Disagreeing With Hot Takes About The Future Of Church 

An IMPORTANT note of clarity: my responses in this video are what I *expect* not what I *prefer* or even what I think is best for The Church.

We are an aging and diminishing church family, but our pastor is more & more open to change than ever before. We are expanding our tech to go online and reach our community through video, sound and light. I saw a portion of your "church is missing it on tiktok" video & opened my eyes to going where the gen z's are. Personally, I hate tiktok, but if that's where they are camped out at, then we have to go to them. The hedges & the by ways is now the platforms of the folks that we need to bring Jesus to. (He is already there, btw! He is asking us to join Him!)

Haven’t finished watching but this topic is 🔥I believe we are at the verge of the big denomination fall out.

In my area we have a couple of really large churches blowing up. But on the flip side a lot of smaller churches and the last 5-10 years we have seen a blow up of house churches. These house churches started as just single denomination small house churches but they started to grow. Now they all get together twice a year and resource each other and there are a ton of them. I have a friend really involved with the movement and it is really cool. They do it without all the big production and things like child care, well you are at a house. They build it based on relationships. I had a bunch of family members pass away suddenly at once. I worked at a church at the time. This was 2 years back. My large church I worked for cared more about when I was going to be back to work then anything. A family member in a house church in this same area instantly had meals provided each day. Their car was out of service to get fixed and someone in their house church found out they needed a car for a couple of days. They brought a car over for them to drive. The small church thing really works on the relational level and you kind of forget all the high tech stuff. They also are having a lot of luck with younger people and families. People seek community and relationships above all. I think the large church thing works to for a lot of people. We have a church that built a building that holds like 1800 people and they immediately had 3 services. They are at 5 or 6 now on Sundays and one I think Saturday night. They are already expanding again. Pastor I think has a Baptist or Nazarene background but church is non denominational. They have decent production. Not the best in the area. But everything they do is top notch. Best sound in the area for instance. Services are like an hour and 5 minutes but their small groups are massive.

For a large church, who has a constant inflow of new people each week and whose numbers overall are growing, how do you measure accurately the loss of people out the back door? Do we have less people leaving or just the number of new people coming in out performing and exits by in large? Any thoughts on this? Data for this seems impossible to track.

Many churches are trapped by their electronic “tower of babel.”

On the religious affiliation point, I just like to point out that there are many people who are Christian but they identify with no religion because they don't want to be identified with today's Kool-Aid Christianity

Would love to have a conversation with you regarding the future of media and the church, do you take appointments?

Liturgy is so difficult for me to stomach, as a participant. Just as difficult to stomach, is the polar opposite, the full blown, haze filled, over the top production.

A reminder too about the production that Gen Z and Gen Alpha have really low attention span for things ie TikTok reels etc. production will help keep them engaged with church service and not go on their phones. If your church doesn’t have enough “connection” how about volunteering to start a group for connection and fellowship and not being another spectator about how it is going. We can set the trajectory of the church today

As a worship pastor at my church, I have come to realize that the topic of high production vs. high liturgy in church boils completely down to preference. What a good pastor NEEDS to do, is contextualize their ministry to their environment, demographic, culture, etc., and not try to build a church around their own/the elders' preferences. Then, whatever steps are taken to do that, cast vision to the church. And, what both sides of the debate need to acknowledge, is that the other side is not inherently wrong. We have SO many local churches to choose from everywhere we go. Bottom line: acknowledge that there are different ways and models of doing ministry and find a church that feeds you and suits your preferences without causing a ruckus. 9 times out of 10, it really is that simple.

I personally refuse to attend a “church” that relies on production and spectacle. Too often those things become a poor substitute for authentic worship and the moving of the Holy Spirit. And a huge distraction.

last take best take 😂

I think you handled this very well. I would also say that many of these things that people talk about is that the bigger the church, particularly in white church you cannot divorce, big church and big production from consumerism, and if you have consumerism, then you don’t have discipled people you have people that come to consume: the best sermon the best worship the best kids program, but they have very little interest in actually having a Jesus that has any impact on their life. Which is why you have the 5/10% running everything while everyone else just sits out there and it could’ve been a football game. It could’ve been a baseball game, could’ve been a concert but we just sprinkle some Jesus in. So if we want healthy churches we should stop defending programs which is the only plus of a mega church. Programmed people don’t make discipled people.

Brady, any chance we could get access to that graph you showed at 44s?

Question for you Brady; we are noticing at our church, that there is a major shift away from social media. Parents especially in the Millennial generation are choosing to keep their children and young people off of social media all together. While I understand the motivation to want to protect children from the 'darker side' of the internet, however, this presents quite a challenge to those producing media for churches. Any thoughts, or have you or anyone else in this chat dealt with this?

I’d like to think that things will get simpler in the sense of authenticity not necessarily less of the lights and smoke. Lights and smoke are not bad. The contemporary church uses them because humans hunger for it. The move to liturgy is not really a move to simplicity but just more historic “spectacle.” They use “lights and smoke.” In my estimation, the key to the new generation is authenticity. They need to encounter Christ and that cannot be produced only prepared for.

Unfortunately most of the "church" is becoming more of an experience vs a lifestyle as it changes.

I like the idea of reaching people obviously. And sometimes technology helps. I absolutely dislike with a passion where mega churches have taken things . I've seen big mega churches who invest thousands and thousands of dollars in laser lights fog machines sound equipment, $30,000 $40,000 on cameras but then when there are people in their church who need help paying their rent those people have to fill out five forms go through three meetings just to get assistance and yet the church was put there to take care of the people. There are some churches I've walked out of because instead of being God focused it was entertainment focused. I couldn't tell if I was actually there for a sermon or there for a concert

Brady, is there not something to be said for the idea that as people age and mortality becomes a more realistic and tangible quality that perspective changes and generations become more open to faith? SO MANY more of my friends and acquaintances from middle and high school are taking faith seriously as they’ve ventured into the mid to late thirties and forties. It seems like interpreting the future of the church’s “success” based on seemingly self invincible 15-25 year olds, largely without children, and in a tribal political atmosphere is going to be flawed at best. Each generation gets more faithful as they age from what I’ve read and seen.

I disagree with your thoughts on the "spectacle" of bringing people in. From what I've seen, living in an area that has many traditional, mixed, and mega churches, I've seen more people move to places that offer better programs, fellowship opportunities, and places to grow relationships, and that's not typically a mega spectacle church.

Its not like years ago when people went to church just because you did. It did not mean that people who went to church were born again. Today people go to church for a reason because they are born again and want to know more. The mega churches have all the music and many times shallow preaching. I think people are actually looking for truth and not fluff. I preach expository style and give people meat.

The problem with the production model Church is that it isn’t God focused, but instead trying to connect to God through our means, be they genuine at heart or not. It uses metrics of numbers rather than metrics of spiritual growth. Even the “Christian” culture is horribly immature, letting go of orthodoxy to make room for the pragmatic.

👀 Promo sm