Why the Future Matters for the Church

This article was originally written for a magazine that focuses on the ministry of church Deacons, but could very easily stand as an overview of why I feel thinking about the future is so incredibly important for today’s church.  The article, written in March of 2008, is now in publication but was heavily edited for space in the actual magazine.  I have been given permission to republish the article here, in it’s entirety.  Due to the editing it is a very different article than saw print and, per the editor-in-chief’s request, should not be associated with the originating magazine.  I am very thankful for the opportunity to publish the article in it’s entirety here.

The day-to-day responsibilities of a Deacon can change from church to church.  Some deacons may be involved in benevolence, while others may be making administrative decisions.  The Deacon Handbook for First Baptist Church, Garland, Texas (pdf), lists three of the most important responsibilities a Deacon might have:    

1. To lead the church in the achievement of its mission
2. To minister the Gospel to believers and unbelievers
3. To care for the church’s members and other in the community

One underlying element to these responsibilities is the need to not only take care of the needs of the Church and her people today, but their needs for tomorrow and the years to come.  To fully appreciate the responsibility of deaconship, one must consider that the church will always need leadership and must think about how today’s missions and ministries will impact not only your congregation, but the generations to come.

The trouble for many church leaders is finding productive ways to anticipate the future.  We know the ending – the Bible contains a wonderful book of prophecy for end times – but the time between the resurrection of Christ and His second coming is full of years and advances the disciples never anticipated.  The fact that I can download the Bible over a cell phone network (nevermind the fact that I can readily read one or purchase one) would have confounded even the writers of the letters that make up the New Testament.  The availability of the Gospel is exponential to 2000 years ago; as is the indecency of pornography, the villainy of murder and the diversity of world religions.

And yet, the writings and inspired truths of the New Testament speaks to us even today.  The works and morality thereof were timeless.  The seeds sown 2000 years ago were written not only for the present but also for the future.  The question that follows then, is simple: what are we doing today to prepare for the future?

Kevin Kelly, founder of Wired magazine, writes of his concern for Christianity’s lack of concern for the future in his article, The Next 1000 Years of Christianity:

In a fast-paced time when the future overruns the present every day, when the young spend more time inhabiting what is coming than what is happening, when every corporation and secular institution has a future strategy, the only large entity lacking alternatives for the future is the Christian church. It is still surrendering the future to science fiction authors, corporations, new agers, technologists, and all who understand that we make the future by inventing it.

If we have the freedom to consider what Christianity and the world might look like for our children, should we not consider our children’s children?  Our great-great grandchildren?  

According to research by David Aikman, former Beijing Bureau Chief for Time Magazine, “at the present rate of growth in the number of Christians… it is possible that Christians will constitute 20 to 30 percent of China’s population in three decades” (Jesus in Beijing, 2003, 287).  Taking that number the next step, Kelly clarifies that “given the speed of church growth in Korea and China, and extending that another 500 years, by the year 2500 the world might identify Christianity as primarily an Asian thing” (2007).  In other words, given the current trends, in just a few short generations Christianity will be completely different.

Two of the leading thinkers in the area of studying the Future are Dr. Peter Bishop and Andy Hines, editors of “Thinking about the Future.”  In their text, Bishop and Hines explain that

the purpose of looking to the future is to understand the possibilities ahead in order to make more informed decisions in the present.  Good futures work reduces the risk of being surprised or blindsided.  It can build momentum towards more favorable pathways and away from unfavorable ones (2006, 29).

Bishop and Hines have a clear goal for their futures studies – to help make a better today.  Can we as church leaders make a better today by considering tomorrow?

Bishop and Hines, as a part of the Association of Professional Futurists, have outlined a fairly robust method for considering the future and applying it to the present.  The first – and perhaps most important step – is the framing of the topic of study.  This article has, so far, been mostly framing a perspective about the need for Christianity and the future.  We can consider now that Christianity will change within the next 500 years and, hopefully, we see a need for understanding the impact of those changes today.

Being a part of the framing process is one of the most influential responsibilities to culture that a Christian can undertake.  Many culture shifting conversations and issues are handled by niche strategists and specialist in their area, defining questions and issues to any topic before it become mainstream.  Years of research proving the cloning was feasible we undertaken before the reality was ever covered by Time magazine.  GLBT groups were fighting legal battles for decades before MTV launched the LOGO network.  There are conversations that are nearing public consumption today (pedophilia, cybernetic enhancements, the church of Scientology) that many Christians are oblivious to and have not been involved in.  By not being a part of these conversations – by not protecting the future 20 years ago – our lives are impacted by the cultural shifts that the church was too late to have any real influence over.

