70 minutes, and the average sermon is 30 minutes long, perhaps too long for a culture in which people under 30 have an average attention span of less than 10 minutes, but less than half of the morning's event. (Those who think a half hour sermon is interminable would never have lasted during the pastorate of renowned eighteenth century New England preacher Jonathan Edwards. His sermons were reported to have lasted as long as five hours, and his audiences returned to listen to him again and again.) Mainline Protestant churches, American Baptist, United Church of Christ, Episcopal, Evangelical Lutheran, United Methodist, Presbyterian Church U.S.A. are often thought to represent a large sector of the population. They may have attracted a majority of Protestants in the '50s, but today they claim just one-third of all Protestant churchgoers. The competition for parishioners has gotten fierce: There are now more than 200 Protestant denominations in the U.S.! WHAT'S HAPPENING IN THE PASTORATE? Nine out of 10 churches have a full-time, paid senior pastor heading the ministry. Four out of every 5 times, that pastor is the only paid minister in the church. He (pardon the pronoun, but the pastor is male in 95 percent of our churches) works more than 60 hours per week for a relatively paltry compensation package valued at less than $40,000 per year. In fact, the package the typical pastor receives is worth 2 percent less today (in constant dollars) than he was making in 1992. So much for appreciation! Ministry is tough on the pastor's family life: 94 percent are married, most of them have children and a large proportion of these clergy admit that the emotional demands of the ministry, combined with the stingy compensation and long hours, have caused their family life to suffer. (To their credit, only 15 percent have experienced a divorce, substantially lower than the national norm.) While the average pastor has been in full-time ministry for 17 years, he has served at his current church for just five. Both of these figures represent a rebound from the trend of the '80s, when pastorates were shorter and the average career in full-time church work lasted 14 years. Most pastors find their work meaningful and fulfilling. Although the stress levels they admit to experiencing are higher than the norm, the rewards seem more satisfying than those achieved by other professionals. Perhaps their appreciation for their high-pressure position relates to the ability to use their spiritual gifts so often. Two-thirds of senior pastors say that their primary spiritual gift is teaching or preaching. No other gift is mentioned by even half as many pastors as this one. Naturally, having spent years in seminary honing their communication abilities and having the opportunity to exercise that skill every week, most pastors always have at least one rewarding and energizing experience to look forward to each week. ARE CHRISTIAN CHURCHES HEALTHY SPIRITUALLY? In a recent survey among a nationwide sample of Protestant pastors, we asked them how well their church is performing its ministry duties in each of 10 key areas. Two insights emerged from the study. First, most churches do not have any objective or regular process for evaluating how well their ministry is faring in any given dimension of ministry. Second, among the churches that assessed their quality in an area of ministry, a majority (ranging from 53 percent to 89 percent) rated their church as doing an excellent or good job in each of the 10 dimensions examined. Are those self-assessments accurate? One way to find out would be to examine how the church is doing in the "six pillars of ministry", that is, the half-dozen aspects of church-based activity that constitute the heart of the church's work. The pillars are well-known to all Christians: evangelism, worship, discipleship, stewardship, fellowship and service to the needy. (1) Let's take a brief look at some measures of health in relation to each of these ministry pillars. WORSHIP Indisputably, worship is among the highest priorities of God. The weekly worship service is, for most churches, the focal point of each week and, for most pastors, the personal highlight of their ministry because they get to preach. Churches have excelled in providing people with a greater variety of worship experiences and delivering learning aids (e.g., study notes, audio-tapes) that are designed to help them capture some of the information provided during the teaching time. Yet, we also know that each weekend, millions come but few understand. Two-thirds of regular churchgoers cannot describe what worship means. Our research shows that a majority of those who attend worship services in any given week (more than three-quarters of adults in attendance) do not experience the presence of God during worship. In fact, half of all churchgoers admit that they have not felt connected to God or in His presence at any time in the past year, in spite of their regular attendance at church. Even so, only 4 percent of Protestant senior pastors list facilitating or enhancing worship as a top priority for their churches. Among those who are concerned about their worship events, energy is being put into determining the best style of music, the appropriate forms of technology (e.g., video screens, PowerPoint presentations), and how to pack out the worship center. EVANGELISM Things have improved in evangelism in the past decade. Presently, about half of all born-again adults say that they have shared their faith with a nonbeliever in the past year. That's