I am writing this article in
early 2004. Most likely I won’t be here in 2104—100 years from now—to read
it. I wonder what people will think who might read it in 2104. Will they feel
the article was timely, appropriate, and correct? Or, might they feel I was a
“false prophet” when I wrote it and none of the things I wrote about came to
pass? Only time will tell…
No, I won’t be here
in my present mortal state to be a part of the Church at the end of the 21st
century. But, I am here at the beginning of this momentous era, and I want to
share some thoughts with you about where I predict the 21st century Church is
heading. For the most part, I will be focusing on the Church in North America
and Europe, but will also consider the worldwide Church as a whole.
I read and hear a lot of
speculation since the turn of the 21st century about what might happen to the
Church during the next 100 years—and beyond. Some are saying it’s the era of
the mega-church. Some are saying the Church must go underground in order to
survive. Others are saying, “We don’t need to worry about the future of the
Church; after all, it’s going to be raptured any day now.” Still others are
saying rich and colorful liturgy and sacramental tradition will draw to Church
those people who have lost their spiritual moorings. And so it goes.
I hesitate to add some of my
own thinking—one more viewpoint—about the future of the Church, but I feel my
viewpoint needs to be shared. I begin by stating I am a Futurist. All who
claim to be authentic Christians should be futurists. Sadly, however, many of
them are “pastists,” almost always looking back to the past to remedy Church
errors in an attempt to change the Church, modernize it, restore it, or purify
it. True, we need to look at the past, but only in attempt to see from where
God has brought a present generation as it heads into it’s future. This is
particularly true concerning the Church.
Here’s my generalized
definition of “Church” based on what the New Testament teaches: “Church is
everyone everywhere and everywhen in whom Jesus Christ lives in the ‘form’ of
God’s Spirit.” However, in this article I am narrowing down that definition and
thinking more of one portion of the Church—the present-day Church on earth,
specifically the western Church, that of North America and Europe during the
21st century.
Some feel the Church of the
past is a “model” or “pattern” we should go back to in order to reclaim
something (fire, purity, holiness, etc.) the Church has lost. I don’t see it so
much as a pattern as I see it being a storehouse of knowledge and experience
from which we can extract certain practices and behaviors, adapt them to the
present, and move toward our futures. We should all be futurists in that sense;
after all, we’re all going to live in our futures—from our next breath onward.
If the western Church continues
on its present course, I predict it will cease to exist as a recognizable,
visible entity by the end of the 21st century!
In George Washington's time,
only 17% of the colonial population attended traditional Sunday morning Church
services. In our day approximately 65% of the population claim they “regularly”
attend traditional Sunday morning Church services (not necessarily every Sunday
morning, however, but occasionally—enough to claim “regular” attendance). In
reality, on any given Sunday, far, far fewer North Americans are actually In
attendance at our traditional, Institutional Churches; yet, it is still a far
higher percentage of regular attendance than In the colonial era.
For the sake of making a point,
however, let's say that attendance on a given Sunday morning really Is 65%;
nevertheless, every available statistic and bit of historical evidence available
indicates that Christianity In America during colonial times was much, much
stronger and healthier than it is in the period in which we live even though we
have a much higher percentage of people who attend Church in our day.
In our era, millions of people
in North America claim to be committed Christians and yet the fact is we live in
a Post-Christian society in which historical, traditional, institutionalized
western churches are losing membership In alarmingly large numbers; even though
regular attendance remains relatively high right now, those numbers are
declining very rapidly—and will continue to decline markedly as we continue our
journeys into the 21st century. So far, nothing seems to be reversing that
trend.
Interestingly, recent
statistics report that great numbers of people who claim to be deeply committed
Christians are not dedicated to the traditional, institutional Church. It is
not a significant and meaningful part of their day-to-day and weekly lives.
They have forsaken virtually any type of regular, systematic Christian
fellowship, choosing rather to stay home on Sunday and “worship” with the
televangelists and television preachers and Church services.
This is causing a great deal of
isolation, insulation, and disenfranchisement among millions of western
Christians. They are losing any sense of the importance of Christians gathering
together regularly for fellowship, worship, and ministry. They are losing a
sense of corporateness, community, and “body life.” They are losing the
vitality of koinonia the Bible emphasizes as being imperative for Christian
maturity and witness.
