From Learnings@Leadership Network blog, Dave Travis gave some ideas about The Top Ideas of the Last Decade
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
- 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.
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anything to add?
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