a considerable jump from the one-third who had done so a decade ago. The population groups that have shown the most positive response to evangelistic efforts have been Asians, the affluent and people over 50. The toughest groups to penetrate with the gospel have been Hispanics, Baby Busters and people residing in the Northeast and the West, the two regions traditionally least susceptive to Christianity. (2) Our studies have also discovered another highly significant fact: Evangelism is most effective among preteens. The survey data show that people from ages 5-13 have a 32 percent probability of accepting Christ as their Savior. Young people from the ages of 14-18 have just a 4 percent likelihood of doing so, while adults (ages 19 through death) have only a 6 percent probability of making that choice. (3) Most Christians have never had any formal training in how to share their faith with a nonbeliever, and most born-again adults do not currently have a personal relationship of consequence with more than one nonbeliever. Since only one out of every seven people who accept Christ as their Savior do so at a worship service or other church event, one-to-one evangelism is crucial to the spread of the good news about Jesus. DISCIPLESHIP There is some serious effort being made by millions of Christians to become devoted followers of Jesus Christ. Currently, one out of every six people who attends a Christian church is involved in being discipled, primarily through small groups that meet during the week to study the Bible, pray and build Christian community. It is important to note that women are almost twice as likely as men to be involved in a discipleship process. That fits the general pattern we discover through almost every research project we conduct: Women serve as the backbone of the American Church, demonstrating greater commitment to their faith than do the men who are associated with Christianity. (4) Other groups that have been particularly hard to motivate to engage in serious spiritual growth pursuits have included those with less than a college education, Catholics and Baby Busters. Adults in their twenties are only half as likely as the rest of the population to engage in discipleship efforts. One of the most disturbing weaknesses of the Christian community is the infrequency with which believers live their faith. Several studies previously described in these pages have demonstrated that believers are rarely distinguishable in their thoughts, words or deeds from those who have no relationship with Christ. One recent study we completed showed that the values and goals of believers place commitment to Christ and their church in the middle and lower echelons of their life priorities. The lukewarmness of people's spiritual commitment is at least partially attributable to the fact that, even by their own reckoning, less than 1 out of every 10 born-again Christians possesses a biblical worldview, and partially due to the struggle most believers have of converting head knowledge into behavior. The ultimate consequences of these struggles are that believers lack the power to deal with life's moral and spiritual challenges and that Christians are unattractive models of the Christian faith for those who are seeking spiritual truth. It may come as a shock to discover that less than 1 percent of America's senior pastors list better teaching, the provision of worldview-based teaching or the development of a life in which faith and behavior are integrated as a top priority for their church. This may be a nonissue to pastors because 94 percent of them believe that "the people who attend my church are consistently exposed to preaching and teaching that intentionally and systematically lead them to develop or embrace a biblical worldview." Almost half of all churched adults sense that promoting discipleship is among the highest priorities of their church. The fact that a majority of those individuals are aware of the exhortation but ignore it speaks volumes. (Five out of every 6 active churchgoers are not involved in an intentional discipling process.) The fact that 4 out of every 10 individuals currently involved in a Christian discipling process contend that there is no such thing as absolute moral truth underscores that good intent is not enough. STEWARDSHIP Compared to people from other nations of the world, Americans are generous, donating more than $120 billion every year to the million-plus charities and churches in the country. The greatest share of that money, almost half, goes to religious organizations, especially churches. Most people get into the act: More than 8 out of 10 adults gave away money last year and two-thirds of all adults donated to a church or religious center during the year. But the generosity and sense of commitment is not universal. About one-third of all adults, and 1 out of every 6 born-again Christians, gave no money to a church last year. In spite of the widespread teaching and emphasis upon tithing, only 8 percent of born-again Christians tithed their income to churches last year. The median donation by Christians to their churches was approximately $1,000 per household, or a bit less than 3 percent of their gross household income. Interestingly, the smaller the church, the less money the typical individual donates. (5) But stewardship is not simply about tithing or giving money on a regular and generous basis. It is about a mind-set or lifestyle as much as anything. Again, research confirms that American believers are looking for simple formulas and freedom