Transcript Go Forth into the World! Church and Culture in 21st Century David Schoen Congregational Vitality & Discipleship Local Church Ministries United Church of Christ Including material.

Go Forth into the World!
Church and Culture in 21st Century
David Schoen
Congregational Vitality & Discipleship
Local Church Ministries
United Church of Christ
Including material used with permission from Rick
Morse, V.P. New Church Ministry,
Christian Church (DOC) Church Extension © 2007
And Matt Carlisle, Founder, Big Heart Design
All rights reserved
Go forth into the World.
Matthew 28:29
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Jesus calls us to go
Go into the world
What is that world like that
Jesus sends us into
Culture in the 21st Century
IT‘S A WHOLE NEW
WORLD
Taxes
done in India
McDonalds
order taken 2 states
away
Hundreds
of marketing choices
in any area
Instant
communication
44% of
Christians change
traditions/denominations
60-80% Unchurched
So how much have things changed?
What does it all
mean to the Church?
Churches are stressed today:
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Generational
Challenges
Racial Ethnic
Change
Cultural factors
Church changes
More generations today than ever…
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Gen Z (0 -12)
Millennials (13-31)
Survivors (32-47)
Boomers (48-66)
Silents (67- 84)
Builders (85+)
Each generation has
unique events that
formed it, and a
different view of life.
Liberal or Conservative
Open to Diversity
Millenials and LGBTQ
Concerns
Religious Practice
Millenials do Believe
Generations and Technology
Millenials engaged in
Community Service
The reality is aging
congregations
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While the
younger cohort
equals 65% of
the population,
they are only on
average about
30% of existing
congregations
Growing Gaps in
understanding
Age of Protestant Populations
Total Population
Total Protestants
Nondenom Charismatic Churches
Nondenom Evangelical Churches
Church of God in Christ
Assemblies of God
American Baptist Churches
Southern Baptist Convention
African Methodist Episcopal
United Methodist Church
Ev. Lutheran Church of America
Disciples of Christ
Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod
Presbyterian Church in America
Episcopal Church in the USA
Presbyterian Church USA
United Church of Christ
Anglican Church
18-29
20
17
18
19
29
14
18
13
14
11
8
10
11
12
11
8
11
7
30–49
39
38
54
51
33
41
36
37
31
34
36
33
32
29
29
31
27
26
50-64
25
26
22
22
28
33
23
27
30
29
29
21
31
32
34
30
34
33
65+
16
20
6
8
10
12
23
22
25
26
27
35
26
27
25
32
28
35
Who is the New Generation?
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The urgency of our times should not be driven
by our decline in the United Church of Christ.
The urgency of our times should be a new
generation and population attuned to the values
of our UCC message and witness with great
potential discipleship.
There has been significant change
in our racial-ethnic population
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Racial ethnic
composition of most
neighborhoods has
changed since
1960
Many
congregations have
little or no affinity
with their neighbors
Racial ethnic growth must be
recognized
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Ethnic growth:
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In the next 50 years the
US Pop. Will grow by
50%. 90% of that growth
will be people of color
In 2000, Hispanics
became the largest racial
ethnic minority
The US has the 3rd largest
Spanish speaking
population
By 2050 there will be no
majority racial group
By 2100 Hispanics will be
the largest group
Racial Ethnic Birth Rates:
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African Am.
Native Am.
Asian Pac. I.
Hispanic
(Anglo 11.7)
16.1
13.8
16.5
22.6
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Per 1000
Most future growth will
be in Racial Ethnic
congregations
There is also a shifting attitude
towards “organized” religion
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65% of the US
population cannot
remember a time when
clergy were respected.
Denominational loyalty
means nothing to most
people.
The average person
believes that no
particular religion has
claim to truth.
Shifting attitudes towards faith
1990, 2000 & 2004 Percentage of the Population Attending
a Christian Church on Any Given Weekend
25.0%
20.4%
18.7%
17.7%
20.0%
15.0%
1990
10.0%
2000
2004
9.2% 9.1% 9.0%
7.2%
6.2%
3.9%
5.0%
5.5%
3.4% 3.1%
0.0%
Evangelical
Mainline
Catholic
Total
I Quit Being a Christian
Unchurched USA
•Since 1991 adult population
in the US grew by 15%.
•During that same period the
unchurched population grew
by 92%! 75 million US
adults do not attend church
'Unchurched' Americans
say church is 'full of
hypocrites' consider
Christianity to be more about
organized religion than
about loving God and
people, …“unchristian”.
New Generations –
Outsiders to Christian Faith
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Age
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61+
42-60
18-41
16-29
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% Outsiders
to Christianity
Population
23%
27%
37%
40%
12 Million
21 Million
34 Million
24 Million
44 percent -- agreed that
"Christians get on my nerves.“
Vast majority of young non-Christians
view Christianity as anti-gay, judgmental
hypocritical, unwelcoming, too political,
out of touch.
