Pondering the Future of the Church

This week I offered to make a presentation at our local Baptist Network's annual meeting on the topic, "The Future of the Church." It seems a bit presumptuous of me, I know, to think that I - or anyone else for that matter - can offer an assessment of the future of the church! Yet I did just that and primarily because church health, church decline and student choices have been foremost on my mind lately. So in the next few entries, I want to reflect on this issue, in part to justify my reasons for making this attempt and also simply to clarify my thinking.

The future of the church.

In the nineteenth century, John Nelson Darby, among others, generated a mindset among Protestant believers that increased an expectation of the immanent return of Christ. This expectation was fanned into a brush fire as culture became increasingly antagonistic to the institutional church and its doctrinal positions. As culture in the West became more secular in orientation through the twentieth century, preachers, theologians and general church membership began to "prepare for the rapture" and neglect the weightier aspects of the church's mission of evangelism and justice. But this very emotional expectation could not be readily maintained after the turn of the millennium as it became obvious that Jesus' return, though immanent, did not progress according to our human calendar.

Thus, the church in the West began a process of introspection and reformation that continues to this day. The older mindset of immanent departure is slowly giving way to a younger mindset focused on an authentic Trinitarian experience and service to the causes of justice, love and peacemaking. This transition has created a "tempest in a teapot" for the institutional church in the West - who now views the future with great skepticism and even pessimism.

The future of the church.

The future of "the" church really isn't in doubt. The church of Jesus Christ, the Bride of Christ, the Body of Christ will exist into eternity as such until Christ returns. (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 / Revelation 19-21). The church will exist because it is the body of Christ and as such, has a task on earth to engage and complete. This is the testimony of faith and history. The question is, "In what form will the church exist?"

The future of the church.

Modern Christians in the West (America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, etc) became complacent in the institutional Church. In the last 40 years, biblical and theological literacy declined tremendously as technology increased and as the modern trust in science as savior became increasingly commonplace. The Puritan and Pietist zeal found in the early years of the Reformation was in full retreat in the face of the modern scientific onslaught. The only "fire" to be found in the Western Church was found in the Pentecostal movements as birthed initially in the Azusa street revivals of the early twentieth century. This temporary fire was "bleed over" from the Great Awakenings of the 18th century, but slowed tremendously when the millennial fervor over the immanent return of Jesus waned. In the aftermath of the crisis the institutional church faced in the 1960s and 70s, the church in the West became a "seeking" or an "emerging" church. Disillusioned by the theological failures and liturgical irrelevance of the modern, institutional church, Christians in Western culture began trying to resuscitate or even create more viable models of the church based upon scripture and tradition. Thus, the "non-denominational" church, the "seeker-sensitive" church, the "purpose-driven" church and the "emerging" church burst upon the scene. Nevertheless, a great - though aging - remnant of the modern institutional church remains entrenched in its beliefs and practices. And so the Church in the West, particularly the English speaking West, is mired in transition and marked by conflict as it tries to figure out who and what it is. There are no easy answers.

Yet, as contemporary Christians learn to navigate tempest of postmodern culture, and, become biblically and theologically informed; then the church will emerge again as the living body of Christ. As the living Body of Christ, the church is people - indwelled by the Spirit, focused on Christ and giving glory to the Father. We are drawn together by the Spirit to join in the mission of Christ in this world. How that will look.... well, is yet to be determined.

We will continue again next time in this trajectory.

Let me know what you think!

Grace and peace...