We hear of many large and
growing mega-Churches centered in the large urban areas of North America. Yet
if we look at how they are growing we learn that most of their growth is
"transfer growth,” not new-conversion growth. And, almost as many people leave
the mega-Churches an enter them. In fact, many of them even have special
"back-door ministries" aimed at attempting to quench the flow of the thousands
of people who leave after attending for a brief period of time.
By contrast, in Africa, South
America, and Asia the mega-Churches are growing by new conversion growth,
however—which seems to be how God intends the Church to grow. Nevertheless, the
fastest growing, new-conversion-growth Churches in the world are in the nation
of China where the vast majority of Its 50 - 70 million Christians meet in homes
for worship, service, and ministry. It must be noted, too, that perhaps the
"healthiest" portion of the Church in the entire world today is the Chinese
Church which, for the most part, knows very little about traditional,
institutional Church worship and life.
There are significant reasons
for possibly believing that the traditional Church and its services as we know
them here in North America could cease to exist within a few generations. One
reliable researcher believes that over one third of all Church buildings in
America could lock their doors by the year 2025 simply because the traditional
Church has ceased to be a significant factor in the lives of most North
Americans (and Europeans). Added to that is the fact that many other types of
non-Christian religions and religious practices are growing rapidly in North
America, among them the Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, New Age Churches, and others
of a similar nature.
Speaking of Church
buildings, God has clearly stated for the past 2,000 years that He does not
“live” in buildings constructed by human beings. True, in the Old Covenant era
before the coming of Jesus Christ, God did live temporarily in various temples
he commanded to be built. But those temples of the Old Covenant era were merely
object lessons, temporary “pictures” God used to teach how he related to
people. He made it very clear throughout that era that for him to live in
buildings was merely temporary.
In 70 A.D. when that
era closed and the New Covenant era was ushered in, God no longer lived in
buildings in any way, shape or form. Instead, he made it abundantly clear that
humans were the temple of God—that his living presence is fully manifest in
humans (individually and corporately), not in buildings. Nevertheless, there is
a deeply rooted mindset among most Christians that we must gather together in
special church buildings in order to worship, minister, and serve God. That is
such a deeply held belief that even when people acknowledge that God does not
live in buildings constructed by humans, in most cases one hears a “Yes, but….”
Friends, there is no
“Yes, but….” God no longer lives in buildings made by humans. Period!
Yet,
because of the upbringing and basic mindset of large numbers of western
Christians, many continue to feel they must somehow remain connected to an
institutional, traditional Church which meets on Sunday mornings (or in some
cases, Saturday mornings) in order to consider themselves as being authentic
Christians. Many feel this way in the face of overwhelming biblical historical,
and current evidence to the contrary. One does not have to go to a traditional
Church building on Sunday morning in order to live a vital Christian life.
True, the Bible teaches one must be vitally connected to other Christians In
order to maintain a consistent Christian lifestyle, but that connection does not
have to be a Sunday morning connection in a building.
For the western Church to not
only survive but thrive, they must resume the practice of meeting primarily in
homes for worship, ministry, and service to their communities. It seems a given
that the basic unit of all societies is the home. Right now, I believe those
Christians who meet primarily in homes have a vague, subtle, undefined,
unarticulated feeling that they are merely performing some sort of experiment or
that they’re doing something that isn't quite “right" in terms of their choice
of "Church." A feeling that they’re outside the mainstream of Christianity or
that they border on being cultish. Or that in time what they’re doing might
become a failed experiment.
There's even a feeling that
they don't want to invite “normal” people to join in and participate in what
they’re doing, because normal people want to attend a "real" Church. They know
in their spirits and minds that is not the case, yet that mindset is still
present and nags at their consciousness telling them that somehow if they’re not
connected with the traditional, institutional Church building something is not
quite right with them. Once they see that meeting in homes just might be God’s
will for them, then they will see new growth and new Life flowing through them.