from sacrifice. Often, if the church campus looks good and the church budget is being met, then believers feel they have accomplished all they need to with the resources God has entrusted to them. CONGREGATIONAL RELATIONSHIPS One of the areas in which churches do best is providing individuals opportunities to connect with other like-minded people. In a society as mobile and as isolated as ours, having the chance to connect with such people is a gift. More than 4 out of 5 church attenders describe their church as friendly. There are difficulties related to internal relationships, of course. While most attenders cite their congregation as a friendly group of people, far fewer suggest that their church is a "caring" congregation. Relatively few churches have ministries that connect families and mentor them. Even marriages are a shambles within the church: 27 percent of born-again adults are currently or have previously been divorced compared to 24 percent among adults who are not born again. (6) The current emphasis upon small groups is the church's latest thrust at building true community within the body. Participants in groups typically give high marks to their groups for enabling them to feel as if they are part of a deeper community of faith. SERVING THE NEEDY "They will know we are Christians by our love" is one of the themes that churches across the nation embrace, and service to the needy is a core method of demonstrating that love. A large majority of Protestant senior pastors rate their church as doing a good job in community outreach. Perhaps that is why pastors buried helping the poor toward the bottom of a list of ministry priorities for their church. Amazingly, survey statistics reveal that only 1 out of 5 adults actually gives time and money to any activities designed to assist the disadvantaged during the past year. Ministry to the community, it turns out, is one of those image-building programs that everybody wants to highlight but nobody really wants to serve. Our studies show that people like to mention the outreach programs of their church, and many unchurched people list such efforts as among the most important characteristics they look for in a church. However, when asked what ministries they personally get involved in, the vast majority have to do with taking resources from the ministry, rather than investing personal resources (time, effort, money) in activities designed to help others. MINISTRY LEADERSHIP While this is not one of the six pillars of the local church, we have found that the presence or absence of strong leadership is one of the traits that distinguishes the highly effective churches of America from those that are doing well-intentioned religious activity. One of the most significant findings from our research is that most churches have a mismatch between the expectations the church has of their pastor and his/her gifts and skills. By their own admission, most senior pastors are neither gifted in nor excited about leadership. Fewer than 1 out of every 20 senior pastors can identify the unique vision that God will entrust to His leaders on behalf of the churches they pastor. Less than 1 out of every 8 claims to have the gift of spiritual leadership. Our work with highly effective churches has also shown that those churches prioritize leadership development. Their congregations have successfully identified the lay leaders God inevitably brings to a congregation and equipped them to use their gifts and abilities to lead the ministry. Highly effective churches typically have more than double the number of gifted and trained lay leaders in service compared to the average American church. The recognition, preparedness and deployment of those leaders are the primary reasons why their churches make serious spiritual progress. In spite of this, only 2 percent of Protestant senior pastors name personal or lay leadership development, vision clarification and vision communication or strategic development of the ministry as top ministry priorities. In fact, despite (or maybe because of their exposure to) all the books and conferences focused on leadership concerns, fewer pastors identify leadership as a major challenge than was true at the beginning of this decade. Almost every pastor across the country, an astounding 96 percent, contend that "the people in my church would describe me as an effective leader." ASSESSING CHURCH HEALTH Having considered these factors, then, the result is a mixed report card. There are certainly many incredible and wonderful things happening in thousands of churches throughout the nation. God is worshiped, His people are studying His Word and striving to become better disciples, resources are freely given to the work of the church, the gospel is being shared, needy people are being helped, and the members of the community of believers are encouraging and stimulating each other to grow. On balance, though, there are many areas in which churches simply are not healthy. The examples of spiritual health are more often the exception to the rule. Nobody likes to admit this. But, as addiction clinics tell their patients, the first step to recovery is to admit that they have a problem and that they need help. One must wonder if we have been addicted to religious rituals and assumptions for so long that we, too, have an addiction that needs to be healed, an addiction to empty, self-deceiving, unhealthy church practices. MEGACHURCHES: CURSE OR PANACEA? In the midst of all of the changes taking place in the Church world has been the emergence of