After setting up perspectives and research on any given topic to frame it, there are three steps for research to any formal forecasting: scanning, forecasting, and visioneering.  Scanning is the process of putting the pieces together of separate stories.  For example, connecting the rising cost of gas and the geographical locations of churches may lead to planning for a multi-site church campus.

Forecasting deciding upon what the possible futures may be for your given topic, while visioneering is interpreting what implications that future might have.  If China becomes the seat of Christianity, what does that mean for America?  If China is still persecuting the church in 2500, will that mean that the majority of Christianity will be a part of the persecuted church?  Are we preparing ourselves and our children for the reality of religious persecution?

Finally, a formal strategic document would contain two sections on resolution: planning and acting.  If we determine that the future is one we should be prepared for or should alter, how do we go about doing so?  And, if we have a plan, how do we communicate and follow through with that plan?

Enlightened with the idea that we can – and should – think about the future puts a burden on us as leaders in our local church.  What are the plans we have made to impact our community not simply today, but in thirty years from now.  Will you have resigned as Deacon and enjoy the senior adult ministries at your church, or will you have moved on to some other community where someone else is (hopefully) thinking about your future even now?  Will we fear for our children on topics we chose to ignore today when they rear their ramifications in a few short decades, or will we be able to smile at the alternatives we planned and prepared for?

Wendell Bell explained the pain of not thinking about the future rather eloquently:

Many human capactities in any society remain undeveloped and unrealized, that is, most people never develop more than a small fraction of their potential for learning and innovation.  They generally fail to see the possibilities for change within themselves.  As adults, people tend to trudge through lifechanged tot he routines of everyday behavior that they have learned, oblivious to the more challenging and desirable alternatives open to them.  This is at least partly because most of them have not been taught to look at the world as it could be.  They have not been taught to search beyond the cultural conventions and manners of their own groups for possibilities either for their own personal futures or for their society’s future. (Foundations of Futures Studies, 2007, 77)

If we as leaders are given the responsibilities to lead the church in the achievement of its mission, to minister the Gospel to believers and unbelievers, and to care for the church’s members and other in the community, then we must not simply think about today and tomorrow, but of next year and the next generation.  We must continue to strive to search beyond “cultural conventions” and look beyond our “own groups” and find, and prepare, a future for the Church and her members.

The Near-Future of the Bible (BibleTech:2009, Collide Magazine, and more)

At the end of March (the 27th and 28th, to be exact), Logos Bible Software will be hosting the BibleTech:2009 Conference.

I will be presenting at the conference on a subject that, I feel, is of the utmost importance: the Near-Future of the Bible.  You can check out my workshop’s description here.

Lately I have been doing a lot of thinking on the impact of the future on the Bible, and how the two will intersect.  As an introduction to my thoughts, I recently wrote an article for an upcoming issue of Collide Magazine.  I was able to interview a number of simply brilliant people for that article, and love the fact that my editor gave me a few (hundred) extra words to hash out my thoughts.

I’ve got a couple of other future-thinking things that I’m working on, but nothing to say about just yet.

On a personal note, getting these opportunities is – quite simply – a dream come true.  Anyone who knows me or follows this blog would know that I’ve taken classes on Futures Studies, that I’ve written pieces of fiction on the far-off future of the Bible (that I still need to complete…), and that I sometimes struggle with backtracking to the present when I see the implications of the future.  To have the trust of people not only here at LifeWay, but at Collide, Logos and elsewhere that my ideas have worth and merit is a blessing beyond my expectations.

The hardest part is moving ideas from percolating in my head to relevant concepts for consumption; please continue to pray for me that my words and energies might be constructive and provoking rather than meaningless dribble.

Somedays you just want to cheer and yell and be happy; some days you stand in amazement at the opportunities that lie before you.

New Deacon Magazine Article: Why the Future Matters

I think one of the most edifying things for a writer is seeing their words in actual print.  I get giddy with excitement whenever something I wrote shows up in my mailbox for me to thumb through.  LifeWay’s magazine cycle is WAY ahead, so typically you’re writing almost three quarters ahead of time.  This article that I wrote for Deacon Magazine, “Why the Future Matters” then got delayed an issue, so this article has been waiting for just over a year to see print.  Welcome to the world, little sliver of my thoughts; I hope your readers like you!

Recovery.gov

Facebook, Twitter, and blogging have led a new generation of humanity to find a new, digital way of embracing community: transparency. And now, Barack Obama has said that this transparency will spread to the government, with the creation of recovery.gov. Recovery.gov will be a site that will allow people to view how government from Obama’s stimulus plan money is being spent. You can see the announcement here.

