Is your church ready for the future?

Churches and denominations have spent a lot of time in recent weeks talking about what the future holds for the church when this pandemic is over. It's probably a good discussion to have, but it misses an important point that many are overlooking. With or without the challenges brought about by the pandemic, the church is moving into difficult waters as it is going to be confronted with a growing number of challenges in the coming years. These have nothing to do with church structures or systems, They have everything to do with the culture in which we will minister.

I just finished writing a new book this week with the working title of Is Your Church Ready for Ministry in the Coming Decade? I am now in the process of contacting publishers and literary agents to see if anyone is interested in the book.

The book looks at some of the issues that I believe the church will have to confront in the next decade if it wishes to be relevant to our culture. Many of these are not new issues, but they are issues the church has either refused to address in the past or failed to adequately address. Many of them are quite disruptive, even now, and will become more so in the near future.

Some of the issues I mention are the growing divide between races in this country, the church's response to the mental health crisis affecting the nation, poverty issues, widespread addiction, the breakdown of the traditional family, the growing acts of violence sweeping the nation, sexual and gender issues, the level of distrust of authority in both government and the church, including that directed towards God and the Scriptures, and the increasing attacks on religious freedom that we are experiencing.

For too long the church has sat around wringing its hands complaining about these things but doing little about them. For instance, a study of 500 churches 98.4 percent of the pastors said they knew of people in their congregation dealing with some form of mental illness or disorder. Yet, only 12.5 percent of these pastors reported their churches ever discussed mental health issues openly.

A similar discrepancy exists when it comes to race issues. In another study only four percent of white Protestants identified racism as an issue while one-third of African-American Protestants said it was an issue. Of that number, twenty-five percent said it was the most important issue Christians needed to address. It's hard to fix a problem if people are not aware there is a problem.

Many of the challenges mentioned in the book are not new. In fact, the first-century church faced many of these same issues as has the church throughout history. But, these problems are getting worse, and as our population continues to increase I believe they will become even greater problems in the future. My other concern is that much of the church isn't ready to face them. In fact, we've often tried to avoid them or we've addressed them using the wrong tactics.

I try to offer solutions that will honor both biblical truth and grace. Sometimes, the solution can be a little messy and make some folks in the church uncomfortable, but I believe they offer the best opportunity to help people find real answers to their situations.

Please pray with me that this book will find a publisher. I believe it contains a much needed message for the church as it prepares to minister in the coming years.