Did you attend church in 1994? What do you remember?
I attended First Assembly of God in Binghamton, NY. As an elementary school student, the schedule laid out simply for me. I went to Royal Rangers, a ministry for boys, on Wednesday while my parents went to a service. On Sundays, we attended church as a family at 8:30am and then I went to Sunday school at 10am and children’s church at 11am. Then the whole family returned for Sunday night service together.
You might have had a similar or different experience. Either way, the world has changed in the last thirty years. Very few people used the internet then. We didn’t have smart phones. We were on the cusp of making the shift from Sunday school to small groups.
I don't think we reflect enough on how church ministry and discipleship has changed in the last thirty years. Often, we would rather look to the playbook of the past than prayerfully considering how the culture has changed and how God might be moving.
I want to offer you four future factors for the church about discipleship that you will want to reflect on as a leader as you carry out Jesus’s call to follow Him.
1. Centralized to Decentralized
Many churches in 1994 embraced a row of chairs model of discipleship. You came to the building for a sermon, teaching, or message. But, thirty years later, small groups are here to stay. You can go to Barna and Lifeway to see that Gen Z desires the circle of chairs rather than rows. In my ten years at Browncroft Community Church, we want from mid-sized ministry groups meeting at the church building every night to now having 80 small groups meeting on campus and in homes. Through training and equipping small group leaders we have decentralized discipleship. In turn, people are learning to live missionally and sharing life together in their groups. Content used to lead to relationship. The advent of the small group has shifted to relationship leading to a desire for content.
2. Events/Meetings to Videos/Podcasts
The arrival of digital content has challenged our assumptions about gathering people together and delivering content. It’s precious when people come together, so the future of church needs to take into consideration how teaching and content outside of the Sunday morning service can be engaged through podcasts or videos. You now have the opportunity to share so much outside of the actual gathering. In many ways, creating digital content invites the in-person gatherings to become more participatory rather than focused on gathering to listen to a speaker.
3. Single Income to Dual Incomes
I grew up in a home where my Mom stayed home and my Dad worked. I serve the church as a pastor and my wife owns a mental health practice. If you go to the department of labor, you will find rising statistics for dual income families. On top of that, individuals are delaying marriage and having kids at later ages. It’s worth asking the question, “How are these trends influencing how we minister?” It calls into question the need to develop more leaders to disciple individuals. It frames how we pray and support small groups. It’s a reminder we’re not doing church in 1994 anymore.
4. Programmatic, Produced Events to Organic, Personal Events
My friend Gage and I stumbled upon a community gathering at a restaurant on the first Friday of the month. I send out a calendar invite where we have a group of anywhere from 4-12 people. At least twice a month someone is on my back porch or I am on someone else’s back porch. Why does this matter? I don’t think the future of ministry is the large produced program like a bacon lumberjack pancake breakfast for men. Nothing against men’s breakfast’s, but to a culture that’s lonely and has been advertised to their whole lives, more and more they’re looking for an organic, personal event. What if instead of spending six months planning a conference, we encouraged 10 individuals to host 6 people at their house?
You might not agree with these, but my hope is to get you thinking about how ministry has changed and maybe ask how simplifying things might actually reflect the values of Jesus and reach a culture who desperately wants to know Jesus.
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By Peter Englert, Adult Ministries Director at Browncroft Community Church