But 78 percent said they would be willing
to listen to someone who wanted to tell
them about his or her Christian beliefs.
Almost three-quarters -- 72 percent -agreed that God "actually exists“ and an
even larger percentage -- 86 percent -said they believed they could have a
good relationship with God without
church involvement.
Six Reasons Young Christians Leave
Church The Barna Group
http://www.barna.org/teens-next-gen-articles/528-six-reasons-youngchristians-leave-church
• Reason #1 – Churches seem overprotective.
• Reason #2 – Teens’ and twentysomethings’
experience of Christianity is shallow.
• Reason #3 – Churches come across as antagonistic
to science.
• Reason #4 – Young Christians’ church experiences
related to sexuality are often simplistic, judgmental.
• Reason #5 – They wrestle with the exclusive nature
of Christianity.
• Reason #6 – The church feels unfriendly to those
who doubt.
THE BIG MYTH
Young people will come back to church like they always
do. Reality: Some faith leaders minimize the church
dropout problem by assuming that young adults will
come back to the church when they get older, especially
when they have children. However, previous research
conducted by Barna Group raises doubts about this
conclusion. Furthermore, the social changes since 1960
make this generation much less likely to follow the
conventional path to having children: Mosaics (often
called Millennials or Gen Y) are getting married roughly
six years later than did the Boomers; they are having
their first child much later in life;
Postmodern Culture
and Church
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Christianity in North America has moved (or been
moved) away from its position of dominance
 loss not only of numbers
 but of power and influence within society.
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Rather than occupying a central and influential place,
North American Christian churches are increasingly
marginalized,
 in our urban areas they represent a minority
movement
 It is now a truism to speak of North America as a
mission field.
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Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America, Edited
by Darrell Guder, the Gospel and Our Culture Network
First the bad news…
“The church of
Jesus Christ in
the Western
world is in
terrible shape.”
Now the good news…
“The church of
Jesus Christ in
the Western
world is in
terrible shape.”
The Great Emergence
PHYLLIS TICKLE’S basis thesis is that
every 500 years, the Church goes
through a rummage sale, and cleans out
the old forms of spirituality and replaces
it with new ones.
Play Video
William McLoughlin
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Awakenings begin in periods
of cultural distortion and grave
personal stress, when we lose
faith in the legitimacy of our
norms, the viability of our
institutions, and the authority
of our leaders in church and
state. They eventuate in basic
restructuring of our institutions
and redefinitions of our social
goals.
Crisis of
Legitimacy
Transformation
The
Awakening
Cycle
Attraction
Cultural
Distortion
Vision
Crisis of Legitimacy
Individuals lose their bearings;
neurosis, psychosis, and
violence increase in prison
populations; family breakdown.
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Crisis of
Legitimacy
Cultural Distortion
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Cultural
Distortion
People conclude their problems are not
personal, but are the result of institutional
dysfunction; the prevailing order has failed;
ordinary techniques for handling social stress
no longer work; no agreement on solutions;
nativist/scapegoating movements develop at
this point; these people resist change and seek
to return to old ways.
Holy Hand Grenade!
Appearance of New Vision
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Vision
Individuals appear who
embody the cultural
crisis and begin to
articulate a new way of
being, new insights,
new understandings of
identity, and new moral
and ethical possibilities.
Typically these people
“shed new light” on
Attraction
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Attraction
Some people (often younger
generations) begin to “get it” and
begin to reorder their lives
according to the new way of life
articulated by the prophets;
innovation and experimental stage,
with both positive and negative
consequences in the search for a
new order. Revivals, conversions,
and emotionalism are often marks
of this stage as well. Conflict,
division and partisanship roil
between the followers of the new
way and the maintainers of the old
order.
Transformation
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Transformation
People who previously had
been moderates or “undecided”
regarding the necessity of
change accept the new vision,
new patterns and new
behaviors. Considerable
revision of institutions, political
reforms, reorganized
communities, shifts in family
structures, new economic
practices.
Go Forth into the World!
Church and Culture in 21st World
We are all at a threshold,
a ‘kairos’ moment
Shape of Church
Missional Church and
Discipleship
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“The Church exists to serve God’s Mission”
Mission as
Missio Dei, UCC Committee on Structure, 1992
The church of Jesus Christ is the instrument and sign of
God’s mission and realm.
God’s mission is calling
and sending us,
the church of Jesus Christ,
to be a missional church
in our own societies,
in the cultures in which
we find ourselves.
Vital disipleship in the 21st Century
Missional, Relational & Conversational
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Missional in purpose
Relational in outreach
Conversational in witness
in person and online
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What one thing stood out for you
from this presentation and what
might it mean for your discipleship
and ministry?