Commentary by Dr. Whitesel: Right now, Fuller Seminary is taking applications for a new cohort that will study how churches can be more impactful in the next 5, 10 and 15 years with the advent of what Bill Gates calls “the Age of Artificial Intelligence.“ Check out the website for the Fuller cohort (https://www.fuller.edu/dmin/leadership-foresight-cohort/) Then read this article by Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
The Age of AI has begun” by Bill Gates, GatesNotes, 3/21/22.
In my lifetime, I’ve seen two demonstrations of technology that struck me as revolutionary.
The first time was in 1980, when I was introduced to a graphical user interface—the forerunner of every modern operating system, including Windows. I sat with the person who had shown me the demo, a brilliant programmer named Charles Simonyi, and we immediately started brainstorming about all the things we could do with such a user-friendly approach to computing…
The second big surprise came just last year. I’d been meeting with the team from OpenAI since 2016 and was impressed by their steady progress. In mid-2022, I was so excited about their work that I gave them a challenge: train an artificial intelligence to pass an Advanced Placement biology exam. Make it capable of answering questions that it hasn’t been specifically trained for. (I picked AP Bio because the test is more than a simple regurgitation of scientific facts—it asks you to think critically about biology.) If you can do that, I said, then you’ll have made a true breakthrough.
I thought the challenge would keep them busy for two or three years. They finished it in just a few months.
In September, when I met with them again, I watched in awe as they asked GPT, their AI model, 60 multiple-choice questions from the AP Bio exam—and it got 59 of them right. Then it wrote outstanding answers to six open-ended questions from the exam. We had an outside expert score the test, and GPT got a 5—the highest possible score, and the equivalent to getting an A or A+ in a college-level biology course.
Once it had aced the test, we asked it a non-scientific question: “What do you say to a father with a sick child?” It wrote a thoughtful answer that was probably better than most of us in the room would have given. The whole experience was stunning.
I knew I had just seen the most important advance in technology since the graphical user interface.
This inspired me to think about all the things that AI can achieve in the next five to 10 years.
Defining artificial intelligence
Technically, the term artificial intelligence refers to a model created to solve a specific problem or provide a particular service. What is powering things like ChatGPT is artificial intelligence. It is learning how to do chat better but can’t learn other tasks. By contrast, the term artificial general intelligence refers to software that’s capable of learning any task or subject. AGI doesn’t exist yet—there is a robust debate going on in the computing industry about how to create it, and whether it can even be created at all.
Commentary by Dr. Whitesel: below are the notes from my presentation, “Leadership Foresight: Our Gateway to Innovation is Not Imitation … But Foresight.” If you are interested in information on the Doctor of Ministry cohort on this topic beginning at Fuller Theological Seminary, see the flier below the notes.
OUR GATEWAY TO INNOVATION IS NOT IMITATION … BUT FORESIGHT
by Bob Whitesel D.Min., Ph.D., 2/21/23
A paper/lecture delivered to The Great Commission Research Network Annual Conference, Orlando, Florida, March 6, 2023.
(words 4482)
Abstract
Foresightthinking (also known as futuring or future thinking) is of increasing importance due to today’s rapid pace in technology, artificial intelligence, ChatGPT, etc.[1] Leadership foresight is defined as “the ability to create and maintain a high-quality, coherent and functional forward view, and to use the insights arising in useful organizational ways.”[2] Regrettably, foresight is often overlooked in lieu of focusing on replicating what’s currently working. But what will work tomorrow, a year, five years and 10 years from now is of critical importance for denominational leaders, district superintendents, bishops, coaches as well as the average pastor. This paper will investigate how future thinking has contributed to the impact of effective evangelism, but how replication eventually slowed that impact. Suggestions will be given regarding how ecclesial leaders can recapture foresight.
Unexpected Detours on My Road with Effective Evangelism
1980s: Reflecting on four decades of journeys within what we call Great Commission Research and Donald McGavran called “mission/(effective)evangelism,”[3] I’ve noticed each decade has been distinguished by a theme and sometimes a course correction. My travels began when I earned a DMin in Church Growth and Evangelism at Fuller in the 1980s. In this decade the term church growth, through provocative, was the darling of ecclesial America. Even mainline churches were reading its principles. Through my church coaching I came to be mentored by thought leaders such as Peter Wagner, Elmer Towns and Eddie Gibbs.
1990s: The next decade saw a dizzying proliferation of programs, tools and tactics. There arose tools to proliferate small groups, plant churches, share your faith, indigenize worship, etc. It was during these years that I developed close friendships with my fellow coaches Charles “Chip” Arn, Kent Hunter, Gary McIntosh, Elmer Towns, Ed Stetzer and others. My greatest angst during this time arose when programs were adopted by churches without sufficient analysis of the community and its trajectory. Ill-advised and ill-suited programs often ended in failure, even though they had worked elsewhere. The result was that at the end of the decade there was an increasing suspicion about church growth tools.
