Table of Contents

What Will the 21st -Century Church Be Like?

By Leith Anderson

At the beginning of the third millennium, a common question is, "What will the 21st-century church be like?" Will it be large or small, low or high-tech, denominational or nondenominational, worship in houses or church buildings, stronger on evangelism or social action, spiritually dead or spiritually alive, growing or declining, racially integrated or segregated? The answer is, "Yes." Just as the church of Jesus Christ has greatly varied in the past, it will greatly vary in the future, only more so.

Various churches around the United States and the world demonstrate the wide variety of congregations. Brownsville Assembly of God in Pensacola, Florida, is famous because more than 1 million people have come from around the world seeking the supernatural in the famous Brownsville revival. People by the hundreds stand in line hours before the service begins hoping to get in.

The Southeast Asian house church is vibrant, but illegal. In one church, the pastor is a government-paid teacher. The congregation is less than 20 people. It is part of an amazingly evangelistic network of house churches that would be closed immediately if the government found out about them.

In the Pentecostal church in Romania, the women sit on one side and the men sit on the other side. All women wear head coverings; no jewelry is allowed, not even a wedding ring. Men do not cross their legs while seated or put their hands in their pockets while preaching because Christians don’t do such things.

New African denominations are starting up almost every day. Missiologist Ralph Winter states that many of these churches and denominations are riddled with theological heresy. Winter believes the churches that hold the Bible as the source of authority will, as they mature, eventually outgrow their initial heresies.

There is no single design for 21st-century churches. We will see greater variety, new expressions, novel structures, and ways of doing church that we would not have previously imagined. Just as previous generations used innovative ways to meet their needs for buildings, Sunday schools, committees, organs, pianos, hymnals, and choirs, so the next generations will develop innovative ways to be effective in the third millennium.

Here are some interesting trends that indicate what we may expect to see among 21st-century North American churches.

More large churches

Most North American churches are small. Over 100,000 of these churches average less than 50 in Sunday worship services and show little prospect of growing any larger. The median worship attendance of the 400,000 USA churches is about 75.

However, most people attend larger churches. One-half of all worshipers next Sunday will be in the largest (1/7 or 14 percent) of churches. This trend has been in place for most of the last 20 years and will probably increase in the 21st century. Larger churches are thriving; smaller churches are struggling.

This is not to say that we will see many, if any, American churches grow to 50,000 or more in attendance. But there are churches breaking the 1,000 barrier every week, and there will be hundreds if not thousands more churches over 1,000 in the next 10 years.

Greater lay ministry

One analyst argues that the emerging movement of lay ministry will be the "completion of the Protestant Reformation." Lay ministry is more evident in some churches than others, but especially in Roman Catholic churches where there is a shortage of priests. While there are some things only priests are allowed to do, many other things are being done by lay leaders and volunteers. The emergence of lay ministry in Catholic churches will probably spill over into Protestant churches.

There will also be a growing emphasis on pastors doing what they are called to do in Ephesians 4:11,12–to equip the saints to do the work of the ministry–rather than doing it themselves. More and more laypersons want to lead, serve, preach, evangelize, visit, and disciple. The most effective churches will be those that free their laity to serve Jesus Christ. Some of that ministry will take place within the life of the church, but most of it will take place in the community.

Evangelicals in the mainstream

Evangelicals were once on the margins of American society. No more. Evangelicals have entered politics in large numbers, gaining fame and power. Almost all of the largest and fastest-growing North American churches are evangelical. Evangelical colleges and seminaries are strong and growing, often supplying significant numbers of clergy to nonevangelical denominations. Evangelicals now significantly outnumber the people in mainline denominations. Evangelicals have an increased, growing, and significant voice in both academic circles and in the national press.

While evangelicals are far from a majority (about 23 percent) of the American church, they are a formidable influence in American life and culture. There is every indication that this will increase until evangelical churches will become the predominant voice of American Christianity in the 21st century.

This is not to say that evangelicals will be evangelistic. This is the sad side of the equation. The large majority of evangelical churches exist primarily for themselves, not for others. Programs, budgets, and objectives are targeted to meet the needs of those already churched. Unchurched people are often unwelcome in evangelical churches. Even though there may be talk of evangelism, there is comparatively little effective evangelism. Most evangelical churches major on winning those who are already churched, primarily from inside their own congregations and secondarily, recruiting believers from other evangelical churches.

Lots of choices

In the 1960s, sociologists worried, wrote books, and offered courses about how Americans in the 21st century would use their leisure time. Some predicted that the average work week would shrink to 20 hours. They weren’t very good prophets.

We now work longer, sleep less, have little leisure time, and constantly talk about how busy we are. One of the consequences is that time for church activities is shrinking.

Churches of tomorrow will do more with less time. There will be more choices, but little expectation that everyone will choose all of them. The church of the 21st century will have more services, not one service. There will be different types of services with a choice of languages, music styles, and times other than Sunday mornings. Prayer ministries have requests in prayer rooms, on-line, through voice mail, E-mail, and alphanumeric beeper messages. Christian education opportunities will come through traditional classes, computer chat rooms, cable TV, books, tapes, one-on-one spiritual mentoring, intensive Saturday classes, night school, and more.

What will God bless?

There is every indication that God’s blessings will be new and broad for the new millennium. He will not contain His Spirit to any single program, denomination, geography, or human design. The church of tomorrow will be as varied as the colors of God’s creation, as numerous as the sands of the seashore, and as spectacular as the variety of human beings created in the image of God. It will be new; it will be exciting. The best is yet to come.

Leith Anderson is pastor of Wooddale Community Church in Eden Prairie, Minnesota.