Two weeks ago, I asked the question, “What would the future look like for the church in a city where extreme oil prices prevailed?” Kent Shaffer at ChurchRelevance.com has come up with some theories about the effects of high fuel prices on churches. He quotes figures indicating that Americans are finally decreasing the total number of miles driven on roads each year, presumably as a response to recent escalation in fuel prices.

According to churchrelevance.com, there is likely to be an unaffected core of people who will continue their church attendance patterns in spite of increases in fuel prices. On the other hand, rising fuel prices are like rising admission prices, and there will be some people who will cease attending because they regard the transportation cost as too high. It may be more difficult to attract unchurched people because of the higher costs in attending. The amount of volunteer involvement which requires attendance at the church buildings may decline.

The effect of fuel price rises is greater on attenders who live further away, so the radius of geographic impact of a church may decline. On the other hand, there will be new ministry opportunities. For example, multi-site churches with smaller more numerous buildings which are closer to where people live could become more popular. Bus ministries could become more popular. Internet ministries could become more significant.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 18th, 2008 at 8:00 am and is filed under Future. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.