Posted on 12/29/2022 10:17:35 AM PST by SeekAndFind
It is one of many blessings God has given me.
At Church Answers, we hear from tens of thousands of churches, church leaders, and church members every year. We are truly blessed to have our “ear to the ground” to hear what is taking place among the estimated 350,000 congregations in America.
We take each piece of data (we call them “dots”) we receive and connect the dots to understand developments in the present that will become trends in the near future.
Here are ten of the most common developments we’ve discerned. They will likely become trends in 2023.
1. Local congregations will emphasize evangelism more than at any point in the past three decades. Church leaders understand they can’t lead a church to growth with cultural Christians (a true oxymoron) and transfer growth. If churches desire truly to make disciples, they must begin with evangelism.
2. The increase in the growth of diversity in congregations will be its greatest ever in 2023. Millennials see a monocultural generation as out-of-touch. Gen Z cannot imagine anything monocultural, especially a church.
3. The year 2023 will be a record year for church adoptions. An adopted church is a congregation that comes into the family, care, and authority of another, usually healthier, church. Of course, more churches will seek adoption because they are about to die and close.
4. More churches will have specific global partners. Churches in America will seek to partner with churches in other nations, particularly where the gospel is spreading the most rapidly. This trend is more than an increase in mission giving; it is an intentional and strategic partnership with a specific church or churches.
5. The time between pastors for churches will be longer than ever. I can remember when a long-term interim period was twelve months. Today, many churches have these interim periods for two to three years or more.
6. The number of interim pastors will be greater than ever. This trend is obviously a corollary of trend number five. Some of these interim pastors are preachers only. Others are considered “intentional interims” with consultive roles as well as preaching.
7. More churches will request consultations than at any point in American church history. For example, we get ten times more requests now at Church Answers than we did just three years ago. Congregations are more willing or more desperate to seek outside help.
8. Church autopsies will be the fastest growing area of research in American churches. I wrote Autopsy of a Deceased Church in 2014 and the demand for the book began growing again in 2022. Thousands of churches have closed, and we are trying to discover the reasons for their death.
9. More pastors and staff will become bi-vocational and co-vocational. The latter term usually refers to those who chose to remain in the marketplace. Bi-vocational pastors are those who have work outside the church because their church could not compensate them with full-time pay.
10. More pastors and staff will get their theological and ministry training in the church. This trend has been growing the past decade and will continue to grow even more in 2023.
Yes, American churches have many challenges. But I see a lot of hope in the midst of these challenges.
My prayer is for your church to become a hope-filled congregation in 2023!
“3. The year 2023 will be a record year for church adoptions. An adopted church is a congregation that comes into the family, care, and authority of another, usually healthier, church. Of course, more churches will seek adoption because they are about to die and close.”
ransomnote: I was dismayed to learn that some of these adoptions feature the incentive of tax-free status in exchange for promises that all sermons will be submitted to the adopting church, and certain biblical topics will not be discussed.
1) bigger tv screens
2) fancier coffee bars
3) drag show communions
4) commercials during the sermon
5) color-in-the-line picture bibles
6) offering plates you can take money out of
7) usb hookups will be added to the pews
8) forgiveness will be racist
9) tithing to be based on your white privilege
10) Jesus will be considered gender-fluid
The young are very pro-sexual deviancy and pro-earth worship. Many churches will have difficulty surviving, much less growing, while confronting these sins. If they don’t confront them, they will cease to be churches.
I fear many young people will have to experience much worse before they are ready to turn away from wickedness to Christ.
Young people will be just fine. The same thing you said has been said about previous generations and most of us turned out fine.
In one sense there is a big difference. In previous generations, there was still a sense of taboo attached to different forms of sexual deviance. While present in society, deviance was not openly paraded, much less mandated as a form of obligatory celebration. Today it is both paraded and celebrated, and if you demur participation, you are ostracized. This part, the forcible genuflection to deviancy-at-large upon punishment of excommunication, is new to this generation.
#1 isn’t going to happen
Good luck with the rest
Many young Jews are returning to YESHUA!
American will continue to grow more secular
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