I had the opportunity to speak at Leadership Network's Innovation 3 Conference yesterday about the future of the church. It was a special conference featuring some of the great leaders in the Christian church today. The conference was broadcast live, discussed in online chat rooms and was live twittered. Conferences are changing in the 21st century allowing the information and influence of speakers can be more widely felt.

I promised to post my notes. So, here they are - from my talk on "The Dangerous Church in 2020."

Thinking Toward the Future

I have been asked to do a bit of "prognosticating," which can be a dangerous thing. My friend Linda Stanley asked me to set up a conversation about what I think will be the marks of the "dangerous church" in 2010 and stretched on to 2020.

When I think of "marks" I want to talk about distinguishing biblical marks, or what makes a church a church. But, that is not quite my assignment and I have commented on that elsewhere, so let me focus on what they mean.

I should say that, to quote Amos, I am not a prophet, the son of the prophet... and in my case I work for a non-prophet organization. But, I do think we need to ask these questions as we look to the future.

Some of this will be statistical, some my personal beliefs, and some my hopes. You sort them out.

The Dangerous Church in 2010

Cautions

1. Don't Believe the Hype.

Many who promote bad news have a program to fix it.

If those that tell you have a need and then try to sell you the solution, you should be cynical.

For example, people keep telling me the era of the megachurch is over. They have data. They say this is the final year. And, then this year there were more than last year. You have to have over 7000 weekend attendees to qualify to be in our LifeWay Research / Outreach top 100 list (it was in the 5000s three years ago).

Well, turns out that they don't like megachurches. Like it or not, your current views impact your future predictions.

2. Be more cynical.

Too many believe the "next big thing" will fix the church. Instead, we need to be more cynical.

The church will not solve all its problems by emerging, having 5 purposes, moving into a house, or announcing itself missional. And, we tend to just be too ready to believe these things contain all the answers.

3. Be People of Issachar (1 Chronicles 12:32).

-There are trends we can and should watch.

I always like the name that Leadership Network used to use, "Scouts for the Emerging Church." They don't like to talk about that phrase as much today, but we need to be constantly looking for where God is at work so we can join him in it. Or, to quote my friend Reggie McNeal, we need to look at the present future.

-Skate Where the Puck Is.

Too many look at the trends and think they understand today-- they skate where the puck is. That is a start.

But, I think it is more than knowing today. We have to look into the future. (To quote Gretzky: we skate where the puck is going to be.)

From a Cultural Perspective

The Dangerous Church Will Have:

1. Seized Economic Opportunity

If current trends continue, some of you in this room will lose your jobs, your church budgets will decline, and your church will have less money in the coming years.

But, your church will probably see more people come to Jesus.

Economic growth and evangelical church growth are counter cyclical. They are somewhat counter cyclical for mainline churches according to a study by a professor at Texas State University. (Details at www.edstetzer.com.)

So, which should you pray for?

The Dangerous Church Will Have:
2. Addressed Sexual Brokenness

I do not believe that the issues of sexual confusion will go away. Instead, I believe it will increasingly become an issue in the church because it is an increasing issue in the world.

One prominent example today: Who would have guessed 30 years ago that having a gay Episcopal Bishop pray at the inauguration would be the non-controversial decision, and having an evangelical pastor pray would be widely condemned, all on the basis of homosexuality.

This will not go away. The struggle with how to address issues of homosexuality will be a defining cultural issue for the church over the next decade.

In a recent survey in my new co-authored book, we asked, "If you were considering visiting or joining a church, would knowing that the church did not welcome and affirm homosexual members negatively or positively impact your decision?"

The overwhelming majority of the younger unchurched reported this would negatively impact their decision. The range of responses by type--83 percent of the "always unchurched" and 52 percent of the "friendly unchurched" (categories we created in the book) indicated that they would react negatively to a church that does not welcome and affirm homosexuals as members.

Churches that thrive will have addresses issues of homosexuality, marriage, pornography, and other sexual issues and they will have done so in biblical ways-- not simply caving in to the culture.

The Dangerous Church Will Have:
3. Wrestled with Gender Inclusion

It is always a controversial issue, but gender issues will become increasingly a challenge for the church, particularly for the majority of American church attendees who go to churches that do not have women in pastoral roles.

The two most common views tend to be complimentarianism (who believe men and women are equal but have different roles in church and home) and those who are egalitarian (who believe that the curse has been lifted and men and women are equal in role and function before God).

Our host church has had not one, but two statements providing great detail of their view. And you should do the same. You have to have a clear description of where you stand on gender issues. And that will be harder in our culture when you hold a complimentarian position as many of us do.

Again, back to our survey in Lost and Found:

In the survey, the unchurched twenty-somethings were asked what impact two stances by a church would have on them. First they were asked, "If you were considering visiting or joining a church, would knowing that the church did not endorse the ordination of women as pastors negatively or positively impact your decision?"

Sixty-five percent of all of the younger unchurched said this would negatively impact their decision. Only 6 percent said that this would be a positive. So, the negatives outnumbered the positives 10 to 1. (Almost 30 percent of respondents either said that the stance against women's ordination would not make a difference or that they were not sure.)

Now, no matter where you are on the issue, we need to have a clear and biblical reason, that is consistently and graciously applied, to explain our position.

The Dangerous Church Will Have:
4. Faced Increasing Intolerance

Because faithful churches do and will continue to take stands contrary to the culture, they can expect to face increasing intolerance.

