Before you know it we will enter 2020, a new decade that will be filled with opportunities and challenges for our churches and those who lead them. No one knows what the new decade, and those following it, will bring, but I think it is safe to say that we will see challenges that our churches in the West have not seen before.
It is no secret that many people do not like the church very much. Like one book in my library reminds us, They Like Jesus but Not the Church: Insights from Emerging Generations. The church does not find many fans today, especially among young people. Many traditional churches find themselves getting grayer and smaller every year, and I'm not sure that will change for many of them.
We see tighter restrictions placed upon churches and freedom of worship imposed by courts and local governments, and that is likely to increase in the days ahead. Some churches find it difficult to get building permits to relocate or expand their buildings. Christian values are increasingly rejected by school boards, courts, local governments and other organizations as preference is regularly given to those who hold different values. I don't see this improving as a new decade emerges either. In fact, it is likely to get worse.
I believe there will also be tremendous opportunities for churches in the coming decade, however. More and more people are going to realize that the lifestyles they are living and the worldviews they have been holding are not, and cannot, provide them with the quality of life they seek. Many of these individuals are going to be seeking a different path than the one they have been on, and some of them will find out that path leads them to Jesus Christ. Those churches that are living out the Great Commission will find the fields are truly white unto harvest.
The question for every church is are they prepared for both the challenges and the opportunities that will be before them in this new decade? One way to answer that is to ask yourself how is your church different as we close out this current decade from what it was in 2010? Has your church grown in the past 10 years, or is still talking about how great it was in 1950? What did your church specifically do to fulfill the Great Commission in the past 10 years, and what was the results of those efforts? As you look at your current members would you say that the majority of them grew in their faith in the past 10 years? What new ministries were begun in the past decade that brought positive change to your church? How many new leaders rose up from within your church in the past 10 years? What new vision for ministry has triggered excitement among your church in the past decade?
Sometimes the greatest predictor of the future is what has happened in the past. If a church has drifted along for the past 10 years it is likely to drift through the next decade as well, doing nothing but complaining about how difficult things are. If a church has actively been engaged in ministry during the current decade it is more likely they will do the same in the next one.
Your church is what it is today because of decisions it made ten and even twenty years ago, and your church will be ten and twenty years from now what it decides today it will be. Choices have consequences. You can be defeated by the challenges or you can be energized by the opportunities. You can drift along hoping nothing really bad happens or you can proactively have a positive impact on the people in your community. The choice is yours.
A new decade is coming. You might as well get ready for it.
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