The communication skill set that will be most highly effective will be a preacher who can both preach in a way that motivates insiders and teach in a way that is accessible to outsiders.
I’ve been thinking a lot about how to teach and preach moving forward. I think every preacher has to, regardless of your leaning.
By the way, Jon Tyson’s short summary of his methodology for sermon prep is not a bad lens through which to view the dual purpose of preaching and teaching. You can read it here.
Preachers, preach in a way that motivates insiders. Teach in a way accessible to outsiders.
2. The Gathering Will Become the Sending.
For the many churches that have adopted an attractional model, the unspoken expectation is that people gather predominantly to come and see.
Combine that with a highly individualist consumer culture, and that’s how most people will view church: a place to gather, consume and leave.
Naturally, that’s a huge mistake, but it reflects the era we live in.
How do you combat that?
Instead of seeing Sunday only as a gathering, wise leaders will also see it as a sending. Tiffany DeLuccia had some great thoughts on this over at Tony Morgan’s blog recently.
The gatherings of the early church were not just a place to worship, learn and encourage, they involved a sending out into the world to change the world.
The Reformed four-fold pattern of worship embodies this so well. While the church gathers, it also sends.
The goal of a service is not to applaud the message or talk about how amazing the music was. The goal is to go back out into the world for which Christ died better equipped to live out and share our faith.
The goal of a worship service is not to applaud the message or talk about how awesome the music was.
Figuring out how not just to dismiss people when the service is over but to send people out in the world equipped to live and lead differently is critical.
Church is not a spectator sport. It’s a place of transformation.
Future churches will embrace that.
Church is not a spectator sport. It’s a place of transformation. Future churches will embrace that.
3. The Gathering Will Be More of an Experience … Less of a Show.
As people have more and more options and freedom with their time, and as guilt dissipates, people are trading in Sundays for what they think are better options.
Many churches have responded in the last decade by adding more lights, better sound, better video and fun moments in their services. I get that, and it’s not as inherently bad as some critics would say it is. The majority of churches who are doing this are reaching more people and seeing more people come to Christ than churches that don’t.
And yet when you live in an age when you can listen to any message on your phone when you run and stream your three favorite worship songs any time, any where, the urge to gather seems less appealing to a growing number of people.
As I argued in this post, cool church is dying and something else is emerging.
What’s emerging, I think, is a more authentic church. And what’s emerging is more of an experience than a show.
When people show up at a church these days, they want to experience God, not just sing a few songs and hear a helpful message. They want God more than they even want advice.
This hunger is a good hunger. It will get us thinking about how to facilitate an experience of God for hundreds or even thousands of people.
I’m not talking about manufacturing something that isn’t there, but somehow facilitating that magnificent, imminent and transcendent experience between God and his people that the church has facilitated for millennia … and to do it in a way that connects with this generation.
That is not going to be found in a formula, but rather will be found on our knees, open and hoping to experience God ourselves in a way that radiates out as we minister to others.
You can’t podcast an experience … not fully.
When God is present, there is something about being in the room together with dozens, hundreds or thousands of believers and unbelievers that is unique.
We have to recapture that kind of experience using the best of the past and the best of present.
People showing up at church today want to experience God, not just get advice.
