MondayMorningInsight.com > A Little Look Ahead at the Coming Church

HOME | CHURCH JOB OPENINGS | ABOUT MMI | CATEGORIES OF INTEREST | CONTACT US

A Little Look Ahead at the Coming Church

Orginally published on Monday, December 04, 2006 at 1:00 PM
by Josh Sklar

For some time now my mind has wandered around the subject of what church life will be like in the next 5 to 10 years. What will go on in the large buildings with the crosses on them and what will make them appealing to those who could really care less? Some thoughts have come to me in my recent days through several different venues, so here goes!

First of all, I have learned a great lesson through hockey. To those who do not live as far north in Canada as I do, let me explain. Hockey is god in Northern Ontario. There are two seasons in Northern Ontario; construction and hockey. When born in Sudbury where I live, the doctor will announce whether you are a boy or a girl and then guess at what hand you will shoot. People will spend every week end between October and April traveling to away games and tournaments and will drop thousands of dollars to watch their child chase a puck around the ice. Everyone takes responsibility for the team and looks out not just for their kids, but for the others as well. And the celebrations that go on! Many teams have been known to rent an extra room and dub it, “The Party Central.” It becomes a lounge to talk, drink, and recreate in till all hours of the morning. All are welcome. It’s like having a huge family reunion each and every time the kids strap on the skates. What does this say to a church? It says that we need to learn to open our doors and celebrate things, significant or otherwise, in peoples lives. We need to know and understand that which is important to us is not necessarily important to others. Some times we get so caught up in “witnessing,” we miss out on the fantastic moments where we can just be with people and enjoy life with them. We need to be open to the world around us if we are too change it. If family can happen around a hockey rink or in a team bus, should it not happen in the church and the homes of those who are followers of Christ?

The second lesson I have learned about what church can start to look like comes from Arrow Leadership Ministries. I just finished a week long training module and we spent a day focused on prayer. The speaker, Mary Lance Sisk, hammered me between the eyes with a two by four when she said this, “The darkness is getting darker, and it is happening on our watch.” For the church of the future to survive, every congregation needs to roll up their sleeves and get off their blessed assurance and start to shine the light of Christ. I see a number of churches in my town with great intentions. Their great intentions are to circle the wagons, protect their theological distinctives, and survive longer then the church down the street so they can absorb some new members and continue to circle the wagons, protect their theological distinctives, and survive…but I digress. The coming church won’t be able to do that. The coming church must be relevant to survive. It must take an interest and have an impact in the surrounding community. It must reach beyond itself. It must put time, energy, and dare I say money, into helping others.

The final venue through which I have learned much about the coming church is through a morning talk show on a Christian station that I have co-hosted for almost a year. I have just handed in my resignation to the station so I can spend more time pouring into my two boys and loving my wife. It took my 5 year old and 1 and a half year old to teach me what is really important and where priorities lie. You see, I would leave the house at 6:30 and not see my boys till after 5 at night, if I saw them at all. Until last month when Josiah asked my wife if he could get up an hour earlier to see me for 15 minutes before I left for, “radio working.” The baby started waking up and looking for daddy the minute he was out of the crib. As a church leader, I could no longer ignore the cries on the home front to raise my sons as men of God. And the church must go the same way. We must stop making our people busy in an effort to look holy. We must instead be intentional in looking at helping people keep their family high on their list of priorities and spending time with them. The days of neglecting your family for ministry must come to an end for the coming church to have any credibility what so ever. People watch us, they see what we are doing, and unless we change our ways, they want no part of it.

In the years to come, those who disagree with me may say that I am wrong and that the church is just fine. They might say that we are to be in this world, but not of it. They will pull all kinds of arguments out of the hat as to why they should have limited interaction with non-Christians and have narrow statements of faith that build walls between themselves and others. But I ask them, and myself, these questions:

When was the last time you helped some start a walk as a disciple of Jesus?
How many people on your street are blessed by you praying for them?
If you face persecutions of all kinds, is it because of your faith, or the way you are living it out?

Till I can figure out the answers to these questions, I’ll be at the rink with my skates on…

BIO: Josh Sklar is an Assistant Pastor at All Nations Church in Sudbury, ON Canada.

This post has been viewed 755 times so far.

Post Your Comments:

I'm a chronic workaholic, love to connect leaders with other leaders, and would consider myself somewhat of a 'maven'. Hopefully you'll find something here at MMI you'll like and will return often. If you want, you can find out more about me or follow my every step.