the large church, commonly known as megachurches. Some analysts (including the authors) consider megachurches to be those attracting 1,000 or more adults to weekly services, while others use 2,000 people as the criteria. Regardless, these large ministry centers have been increasing in number and have been the primary focus of media attention during the past decade. You might be surprised to learn that in spite of all of the attention and hoopla surrounding megachurches, they constitute barely more than 1 percent of the nation's 324,000 Protestant churches. Perhaps the attention is given to them because they draw close to one-fifth of the nation's churchgoers! Megachurch ministry has become attractive because of the economies of scale that can be realized in a large ministry. People can have access to a broader range of programs, events and styles of ministry; individuals can pursue a variety of niche interests or simply maintain their anonymity; financial and human resources, as well as facilities, can be used more efficiently; talented people have opportunities to focus on their areas of giftedness and the church can afford to hire a greater quantity and quality of top-of-the-line personnel; and the bulk of the church permits it to have greater influence in its community. The icons of the Protestant church world have become the pastors who preside over the largest churches. One of the dangers facing the Church in this new decade is that the complexity and pace of life motivates Americans to seek quick and easy solutions. The lust for megachurches represents such a condition. There is nothing inherently wrong with a large church, of course, but the dangers of seeking size are that we prioritize quantity of attenders over quality of spiritual life, and we depersonalize the ministry in order to provide a broader menu of programs from which people may choose. In essence, the attraction of megachurches has caused the typical suburban and urban church (and a few rural congregations) to redefine what it takes to be a successful ministry. (7) The more people, programs, money and square footage the church accumulates, the more "successful" it has become in the eyes of many. Church leaders have responded to some of these concerns by gearing themselves toward getting big by becoming small. That strategy calls for churches to provide some measure of intimacy and relational connection in the midst of the thousands of strangers attending a church's worship services and programs by facilitating weekly or biweekly small-group (aka "cell group") meetings. These meetings consist of anywhere from 5 to 20 people who meet regularly, usually in someone's home, for any of a wide range of purposes, such as relationships, religious education, prayer, community service and worship. At the opening of this decade, 1 out of every 6 adults in the country, and about 1 out of every 3 born-again adults, was involved in a small group. Oddly, those figures have not changed since the early '90s, in spite of the emphasis churches have placed on small-group involvement. Small groups became the hope of the local church during the '90s. Seventy percent of senior pastors informed us that their small-group ministry is "central to the overall success" of their church's ministry. Perhaps because so much energy was devoted to recruiting participation in groups, the ministry promise of small groups (i.e., results) has yet to be fulfilled. The spiritual depth and accountability that is so desperately needed for Christianity to be anything more than a temporary fix or feel-good experience has not yet been delivered. Participants generally report great satisfaction with the relationships that have been developed in their minichurches, but research has also shown that there has been negligible growth in Bible knowledge, the application of scriptural principles or overall spiritual maturity. What's missing? Our preliminary research identifies the absence of strong leadership within the group, effective teaching methods and firm accountability to be the dominant soft spots. Since tens of thousands of Protestant churches have staked their future on the success of small groups to deliver effective ministry to their adherents, and to enable their march toward megachurchdom to succeed, the triple-zero decade will be a make-it-or-break-it period for both small groups and the megachurch concept. LEADERSHIP AT THE NATIONAL LEVEL Here's a test. What are the three things that these people have in common? Billy Graham, Bill Bright, Charles Stanley, Chuck Colson, James Dobson, Donald Wildmon, Pat Robertson, Chuck Swindoll, Paul Crouch, Jack Hayford, James Kennedy, R.C. Sproul, Pope John Paul II, Robert Schuller, John Stott, Peter Wagner, David Yonggi Cho, Lyle Schaller. Answer: they're all major leaders or agents of influence within the American Church, they're all men and they're all in their sixties or beyond. During this decade the American Church will experience a massive turnover in Church leadership. Many of the individuals who have shaped the Church as we know it today will pass the baton to successors. Some of those choices have already been made public. Billy Graham has appointed one of his sons to continue his evangelistic ministry. Bill Bright has chosen his second in command to lead Campus Crusade for Christ. More of these transitions will become news in the next few years. If history is a guide, though, the impact of many of the personality-driven ministries will fade as the primary personality departs the scene. We might expect a new