A personal example. I just
returned from visiting with a friend who is contemplating attending seminary in
order to become a parish priest in a mainstream Church. While attending
seminary, my friend will be required to attend a minimum of 5 church services
each week—in a church building, of course—in order to successfully complete
seminary. So strong is my friend’s mindset about “attending” church, he cannot
even begin to entertain the notion such attendance is not necessary in order to
maintain a Christian life. He acknowledges the New Testament clearly teaches
that God does not inhabit buildings made by human hands, but quickly follows
with a “Yes, but…”
God will soon begin changing
the mindset of millions of western Christians regarding Church. In fact, the
present mind of Christ—the will of God, if you please—in this matter is this:
all over the world—by the millions—Christians are turning to simple worship,
ministry, and services in their homes, just as the early Christians did for the
first 300 years or so of Church history—and as many thousands have done
throughout the intervening centuries of Church history.
In fact, those western European
Christians living around 300 A.D. who were forced by Imperial edict to begin
meeting in special Church buildings rather than in homes probably went through
the same slow change of mindset we are presently undergoing—in reverse! It
probably took them a while to feel they remained authentic Christians after they
began meeting in Church buildings with all the activities and events that began
to accompany such meetings—after hundreds of years of having met exclusively in
homes for worship, service, and ministry. Those early Christians would no doubt
understand and sympathize fully with the mindset displacement we're presently
experiencing.
Beginning in the nineteenth
century until approximately World War Two, the major Christian evangelistic and
missionary efforts to carry the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the rest of the world
originated in the United States and Europe. That is no longer true. The bulk
of global missions efforts now originate outside the Western Church.
In fact, the tables have
turned. After generations of missionaries from the Western Church evangelizing
unreached people in the remainder of the world, our western nations are now
becoming a major missions field for missionaries from other nations!
Moreover, many foreign
evangelists are now targeting North America and Europe as major unreached
evangelistic fields. It is one of the most significant paradigm shifts in all
of Church history!
In 1900, the majority of all
authentic Christians were found in North America and Europe. Now, 100+ years
later, two-thirds of all Christian believers are in Asia, Latin America and
Africa. For example, 100 years ago there were perhaps 500,000 authentic
believers in all of Latin America—from Mexico to southern Chile. Today, there
are 40 million Christian believers in Latin America!
The figures are even more
staggering in Asia and Africa. 30,000 people become Christians each day in
China. South Korea's population is over 50% Christian, contrasted with fewer
than 2% of them being Christians in 1900. In Japan, since 1980 hundreds of
thousands of her teeming millions have committed themselves to Jesus Christ.
Other Asian nations, even Viet Nam, are experiencing similar explosive growth in
new converts to Jesus Christ.
U. S. News and and World Report
(November 22, 1993) featured an article "The Lure of the Orient", stating that
the world's economic center of gravity has now shifted to Asia. So, too, has
the world's Christian center of gravity shifted to Asia (and to Latin America
and Africa). The Christian "world" we western Christians live in today is far,
far different from the Christian world of a few generations ago.
On one hand, this paradigm
shift is good news: the efforts of past generations of western missionaries have
succeeded; a large part of the non-Western world has been penetrated with the
Gospel of Jesus Christ. On the other hand, the Western Church is no longer
strong and healthy in relation to the Church in the rest of the world. In fact,
Dr David Yonghi Cho, pastor of the world's largest Christian Church (700,000+
members!) in Seoul, South Korea, stated recently that the Western Church is the
Korean Church's "ailing elder brother".
Let's consider a few more
examples of the Church's paradigm shift before we consider ways to treat the
ailing elder brother and restore it to its former health and vitality.
The Western Church is largely
middle class, middle aged, and conservative. By contrast, the Church in the
remainder of the world is poor, full of teenagers and young adults, and on the
offensive spiritually; this young, powerful Church is keenly attuned to the
stark realities of poverty, hunger, political oppression and the supernatural
realm.
The North American and European
Church has a monocultural view of the world and of reality. The thriving Church
of Asia, Africa and Latin America has a multi-cultural, pluralistic view of life
on planet earth, allowing them to be much more flexible, innovative, and
sensitive than the Western Church to the massive movements and strivings of
people worldwide—and is much more open to ethnic multiplicity.
North American and European
missions activities and methods are fast becoming relics of the past. In
contrast, the Church of Africa, Asia and Latin America has developed a 21st
century global vision and is taking the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the unreached,
using methods and logistics undreamed of by the West. In addition, they espouse
and practice a concept of "power evangelism" in ways generally unknown and
unrivaled by the Western Church of the past few generations.