Now, let's not call it persecution. The fact that someone won't say "Merry Christmas" at your grocery story is not persecution nor a reason to snarl, "Jesus is the Reason for the Season" back at them, but there will be increasing intolerance. And, that should not surprise us.

We no longer have home field advantage in North America.

And, it won't be because of our solely religious convictions, but because of the outworking of those positions in moral stands. These will increasingly cause the world to find the church intolerable.

From a Church Perspective

The Dangerous Church Will Have:
1. Navigated the Post-Seeker Context

I do not mean that there are no longer seekers, but I do mean that churches that once targeted seekers are finding that, regardless of how you feel about it, there are less seekers than there once were. And, even the churches once doing "seeker" are recalibrating (or did so years ago).

The boomers were "coming back" and seeking, but subsequent generations do not have the same religious memory (at least in most places). Thus, seeker churches often focused on doing church better and tended to reach people with at least some Christian memory (or else what would they know to "seek").

Today, we live in a post seeker context. And, with the decline in models typically associated with seeker ministry, the dangerous church will have found new ways (in addition to the old) to reach those who are far from God.

The Dangerous Church Will Have:
2. Regained Confidence in the Gospel

This is a key issue, but one that must be faced. Christianity Today has discussed "Is our Gospel too Small," which is not unlike conversations in the mainline churches near the beginning of the last century. People are asking questions about the gospel.

And, as the church has lost its credibility so often has the gospel. In other words, if I don't like the church, there must be something wrong with the gospel.

And, let me say that there very well may be something wrong with our American understanding of the gospel-- it has been more American than biblical. But, I believe it is the loss of confidence in the gospel that has led so many to ask, "What more is there?"

I think that is why the two most "newsworthy" movements about young pastors are the New Reformed movement and the Emerging Church Movement. What they have in common is that they both offer what they see as a better gospel that the one provided by the modern evangelical machine.

The dangerous church will have worked through the confusion and set a stake in the ground for a more robust biblically discerned gospel.

The Dangerous Church Will Have:
3. Addressed Evangelical Confusion

I was unsure if I should use the word evangelical, but the organizers thought we would either be evangelical or have evangelical leanings in the mainline.

And, I should say that there are vibrant mainline congregations focused on God's mission and I am not saying that is not the case.

But, I believe the dangerous church will have successfully navigated the malaise in contemporary evangelicalism and worked through much of the confusion of what a believer should be.

For example, if Joel Osteen, Brian McLaren, and John MacArthur are all said to be evangelicals, that is a pretty and confusing broad stream.

This is not my thought alone, go to Thiswebelieve.com, thegospelcoalition.org, or anevangelicalmanifesto.com. All of them are trying to take back or define what an evangelical church is. And, the dangerous church will have worked through who it is and what it believes.

The Dangerous Church Will Have:
4. Rethought Discipleship

You may have heard of a little study called "Reveal."

Well, the elephant in evangelicalism is that we are not making many disciples.

Among the findings in The Shape of Faith to Come by Brad Waggoner:

• Only 16 percent of Protestant churchgoers read their Bible daily and another 20 percent read it "a few times a week."
• Just 23 percent "agreed strongly" with the statement, "When I come to realize that some aspect of my life is not right in God's eyes, I make the necessary changes."
• In the past six months, 29 percent of respondents said they shared with someone how to become a Christian twice or more, 14 percent did so once and 57 percent did not share at all.

When surveyed one year later, the churchgoers evidenced very little change in overall discipleship or spiritual formation. However, a majority believed they had grown spiritually over the course of the year.

"We discovered a problem with these self-perceptions for growth or decline," Waggoner said. "Fifty-five percent of our respondents believed they had grown spiritually in the last year. However, based on SFI scores, only 3.5 percent showed a statistically significant level of growth."

The Dangerous Church Will Have:
5. Worked Through Denominational Catharsis

Denominations do matter. Most churches here are connected to them. And, many are rethinking their role and their future.

Tomorrow, I will be at the Vineyard National Leadership meeting and we will talk about how to get the focus back on church planting that so evidenced the movements in its early days-- but has waned today.

And some are asking questions to plan for the future. On Monday, I will report the findings of a LifeWay Research survey sent to all Assembly of God credential holders.

They are asking the right questions about what denominations need to do and what they need to be to serve churches in the future.

Dangerous churches in denominations will have helped them rethink how denominations function. And, Lyle Schaller when he says in A Mainline Turnaround that they will focus more on helping churches do evangelism and missions and less on maintaining the denominational machinery.

The Dangerous Church Will Have:
6. Found Networking Strategies

Churches are learning to network together. Some of that is trans denominational (they work across denominations, like Acts 29), some of that is intra-denominational (inside certain denominational contexts, groups like Stadia come to mind), and some of that is intra-denominational (they pull from multiple denominations, like Leadership Network). And, at meetings like this you hear more about those networks today than you do about denominations.

Churches are finding ways to team together, which is good, but they also need to be careful. I speak at many of these networks and sometimes they end up just cloning themselves.

So, I believe the dangerous church will be networked--but I am hopeful it will not network with people who just do church like they do.

The Dangerous Church Will Have:
7. Implemented New Innovations

More on that from our other speakers... Nancy Ortberg, Bob Roberts, and John Bishop...