cadre of leaders and associated ministries to arise and fill the vacuum they leave behind. Some of the new faces have already assumed places of prominence (e.g., Bill Hybels, John Maxwell, Rick Warren), while other young leaders are just ascending to positions of influence. You can bet that another dozen or so fresh names will emerge in the next five years to provide direction, continuity and personality to the Church of the twenty-first century. INNOVATIVE CHURCH MODELS Not only will there be a new class of national Church leaders casting vision and providing direction, but Americans will experience a growing range of church alternatives from which they may choose. For several hundred years, if a person wished to participate in the life of the Christian Body, the only game in town was the local church and its standard menu of options: Sunday morning worship service (available in one of two or three flavors: traditional, contemporary, blended), Sunday School, a few midweek programs and an annual stewardship effort. The new America does not understand standardization without options; it demands a pallet of possibilities from which to choose and resents efforts to curtail its breath of choices. The church is the last frontier within our culture to resist the progression of multiple choices. But that resistance is about to dissolve into a catalogue of opportunities. Some of the new choices will be minor variations on existing themes, such as churches offering congregants additional worship services that provide a different style of music, or denominations and large churches planting new churches designed to reach specific demographic target groups. The more intriguing creations, though, are those that will emerge independently of mother organizations in an attempt to meet an unmet need. Why the sudden rush of new possibilities? Because American life is now defined by concepts such as diversification, experience, customization, intimacy, authenticity, reliability and quality. Having been given these elements in a wide range of other products, services, resources and events that are common to our daily existence, people expect such choices in all realms of life. The failure to provide such choices causes people to lose interest in the offering. As the dictators of our own destiny, we do not trust any organization or cause that tells us what, how, when, where or why to do a prescribed activity. Here are some of the innovations in "doing church" that you will find at your disposal. (8) HOUSE CHURCH Popular in other countries, especially Southeast Asia, thousands of independent faith groups will meet for a complete church experience and expression within living rooms and garages. Driven by the need for intimacy, spontaneity and control, this option will appeal to individuals who are especially interested in restoring authenticity, community and simplicity to the church. CYBERCHURCH The Internet is changing the way Americans experience God in many ways. As the decade evolves, expect more people to rely upon the Internet for all of their spiritual input and output; we're projecting that the Internet will encompass the aggregate spiritual expression of 10-20 percent of the population by 2010. You will find worshiping communities, confessing communities, dialoguing communities and faith-driven relational communities that exist entirely through digital communication. The benefit of such a ministry medium is the reach it affords, along with the potential for honesty (driven by the protection of anonymity), widespread prayer support, and opportunities for personal expression and the development of relationships. The greatest downside is the possibility of spiritual heresy gaining credence as biblical truth. In addition, of course, most of the standard bricks-and-mortar churches will integrate websites, e-mail, audio streaming, video streaming, outreach and chat rooms into its existing ministry operations. EVENT CHURCH Frustrated by the politics, structures and general hassle of living within a standard church, growing numbers of entrepreneurial believers will leave the standard congregational church to be the impresarios of infrequent community wide worship events. These events will occur in public places, theaters, auditoriums, public parks, and feature the best musicians, dramatists and speakers that the impresarios can find (and afford). The purpose: Have a no-strings-attached, high quality, focus-on-God-alone event that elevates worship to high art and life-changing personal experience. BOUTIQUE CHURCH Thousands of unidimensional churches will spring up, offering people one type of ministry experience, e.g., worship, discipleship, fellowship, community service, on a regular basis and done with excellence. The key to making these churches effective is that they will be part of a network of boutique ministries that enables individual Christians to select a group of boutique ministries that will fulfill their personal needs and round out their spiritual experience. Thus, a typical boutiquer might select a worship church, a discipling church, a community service church and an outreach church as part of the menu of churches from which he/she will choose whenever they feel the need for a spiritual experience. (By the way, providing just a single dimension of ministry will be intentional at these churches, unlike the thousands of existing churches that currently provide only one viable dimension of ministry although they dabble in a variety of dimensions.) COMMUNAL CHURCH The back-to-basics, return-to-the-simple-life