The Top Ideas of the Last Decade - What can you add?

If you follow this blog you may have heard about our Leadership Network Ideation Experience coming in July. The Ideation Experience will attempt to do two things:

1. Help a bunch of idea people clarify, refine and improve their own idea they think will change God’s Kingdom work in the next 10 years. And
2. Devise a list of BIG IDEAS the whole group feels will change the face of God’s Kingdom work over the next 10 years.

I have no idea what that group will come up with even though I know the hot buttons for many of the participants. We think there will be some great ideas flying about the room.

                But that also made me think retrospectively. I am one of the people that has been around Leadership Network for some time (14 years) and I can still remember 10 years ago. In fact I still have my notebooks and notes and participant lists from then. (You never know when you might want to blackmail someone)

                I asked myself this question – What ideas have had the greatest influence on Kingdom Work in the PAST 10 years?  I looked back through my notes and also thumbed through back issues of Charisma, Leadership Journal, Christianity Today and the like to see what they reported on in the past decade. Of course I looked at our old publications and emails. I scribbled down a few dozen and sent to our team and some other friends.

I asked them not to comment (though some did) but rather just to add to them to the list. I have reproduced that long list below. I edited a few for clarity, a few that the nominator said “this is for the future”, and a few I don’t really know what they are trying to say. But I did get a big list.

            I realized that some of these are US church specific. Some are global. Some are related just to churches and some to kingdom entrepreneurs.  They are all over the map and that is great.

Here’s the list:

• The rise of the "new" Calvinists - (Acts 29, Gospel Coalition, etc) The growth of the Reformed theological position... at the same time the Dispensationalists are declining rapidly…

• Multi Site Church

• From Pastor » Senior Pastor » Directional Leader
• Externally Focused Church as key idea for Evangelical churches
• Micro Finance as Missions

• Emergent Church
  

  

• The megachurch's domination of media coverage
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• The rise of Church Planting Networks as the driver of planting churches.

• Purpose-Driven Church

• Purpose-Driven Life
• Distance learning via computer
• Keeping up with missionaries and partners throughout the world via computer.
• HIV-AIDS response by churches and individuals (especially to Africa)
• The rise of African countries as missions partners.
• Pastor Blogs as communication vehicles.
• Online podcasts of sermons.
• Online video casts of sermons.
• Church web sites that are fully robust.
• Social networking tools being utilized by churches/parachurches.
• Paid bloggers for various charities/parachurch orgs.
• Shifting opinions on homosexuality - civil unions, marriage, adoption.
• Shifting opinions on many social issues in the 18-35 year old demographic that are shaping the emphases of the church
• "Branding" for churches.
• The rapid development of the church associations around Willow, Saddleback, etc.
• Kingdom Business as Mission.
• Rise of Family Foundations/ Donor Advised Funds/National Christian Foundation et al as vehicles to leverage kingdom giving.

• You Version of the Bible.
• Ubiquity of projected images during worship (dramatic increase across the world really), influencing not only the innovative megachurch but all church groups, mainline included
• The impact of giant video screens in making hymnals, songbooks, bibles, etc., redundant... contributing to the changing approaches to "reading" in the West.
• White House Office of Faith Based Initiatives
• Rise of Organic/House Church movement
• Greater awareness by US megachurches and others toward international missions and humanitarian efforts around the world.
• Rise of Christianity in China resulting in China having the largest Christian Population by 2015-2020
• The acceptance of social entrepreneurs, including faith based ones, by business leaders.
• Dramatic rise of funds raised by churches and parachurches.
• Dramatic capital expansion, (building boom) by churches and parachurches.
• Global North Churches form partnerships with Global South Churches.
• Adoption of people groups by congregations as long term partners/fields of work.

• The decline of singles ministry and the rise in number of singles in America.
• Rapid rise of recovery ministries as key outreach and evangelism strategies for churches
• The increase in books published during decline of books read.
• The rapid disappearance of dated curriculum... no longer used by large churches which are developing their own media resources.
• Video venues.
• Teaching Team.
• The circle story of evangelism replacing "the four spiritual laws."
• The evolving definition of "personal salvation" and growing emphasis on "progressive salvation-- I was saved, I am saved, I'm being saved."
• Jesus film evangelism worldwide.
• Use of wide release movies (Narnia - Facing the Giants, etc) as evangelism opportunities.
• Arena-sized megachurches.
• Rise of Latino evangelicals.
• Open sourced content freely given away for church stuff.
• End of the worship wars.
• Twitter and other text and polling technologies informing preaching and teaching.
• Moving from sanctuary, to auditorium, to worship center…
• The rise of children's ministry in megachurches, utilizing elaborate media technology and equipment.
• More and younger half-timers finding their calling in church ministry…
• The Dave Ramsey Town Hall type meeting style of distribution of event rather than TBN or other method.
• Executive Pastors.
• True Teaching Teams.
• Succession becoming reality, not just anticipated.
• Changing models of University Ministry.
• Diffusion and deeper penetration of small group models (life groups...cells...) into denominational churches.
• Birth of Internet campuses.
• Missionaries coming to the US and other western countries rather than simply missionaries being sent to "less developed" countries.
• Churches being more willing to partner with other agencies and organizations to accelerate community service.
• Multiple venues (traditional and contemporary) at a single campus.
• More interactive children's ministry resources.
• Transition from "content focus" to "content delivery focus" - this shows itself in lots of ways and is a common thread for many of the items on your list including technology and social networking.
• From "organization centric" to "network centric."
• In church planting - shifting from organization/association centric to church planting church.
• High-capacity marketplace leaders (often boomers) and young social entrepreneurs bypassing the local church to find significance.
• Scorecard for leaders is changing (how they measure success on their scorecards is evolving).
• Prevailing church (mega, multi-site, etc) as delivery system for more organic / incarnational faith communities.
• Growing void in strong student ministers. A decade ago, student ministry was the training ground for getting a solid foundation before planting churches. Today, far more leaders are skipping the student ministry role and going straight to planting. Creates a void in strong student ministry leaders.
• From Elder-led to staff-led governance.
• Expansion of Christian magazines (similar to books and conferences and movies).
• Bringing management and leadership focus to the church (new dimension for pastors).
• From "marketplace to ministry" as a strong source of staff.  Far more emphasis on home grown leadership.
• Intern and residency programs rapidly increasing
• Formal staff assessment centers and tools.
• Growth and role of HR departments in churches.
• Support/Service industry of vendors has exponentially expanded at far greater rate than growth/expansion of the church.
• The ubiquity of cell phones as a primary tool to connect everything digital.
• The continued rise of Pentecostal movements around the world.
• The Passion Movement and other student movements go global.
• The belief that the world really is flat.
• Kingdom business incubators to start businesses with the poor around the world.
• Cross-domain collaboration for community building.
• Shared leadership models (from teaching teams to elder/staff combos to volunteer staffing).
• IMicro-economic initiatives by congregations (global as well as local).
• The use of orality and story to communicate the gospel - especially in developing world.
• 24/7 Houses of Prayer.

OK, after all that – What else do you think has to be on the list? Use the comments to add stuff.

Remember we are thinking about ideas that have had the greatest influence in the PAST 10 years, not the FUTURE 10 years.

After getting some responses, I will update the list and post a link to a survey for you to contribute to helping select.

Thanks for the help.

 

Dave Travis

Managing Director

Leadership Network

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[Keith Tusing]

Fad vs Faith - the tendancy to follow the latest and greatest in church growth principles.