Last week we looked at how Christianity has changed over the past decade; this week we look at changes in the Church. Tim Stevens has listed a number of ways in which he thinks the Church has changed over the past decade. He says that church buildings have changed from status symbols to things that you build only if you can’t come up with a more cost-effective multi-campus solution using technology.
Tim says that church conferences used to be big and inspiring, but now people want their conferences to be practical rather than inspiring. He says that churches have become more intentional about integrating people’s faith into their daily lives, and that greater use is now being made of volunteers rather than professionals in high-capacity roles. He says that leadership has moved to a team model, churches are emphasising community impact, church missions are becoming more focused and inter-church co-operation is increasing.
In addition to these changes, I think that churches are increasingly taking advantage of new technologies to improve internal communication, practical faith now has a much greater emphasis than doctrinal knowledge. However, I think the jury is still out on the value of these changes, given the decline of the church in the West over the course of the past decade.