movement will give birth to communal faith groups. This is a throwback to the '60s, when hippie communes were popular. They will arise again, but this time with greater structure and purpose, not so much as an angry response to "the military-industrial complex," but as a means of rediscovering many of the more simple pleasures of life. The pivot point of these communes will be their monastery-like devotion to Christian maturity and introspection, within the context of a broader, shared community life. DIALOGICAL FORUMS The predisposition of the Busters and Mosaics is to grow through dialogue, not propositional teaching. Much like Paul's experience at Mars Hill (see Acts 17) there will be a national smattering of regular meetings that take place for the purpose of having a Socratic dialogue on spiritual matters. Often held in casual environments such as coffeehouses or condo complex meeting halls, these groups will be less concerned about developing a structured ministry than about grappling with the substance of faith matters. COMPASSION CLUSTERS The desire to couple beliefs and social action will produce these relatively small aggregations of socially conscious individuals. Their primary focus will be on making their faith real through acts of service. These formations are likely to be of limited duration, measured perhaps in months rather than years and generated around the energy of individuals who develop the group through word of mouth. PRAYER SHELTERS Individuals who love to pray will come together on a regular basis to share some thoughts from Scripture, to sing psalms to the Lord, to share prayer burdens and to spend hours together in prayer. Rather than devote themselves to the life of a standard church, these are individuals who have felt that prayer was undervalued as a ministry within the local church and who take great joy being in the presence of others who lose themselves in prayer. MARKETPLACE MINISTRIES The pace of life and the demands of standard church bodies will motivate a growing number of people to team with work associates or recreational buddies to develop a ministry to the people whom they encounter in that segment of the marketplace. Rather than encourage their work or recreational acquaintances to attend a standard church, these people will serve as the ministers to their associates, engaging in evangelism, discipling and service ministries. Rather than connect with a local church, these people will float in and out of churches for the aspects of spiritual experience they cannot replicate on their own (e.g., corporate worship) but will exploit the freedom they have to be a roving ambassador of Christ to the world they regularly inhabit. By the way, examples of all of these new forms of the Church exist today. The coming decade will afford each model a chance to expand and mature, or die trying. WHERE ARE WE HEADED? As you can imagine, given the elements described in this chapter, the triple-zero decade will radically reshape the Church in preparation for a very different culture. We have already described a few of the major changes coming: - At least three major denominations are likely to experience splits during the decade in reaction to the structural, theological and methodological stands of the denomination. The upstarts who depart in controversy will start their own denominations and will grow in response to their clarity of vision and passion for their convictions. - Dozens of church associations will emerge, formalizing and facilitating the networking of churches that share practices and dreams in common. It will not be uncommon for churches to trumpet their affiliation with such associations rather than their connection to the old-line denominations. Dozens of denominations will realize that they must make a shift away from being centralized bureaucracies to service bureaus. - Charismatic churches will flourish as they emphasize power, emotion and experience. Those elements will resonate with the population. - New ministry priorities will capture the attention of church leaders. Among those will be the need to facilitate genuine worship, not just to provide worship services; the need to facilitate a biblical worldview, rather than teaching disparate, unconnected truths from Scripture; and the necessity of improving children's programs. - Society at large will embarrass the Church into taking community service more seriously. As government agencies distance themselves from service to the needy, churches will be expected to pick up the slack. - The Catholic Church will plateau in terms of growth and will experience a time of programmatic uncertainty after the passing of Pope John Paul II. That period of ambiguity will change once the personality and vision of his successor become clear. - The Muslim faith will grow in the U.S., primarily among blacks who are seeking an alternative to Christianity and a more politically aggressive association. Mormonism will continue to attract hundreds of thousands of new adherents every year but will see minimal net growth in the U.S. because of the high turnover ratio within the LDS church. Mainline churches will see their decline level off during this decade. - Churches will refine their small-group ministry procedures to include better training of leaders, superior development of study and discussion content for groups and better tracking of individual spiritual development. - There will be an influx of men in their mid-forties to late fifties who become staff members and even senior pastors at Protestant