So here’s the question: is your church willing to be this transparent? Could your church have its budget listed on it’s website? Would you church leaders have the courage to use a site like Mint.com to track it’s spending – and then make each and every penny available to be seen by it’s members? One of the most shocking things to me in my church life was when I learned that our pastor had to go without a paycheck for a few weeks because our giving was below the budget we had planned. I learned this a year or more after the fact; it hurt me, because if I had known, I wonder if I would have been able to eat out one less meal and give a few more dollars above my regular tithe.

Would your church benefit from being transparent? Would your community see the struggle of planning a church budget, and realize how important their contributions are? Or would the community rebel against the budget, and decide that the pastor doesn’t need an assistant or such an extensive book collection? As we continue to allow technology interface with our transparency, can the church be a leading example of how to communicate and work through the needs of the questionable economic climate? Please discuss: what technologies could churches use to help make their budget more transparent, without giving away access to any confidential information (salaries, account numbers, passwords, etc)?

Made Something So Small

I’m barely a man, and in no way am I ready for this.

What Earthly wisdom, skills and crafts can I teach this child of my king.  My God.

What if I raise my hand in anger?  Will he strike back with the power of a thousand rushing seas?  If I don’t spare the rod, will he spare me for the pain I cause him?  How can I ever seek to tell him he did something wrong; will he ever anything wrong?

Will he anger?  Will his eyes burn with the heat of Elijah’s burning chariot?  Will I succumb to the awe and majesty of the tender flesh, falling to my knees, a weak and trembling father bowing before his rightful ruler?

Whose Child is this?  I took no part in the creation of his flesh, but my words and actions will imprint upon his mind and hands.  I can teach him how to build cabinets and crosses, but I have no hope to teach him how to rule nations or create worlds.  My life, my thoughts, my bride and all that is mine will be shadowed by the knowledge that this one child will change the world.

People will write books about him, live their lives for him, devote themselves to him.  And I?  I am just a carpenter.

Even the shepherds know to worship him.  How, how will I raise this newborn son?

There is a time in everyone’s life when they must rise above themselves.  Find that they are destined for something beyond this flesh and bone.  We think so highly of ourselves, hoping to connect with God and the angels, hoping for some supernatural response to our devotion and ritual.  And yet…

Here he is. In flesh in bone.  Something beyond, made something so small, so weak, so frail.

And I – I have been tasked with wiping his nose, holding his arms as he walks, and handing him his first hammer.  I must provide the mundane neccessities like food, shelter and warmth.  And he – he must change the world.

What child is this?  The babe, the son of Mary?

The Tragedy of MacBeth

A very special class project, from when I was about 16.  Enjoy!

Their Silence Was Finally Broken

Their silence was finally broken:

 

“Is this what you want?” she asked.

 

He didn’t respond right away.  He didn’t know if he would have the courage to let the words fall from his lips.  He opened his mouth, lips quaking, a gesture that he was going to respond.  When his throat trembled, he closed his mouth once more.  He wanted the silence back.  He didn’t want to feel the pain of his response, nor the humility of letting himself cry.  He was supposed to be strong in this moment.

 

“I don’t want you to die,” he finally whispered.

 

Four years ago, Autumn Yester had been diagnosed with spinal cancer.  After numorous surgeries, the doctors had made an unsettling discovery; Autumn’s ailment was not simply cancer.  It had combined with a bacteria to make it viral.  It was the first case of its kind; Autumn was patient zero.

 

In her private room, Autumn moved her hand softly towards the glass that seperated her from the rest of the world and – most importantly – her husband.  Ronald watched as time seemed to slow down, taking in her every movement.

 

The motion began at her wrist, with the beauty of a conductor’s skill, leading her arm toward the cold barrier between them.  Her fingers lifted up, inching towards the glass.  Her index finger rose above all others, penetrating the air ahead.  The angle between her forearm and bicept smoothly straighted, each moment lingering as a picture of grace in Ronald’s mind.

 

Her fingers touched the glass.

 

Ronald did not move.  He was afraid.  He knew that this was the image that would haunt his memories of this moment.  Grace and beauty even in the midst of seperation.  She was reaching out to him, even though they both knew they could never touch again.

 

“Please,” she asked.

 

Ronald stared.  He did not know what to do now.  He did not know how to support his wife, nor even what it meant to be a man.

 

Ronald and Autum were living in a hard time, chornologically.  Many illnesses had cures or workarounds, but not all.  People were living longer, but not always long enough.  Life was heading toward immortality for humanity, but it wasn’t quite there yet.  Autumn’s case was new and, as patient zero, she had been given two options:

 

“You can die,” offered their doctor, “and donate your body to science.  Or, we can place you in suspended animation.  We’ll be able to extract samples of your tissues as needed and, after we find a permant cure in other cases, we can revive you.  We cannot estimate how many years will pass before we will bring you out, however.”

