This is Easter week, and multitudes of people will fill churches all over America in order to worship the dead and resurrected Christ. It appears that the Christian Church in America is alive and well. It has millions of members, and is well funded and well led. For example, there are hundreds of mega churches that have congregations that number over 2000. There are also tens of thousands of other more typical churches scattered all over the country and well known and faithful colleges and seminaries continue to graduate large numbers of highly qualified and sincere men and women every year to staff all of them. Different kinds of churches are growing all over the country. Charismatic and Pentecostal churches continue to proliferate at a steady pace leading the way in church growth. There has also been an unexpected and significant revival of Reformed theology in many, many churches. The Christian movement is thriving. Things are good.
There have always been concerns, of course. Most of the concerns have frequently centered on quality of discipleship and quantity of churches or members within churches. The northeast and northwest have always needed more churches and more church members, while the south has always struggled with the problem of nominal Christianity. Mainline churches have been slowly but steadily in decline for 40 years and Christian young people have been abandoning their Christian faith when they go to college since the 60s. The worship wars of the 80s and 90s have been won or lost, depending on your perspective. Now there is the missional-emergent thing of the 21st century. Seems like things are pretty much as they have always been; a mix of the good, the bad and the ugly.
Still, people seem worried. Although millions of people in the south self identify as Christians, church attendance in the Bible Belt is not what it was in 1950 or even 1980. Along the same lines are some of the mainline denominations. Several denominations realize that they will eventually no longer be able to continue unless a remarkable change in church membership happens. Alan Hirsch has estimated that a staggering 60% of the American population has chosen to remain fully disengaged from church. That is 185 million people, or the equivalent of the 6th largest nation on earth. Christian college kids still quit on church, but they no longer return en masse once they have their own families as they once did. In fact, George Barna claims that only 4% of young people under 30 regularly attend church.
What if these numbers are inaccurate, which is entirely possible. What will it mean for church attendance in Denver, Cincinnati or Boston in 2030 if the correct number of people in their 20s who regularly attended church in 2013 was actually 16% rather than 4% and the number of post-Christian Americans was 50% rather than 60%? That would obviously be good news because16% of the twenty somethings of today will be church members and leaders in 2030 rather than 4%. Would it be a game changer for the churches of the future? Probably not. “ It’s the dismal tide” is what the two older and frightened sheriffs agreed over coffee in the movie “ No Country for Old Men.”
Now hang on a second. There are tens of millions of Americans who attend church in some regular way. Tens of thousands of churches will continue to exist and serve God going forward into the future and that is a very good thing. However, these troubling fears continue to rumble beneath the surface of the vast Christian community in the US. Youth pastors may be obsolete in the future, or perhaps they will be an entirely new kind of apostolic missionary sent into the post-Christian American youth culture of 2030. In fact, that is a realistic expectation today. We need to recover sent-ness.
The churches have done a superb job of discipling an entire generation of young missionaries who believe they are called to create discipleship movements inside and outside of traditional church structures that fit the place where America is going. That place aint good, it truly is the dismal tide, but younger Christians aren’t really intimidated by that while their parents and pastors are really worried about the future of our country. Now send them; send them into that place where America is going. They will need you to stand firm with them. They don’t really know what they are going to face, but you do because while many things have changed, the challenges of a faithful life in Christ remain; people are still people. If our churches could adopt this sent-ness, it would change everything.
There have always been concerns, of course. Most of the concerns have frequently centered on quality of discipleship and quantity of churches or members within churches. The northeast and northwest have always needed more churches and more church members, while the south has always struggled with the problem of nominal Christianity. Mainline churches have been slowly but steadily in decline for 40 years and Christian young people have been abandoning their Christian faith when they go to college since the 60s. The worship wars of the 80s and 90s have been won or lost, depending on your perspective. Now there is the missional-emergent thing of the 21st century. Seems like things are pretty much as they have always been; a mix of the good, the bad and the ugly.
Still, people seem worried. Although millions of people in the south self identify as Christians, church attendance in the Bible Belt is not what it was in 1950 or even 1980. Along the same lines are some of the mainline denominations. Several denominations realize that they will eventually no longer be able to continue unless a remarkable change in church membership happens. Alan Hirsch has estimated that a staggering 60% of the American population has chosen to remain fully disengaged from church. That is 185 million people, or the equivalent of the 6th largest nation on earth. Christian college kids still quit on church, but they no longer return en masse once they have their own families as they once did. In fact, George Barna claims that only 4% of young people under 30 regularly attend church.
What if these numbers are inaccurate, which is entirely possible. What will it mean for church attendance in Denver, Cincinnati or Boston in 2030 if the correct number of people in their 20s who regularly attended church in 2013 was actually 16% rather than 4% and the number of post-Christian Americans was 50% rather than 60%? That would obviously be good news because16% of the twenty somethings of today will be church members and leaders in 2030 rather than 4%. Would it be a game changer for the churches of the future? Probably not. “ It’s the dismal tide” is what the two older and frightened sheriffs agreed over coffee in the movie “ No Country for Old Men.”
Now hang on a second. There are tens of millions of Americans who attend church in some regular way. Tens of thousands of churches will continue to exist and serve God going forward into the future and that is a very good thing. However, these troubling fears continue to rumble beneath the surface of the vast Christian community in the US. Youth pastors may be obsolete in the future, or perhaps they will be an entirely new kind of apostolic missionary sent into the post-Christian American youth culture of 2030. In fact, that is a realistic expectation today. We need to recover sent-ness.
The churches have done a superb job of discipling an entire generation of young missionaries who believe they are called to create discipleship movements inside and outside of traditional church structures that fit the place where America is going. That place aint good, it truly is the dismal tide, but younger Christians aren’t really intimidated by that while their parents and pastors are really worried about the future of our country. Now send them; send them into that place where America is going. They will need you to stand firm with them. They don’t really know what they are going to face, but you do because while many things have changed, the challenges of a faithful life in Christ remain; people are still people. If our churches could adopt this sent-ness, it would change everything.
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