churches. These individuals will be the "Second Half" class, men entering full-time ministry as a second career. Their business expertise will bring a more professional, structured orientation to the Protestant community. - People will lose their focus on megachurches as the plethora of new church models gains momentum and public awareness. Megachurches, while no longer the darling of church analysts, will remain a potent force in the Church world, in spite of their loss of luster. - Thousands of churches will default on their buildings, constructed during the capital campaign boom of the '90s and early triple-zero decade. There will also be more churches selling their properties and facilities to other churches to accommodate fluctuations in church size. Campus swapping will become one of the prevalent activities in reaction to the unpredictable and rapidly changing loyalties of congregants. - The notion of being "Protestant" will lose meaning and cachet in the new decade. Most young adults have no sense of what their church has been protesting about and thus will choose a more conciliatory, positive or substantive label with which to describe their faith allegiance. WHAT CAN YOU DO? Although this chapter has been mostly devoted to organizational andstructural trends, here are a few challenges that those shifts raise for you. Take the time to clarify your understanding of what the local church is about and your obligation to it as a Christian. (9) Issues such as loyalty to a church, what you can expect to get from a church, what you should expect to give to a church, the role of the Internet in a community of faith, all of these and more will be issues to ponder as you clarify your own philosophy of personal responsibility to the Church. Make sure you base your conclusions on Scripture, not the leanings of the culture. Examine your own spiritual maturity and experience in relation to the six pillars of the church: worship, evangelism, discipleship, stewardship, relationships and community service. No matter what church (or churches) you attend, you are responsible for growing in these dimensions. How well are you doing? If you are not currently involved in a small group associated with your church, consider getting involved in one. If you are involved already, examine the value you are getting from that commitment and how you could help raise the standard for your group. NOTES 1. For a more detailed exploration of how the most effective churches in the nation are focusing on these areas, see George Barna, The Habits of Highly Effective Churches (Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 2000). In the book I describe the results of our research that identified the nine ministry habits of churches where spiritually based life transformation is consistently occurring. 2. A more complete discussion of recent evangelistic outcomes can be found in "Asians and Affluent Are Increasingly Likely to be Born Again," a report from May 30, 2000 that is in the News Release Library at http://www.barna.org (accessed August 2000). 3. This research was described in a summary report, "Teens and Adults Have Little Chance of Accepting Christ As Their Savior." That release, originally published November 15, 1999, can be accessed through the News Release library at the Barna Research website at http://www.barna.org (accessed August 2000). 4. Recent research on both discipleship and the commitment of women to the Christian faith can be accessed at the Barna Research website. Two reports, in particular, may be of interest: "Women Are the Backbone of the Christian Congregations in America," released March 6, 2000, and "More Than 20 Million Churched Adults Actively Involved in Spiritual Growth Efforts," released May 9, 2000, and are located at http://www.barna.org. 5. More detailed statistics on giving patterns are found in "Evangelicals Are The Most Generous Givers, But Fewer Than 10 Percent of Born-Again Christians Give 10 Percent to Their Church." That report was released April 5, 2000 and is contained in the News Release Library on the Barna Research website at http://www.barna.org. 6. The details of this research are found in "Christians Are More Likely to Experience Divorce Than Are Non-Christians," released December 21, 1999, and available through the News Release Library at http://www.barna.org (accessed August 2000). 7. For a more detailed discussion of our research on how churches define success in ministry, and how they evaluate whether or not they are successful, consult the audio and video presentations of George Barna's seminar session, Ministry Evaluation, available from Barna Research at http://www.barna.org (accessed August 2000) or call 1-800-552-2762. 8. There is a more extensive discussion of some of these innovations in chapter 13 in George Barna, The Second Coming of the Church (Nashville, TN: Word Books, 1998). 9. Libraries of books have been written on the basics of the Church. If you're not sure where to start, consider these: Max Anders,The Church in 12 Lessons (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1997); David Watson, I Believe in the Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing, 1978); Charles Colson and Ellen Vaughan, The Body (Nashville, TN: Word Publishing, 1992). Excerpted by permission from Boiling Point, Chapter 11, by George Barna (Regal Books, 2001). To order: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0830726500/ qid=996243151/sr=2-1/103-6758695-0423830 Source: www.nppn.org |
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