 

That was when silence entered the room.

 

“It’s a cruel hope,” Ronald said.  “I don’t want you to die, but to simply freeze you… what happens when you wake up?  What if it’s twenty years from now?  You’ll still be you… but I’ll be older.  Life will continue for me.  What if it’s longer?”

 

“I’ll still love you when I wake up,” was her soft reply.

 

“Autumn.  I may not be alive when you wake up.”

 

Ronald hadn’t moved.  Autumn’s hand, pressed against the clear glass slowly crept downward as gravity took hold.  The weight of reality pressed upon her shoulders as she stiffened her back.  Her arm grew tired and her wrist was weak.  Her fingers no longer pressed against the glass as a means for embrace but instead struggled to keep her body held up.

 

She was about to crumble.

 

In a flurry of activity doctors and nurses rushed to sanitize themselves – and, perhaps more importantly, protect themselves – trying to break into her seclusion, but Autumn did not break contact from Ronald’s eyes.

 

She fell to her knees, mustering her strength to say one final goodbye to this man she had loved so dearly…

 

but the words, they did not come.

Beth Moore’s Esther Featured on iTunes Main Page

I’ll be honest… I’m a bit giddy about this.  Notice anything special about the “New Releases” tab in iTunes this week?

 

Esther on iTunes New Releases

 

 

 

Esther, by Beth Moore, is sitting there with Nickelback, Beyonce, David Cook and, with quite the juxtaposition, Ani DiFranco.  This is the first time anything LifeWay has put onto iTunes has gotten featured, and I’m pretty excited about it.

I remember when we first started uploading things to iTunes (back in 2006) how excited I was to even be able to just be able to install the iTunes Producer app.  And, while I knew that 4 Cool Carols 4 Cool Ways (LifeWay’s first iTunes album) wasn’t about to set the world on fire, I knew that we were heading down a path to be able to have a voice in the world of digital media.  While many Christian publishers have gotten to the front page of iTunes many times before much earlier… I feel a lot of validation in my work the past few years to see us finally there.

It’s quite the month of milestones for me in regards to the digital downloads here at LifeWay; the simultaneous release of Beth Moore’s Esther as a print product and digital download (on both iTunes and LifeWay.com), hitting over 1000 digital products available on LifeWay.com, and the first ever HD content released from LifeWay being a digital download.

I’m honored to have been a part of these milestones at LifeWay and having been a part of helping create and distribute truly life-changing resources to the digital sector of today’s culture.  It’s a great feeling to close out the year and know that a good work has been done.

An Hour and Twenty-Two Minutes of My Thoughts on Digital Publishing

I somehow totally missed talking about this on my blog.

A few months ago, I was invited to speak at the ECPA’s PUBu event.  The ECPA is the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association.  The Publishing University event is strictly for a publishing audience, with workshops designed to instruct and share ideas of what’s going on in the publishing space.  I was asked to lead two workshops:

1) Consumer Interaction with Digital Devices and the Creative Commons

2) Moderate a teen panel on their habits and use of technology

In putting together the Digital Devices/Creative Commons presentation, I was given two goals: introduce the attendees to a variety of devices and introduce them to Creative Commons (so please note, my techno-savvy friends: much of the content here will be introductory to you.  You can skip to the end where I briefly get to talk about the future of publishing.  Maybe a full presentation on publishing futures next year?).  Digital devices and the Creative Commons are two very disparate goals.  As I was putting it together, however, I think I was able to meld the two into a fairly informative presentation.

It is, to be honest, quite the lengthy presentation (and one that I had to rush towards the end as we were running out of time).  I’ve gotten permission from the ECPA to post the presentation, in it’s entirety, here on the blog.  Feel free to watch some of it (or the whole thing, if you think I’m awesome).  You can download the actual PowerPoint presentation here.

Considering Psalm 142

I complain.

I moan, groan and embrace my pride with words of discontent as I forget the blessings and honor heaped upon me.  I do this to foreshadow my true prayer, in hopes that it might persuade an all-knowing and all-powerful God to look up with pity, favoring that human emotion I know so well instead of simply letting Him love me.

Only after I show how weak, troubled, broken, defeated and depressingly human I am do I tell him my true troubles.  And yet… He loves me.

Whe I feel lost and ruined you lift up my chin, and you set my eyes to truth.

And even in that truth, I find despair!  Oh!  The cruelty!  People are against me!  People want to harm me!  All around is lies and pain!  I see no safety.

Until I cry to You.

 

Listen, please.  Let me be foolish and in pain.  And then, please, set me free so I can love your truth. Then, then I can bless You and be blessed.