What is Trending (pt 2)

Dear Pastors

What is Trending (Pt 2)

Last week I shared some responses to a post I wrote in early January on what I see are trends that are impacting on local church life. Today I would like to dive a bit deeper into four trends whose impact is likely to become greater and therefore require more of us to respond to.

1. Bi-vocational Ministry¹. This is not new. It’s been around a long time in the small church sector. But here’s the difference now. A growing number of churches around the 80-100 mark in regular attendance that even 5 years ago could afford a full time Pastor can no longer as congregations in all denominations in NZ will continue to decline in the number of adults that can or are willing to donate their tithes and offerings. Already I have noticed that a growing number of churches are looking into ways to find alternative income streams to meet operational expenses. Last year I heard of many pastors doing it tough, financially. When a pastors salary in a smaller church makes up about 60-80% of the total expenses then pressure will often be brought to bear on him or her to go bi-vocational. This is never easy for two reasons.
   • Part time work is generally low paid work and can be very mundane unless you can score a p/t job in your previous vocation.
   • Very few people can juggle two jobs over the long haul.
     
     Personally, I see no easy answer to this. It may force churches to get serious about a more ‘shared’ model of leadership so that there are less demands on one single individual to do ‘everything’. But as at now that Is not yet the case largely due to the fact that it is now much harder to recruit committed volunteers over the long haul.
2. Eco Church. As climate change science is now main stream there is going to come a call from Gen X, Millennials and Gen Z for churches to do two things I believe:-
   • Pastors will need to talk about this a lot more and develop a robust ‘creation care’ theology.
   • For our churches to join the Eco Church movement. That is to say that our church buildings are at least carbon neutral and that as a local community we are applying ‘green’ practices. This is going to be I think a particularly interesting space to watch. But here is one idea. Could Churches Be Prime Locations for EV Charging Stations? One Company Thinks so.
3. Progressive Theology. I think this is here to stay and will need some clear headed responses from the conservative evangelical wing of the church. As long as I can remember there has been a liberal-conservative divide. But I think there is a difference in the more recent iteration.
   • Historically Christians of a liberal persuasion were pretty much always liberal. It was up front and well known. Over the last I guess 20 years or so vast numbers of formally conservative evangelical believers (mostly in the Western world) have been ‘deconstructing’ and end up in what is now a very broad tent called Progressive Christianity. Sometimes these folk walk away from faith altogether.
   • The new progressive theology can be harder to discern. Much of it sounds plausible on first hearing it but in reality is a departure from orthodoxy and biblical Christianity.
     I think, increasingly, pastors are going to be called upon to state very clearly where they stand (and the church they lead) on doctrines like, the inerrancy of the Bible, substitutionary atonement, heaven and
     Hell, salvation, sin and the doctrine of humankind. Increasingly they will need to ‘declare their hand’ and have a well-developed apologetic as to where they stand on marriage, gender, bi-culturalism, climate change, the role of Government and beginning and end-of-life issues etc. Many Christians are wanting some guidance on how to think biblically about these and other pressing issues of our day.
4. Glamour and Glitz. The day of the fancy Sunday morning service with a night club vibe and a slick ‘life enhancement’ talk is over. My goodness if there is one complaint I hear more and more are phrases like, “Is this all there is” or “who are you trying to impress?” or “please teach the bible”. I know this may sound a bit harsh but pastors please understand so many of the ‘DONES’ (Christians who have left the Church but are still strong believers) have been saying this a very long time. We would do well to listen. That said, I want to quickly say this in case I am misunderstood. I absolutely believe in in-person corporate worship services. Further, we would do well to spend more time carefully crafting these services, being much more mindful of people’s time and where the preaching/teaching is biblical, creatively presented and yes….relevant to Monday morning.

What do you see trending?

Blessings
Alan

¹ Another pressure on church finances that has become more pronounced is more money needed for the upkeep of church buildings and in a growing number of cases rebuilds and renovations that are years and years overdue.