What are some ways in which the
Western Church—the ailing elder brother—can be restored to health and vitality
and resume its rightful place on the world scene?
First, we need to welcome and
embrace those "foreign" missionaries and evangelists who are now streaming to
the West. We need to radically shift our own paradigms and come to understand
the reality of the sweeping changes which have occurred since World War Two.
The ailing elder brother must
understand it can no longer practice business as usual. The traditional Western
church which worships within four walls at 11 A.M. Sunday morning is no longer
worshiping and ministering to God and the masses of unreached people in an
effective manner.
For example (as already noted
above), the rapid growth of the so-called mega-churches of the West is
misleading. Reliable surveys disclose that 60 to 95 percent of the numerical
growth in churches that average 400 or more members is due to "transfer growth",
not to new conversions. In contrast, the explosive growth of Third World
mega-churches is due almost completely to the influx of new converts to Jesus
Christ.
Also, the Western Church can
survive—and thrive—only by abandoning traditional clergy and laity roles. The
clergy must equip and train so-called laypersons to do the full work of
ministry. Laypersons must be freed to minister in creative and ingenious ways
where the unreached are—not where we invite them to come once a week on Sunday
morning.
It is still true that most
personally meaningful events in the lives of ordinary Western citizens occur in
and at home; The Western Church must begin meeting primarily in homes for
worship, service, ministry, and evangelism!
Next, the Western Church must
yield full equality to women in ministry, leadership and service.
Finally, instead of exclusively
initiating and supporting more missions activities based in North America and
Europe, the Western Church must begin to support and assist more non-Western
missions activities. The Western Church must share its expertise, training and
resources with non-Western missions. We must serve them and become partners
with them, allowing them to assume full leadership while we remain in the
background as helpers and supporters.
Which nations must we begin to
aid and serve in their missions efforts? Currently (2004), the top ten sending
countries from the non-Western world are India, Nigeria, Zaire, Myanmar
(formerly Burma), Kenya, Brazil, the Philippines, Ghana, Zimbabwe, and South
Korea. I predict that in the not-too-distant future, China will top them all as
vast numbers of missionaries from the "Sleeping Dragon" begin to march forth to
carry the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the unreached peoples of the world.
Right now, those top ten
nations have the missionaries to send forth; we have the money to support them,
money which they will accept as long as we make no efforts to use the money to
control them. They even want us to work side by side with them as helpers,
co-laborers, educators, thinkers, and theologians as long as we don't seek to
control.
Can the Western Church humble
itself enough to serve in those capacities? After all, we're used to being in
charge. A significant paradigm shift, indeed!
The face of the worldwide
Church has changed—markedly and permanently. How should we respond to this
change? More than anything else, we must humble ourselves and become servants
to the non-Western Church. We must make room for power-full new Christian
leaders who don't look, act, talk, and think like we do. We must learn to submit
to their God-ordained leadership.
We must give. We in the West
have been tremendously blessed with enormous wealth in comparison to the
relative poverty of most people in the rest of the world. God holds us
responsible and accountable for our stewardship of that great wealth. We must
share it with our non-Western brothers and sisters who are carrying the old, old
story about Jesus Christ in such power-full new ways to the unreached people of
the world—including the unreached in North America and Europe.
Yes, there has been an historic
paradigm shift in the worldwide Church of Jesus Christ. No, we in the western
Church have not been left out nor left behind in God’s great plans and purposes
for humankind. But our role and status both at home and abroad have changed
forever. We must accept that change, adapt and fashion ourselves to it and
return to the mainstream of God's worldwide evangelistic and missions
activities.
We must remove our heads from
the sands of time, stand tall, and stride forward hand-in-hand with the amazing
new masses of non-western believers whom God has called to proclaim the Gospel
of Jesus Christ to the world as the 21st century marches rapidly into the future
of Church history.
Jesus said He will build his
Church and the gates of hell will not prevail against its forward movement.
It’s not the gates of hell we must be concerned with. Rather, we in the western
Church must ensure we are not the ones standing against the march of the
worldwide Church as it seeks to bring all the world’s people into God’s glorious
Church marching down the corridors of the 21st century!
© 2004
Bill Boylan
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