cup a joe

The church-on-the-corner that’s been the bedrock of American Christianity since colonial days will cease to exist by 2062. These churches of 50 to 500 souls will become too expensive to staff and their aging buildings too difficult to maintain. These so-called “family churches” are already losing members to megachurches that offer superior preaching, music and programming. Pastors are shunning their pulpits, preferring to plant new congregations. In their place we will see:
Megachurches will accelerate the establishment of satellite campuses.
Some of these will have a physical building holding hundreds of worshippers, and some will be microchurches of less than 50 people. These churches will have little or no staff. Microchurches will be led by a layperson (or couple) and will meet in private homes or in rented spaces. These will not be “house churches” as we know them now, because they will be affiliates of…
I predict that about 200 megachurches will come to dominate American Christianity by 2062.
In the same way WalMart took over the mom-and-pop store, a handful of megachurches will absorb thousands of other congregations – including other megachurches. They’ll do it by planting satellite campuses in thousands of cities and towns in America, delivering their teaching and music via video. Just as there are Baptist churches in nearly every city in America today, in 2062 there will be satellite and microchurch affiliates in every city and town.

An interesting picture, one I'm not too sure about.  The other interesting thing is an e-mail that I received over the weekend.  One of the things that has surprised me since becoming a pastor is the number of unsolicited e-mails I get from people I don't know, who have never stepped foot in my church, telling me what we should or shouldn't be doing.  These are not sales pitches to buy the newest biggest program, but are people just telling me what to do (or warm me about how I may be preaching heresy!).  I received this from someone by the name of "Adrian":

As far as a better way to run Sunday morning services/church, I don't have the exact answer because I haven't lived to experience it, but I think one idea that might be more effective than just having preaching is to have separate topic/task-oriented groups going during the normal service time. One group could be teaching people how to play musical instruments and sharing worship ideas. Another group could have a team set up for going into the community and blessing people. Yet another group could be set aside for fellowship (and have food and/or games). And the pastor could have his own group to preach his sermon to. The concept behind this is that not everyone needs the same things at the same times, and in order to be more efficient and have the Kingdom flowing more effectively, we could adjust how things are run to meet more of the Body's needs. Some people work a lot and so aren't able to spend time with other Christians during the week, and so would benefit the most from having fellowship on Sunday morning. Some people are itching to minister in the community and only have Sunday free to be able to do so. Some people would benefit the most from learning skills that they could use to serve God in new ways. And, of course, some people enjoy and need spiritual messages and a Sunday sermon can help meet that need.

Adrian went on to explain that the basis for these ideas was from "science/research".  His concern is simple:

...many people get passed over every Sunday morning because the message the pastor preaches is not what they need. While they can possibly glean something useful from it if they try hard enough, this ignores the bigger problem at hand: they shouldn't have to. It's like watching the same movie over and over and trying to get an incredibly different experience from it. While small details that may have been missed can be picked up, it would be much more beneficial to pop in a new movie to get a new experience to take in. A greater amount of ideas can be shared if more than one group/message is going during Sunday mornings.

So, is this the future of the church?  What do you think?  I've been thinking about this stuff for some time and I can see the church moving into both of these places.  These suggestions would create extremely efficient church that can serve the wants and desires of the individuals within their congregations. But is that what the church is supposed to be?  Makes me wonder if that is the kind of church that I want to be a part of.  Turing the church into a WalMart where you get everything you want the way you want really doesn't do much for me.  Let me know what you think.  I'll post my thoughts later in the week.