2000s: In my third decade a renewed emphasis upon multiculturalism led to an increasing backlash against effective evangelism. This was largely from misperceptions that McGavran‘s principles where culturally divisive. Not recognizing that McGavran was a missiologist, steeped in intercultural principles; casual readers would misinterpret his emphasis upon sharing the Good News across bridges of God that were culturally suited to the receiver. In “The Legacy of Donald McGavran” Jeff Walters summarized, “one of the great aspects of McGavran’s legacy is that people ought to be able to hear the gospel and respond to the gospel in their own cultural context, where they are comfortable—not having to cross big cultural barriers in order to hear the gospel.”[4]
This “great aspect of McGavran’s legacy” was a profound respect for dissonant adapters,[5] and a desire to improve their encounter with the Good News both via communication and celebration. McGavran’s idea in his book The Bridges of God, was not to argue that churches should be made up of only one homogeneous bridge. Both he and Wagner worked in mission agencies that reached out to multiple tribes or castes at the same time. But McGavran suggested that the more receptive a culture appears to be, should dictate priority and resources over less receptive cultures. Less receptive cultures should be “held lightly” in strategy, not being ignored; but when resources become available, logic suggests putting resources where there is a forecast of growth. This key element of McGavran was foresight.
McGavran’s strategic DNA emphasized future thinking, i.e., to see where and in which cultures people were coming to Christ and then to spend more resources there to follow the move the Holy Spirit. In The Bridges of God he stated, “The era has come when Christian Missions should hold lightly all mission station work[6], which cannot be proved to nurture growing churches, and should support the Christward movements within Peoples as long as they continue to grow at the rate of 50 percent per decade or more. This is today’s strategy.”[7]
But critics in North America focused upon what would happen if a local church focused entirely on a homogeneous people and ignored other cultures. To untangle this debate, it’s important to understand McGavran’s DNA of foresight. If you look at McGavran without foresight and simply focus on the present, you will create strategies and tactics that foster a homogeneous church. But if you look closer, you will see it is McGavran’s foresight that leads him to not ignore resistant cultures, but that we “hold lightly” in strategy until the Holy Spirit begins to move among them.
Here is a simple example how lack of foresight can impact effective evangelism.[8] A Lutheran Church which at one time reached Scandinavian immigrants on the north side of Chicago eventually died because it didn’t reach a new influx of Hispanic people. Hispanic congregations have since rented the church, but cross-cultural partnerships never developed. This is because the Scandinavian congregation saw themselves as discipling a homogeneous Scandinavian immigrant culture. They didn’t grasp McGavran’s foresight to look ahead for the next people movement (Spanish-speaking immigrants) and disciple it.
2010s: More scholars emerged to defend McGavran, such as Gary McIntosh and Mosiax leader Mark DeYmaz, who showed that McGavran wanted to see a “heterogeneous church,” but with homogeneous sub-congregations and worship expressions.[9] Still, the momentum waned significantly until leaders of the Great Commission Research Network (GCRN) such as Gary McIntosh, Elmer Towns, George “Chuck” Hunter, Ed Stetzer, and others began to re-emphasize McGavran‘s writing and thoughts. Stetzer often wrote about McGavran for both Christianity Today and Outreach Magazine. Toward the end of the decade McIntosh penned an authoritative biography of McGavran. The result was a course correction back to the principles behind the tactics, rather than a proliferation of tactics.
2020s: A fourth decade of observation has led me to believe the work of Stetzer, McIntosh, Gibbs, Towns, and Hunter must be completed. This means grasping the unique attributes of McGavran‘s thinking, and why it was so revolutionary. And, the role of foresight in McGavran’s DNA should be studied and reconsidered.
McGavran’s visionary foresight was to look for the harvest not after it ripens, but as it begins to emerge from spiritually fertile soil.
I spent the last twenty years in varying leadership roles in this organization, which drew me deeper into the thinking and foresight of Donald McGavran. I began to see that McGavran‘s DNA was based on two elements. First, an element of his DNA was his analytical mind. He loved observation and prediction, much like famed church growth writer, Lyle Schaller, who had been a former city planner.[10]But secondly, and perhaps most important for the movement today, is that within his DNA was a focus on foresight, future thinking.
McGavran’s foresight meant that that he wasn’t as concerned about methods, as he was about seeing where God is moving and envisioning where he would move next. Gary McIntosh offers a helpful history of how McGavran’s foresight developed:[11]
Through this study, McGavran discovered that of the 145 areas where mission activity was taking place, 134 had grown only eleven percent between 1921 and 1931. The churches in those areas were not even conserving their own children in the faith. Yet, in the other eleven areas the church was growing by one hundred percent, one hundred fifty percent, and even two hundred percent a decade. A curiosity arose within his breast that was to occupy his life and ministry until his death. He wondered why some churches were growing, while others, often just a few miles away, were not. He eventually identified four major questions that were to drive the Church Growth movement worldwide, and in the United States of America.
George Hunter summarized these “driving” questions of Great Commission research: [12]
Question 1 and 2 are research questions.
Question 4 is an application question. “What principles … are reproducible” encourages replicating current best practices. It was this principle of reproducibility that captivated and inadvertently depreciated much of this movement.
Question 3 is a gateway to understanding McGavran’s mind, what I call his strategic DNA. It is a question about foresight. Notice it is about “factors that canmake the Christian faith a movement among some populations” (underline mine). Though this foresight question was foundational to McGavran’s DNA, its lack of immediacy made it less attractive to practitioners and publishers. Yet this third question is what makes his writings ground shaking. McGavran’s visionary foresight was to see the harvest not after it ripens, but as it begins to emerge from spiritually fertile soil.
Such DNA led McGavran, at Fuller President David Hubbard’s invitation, to establish the School of World Mission at Fuller Theological Seminary when McGavran was 67 years old. Charles Van Engen described the school as embracing “prophetic foresight and trend-setting mission leadership.”[13]
The foresight of Donald McGavran (and the shortcuts of his readers)
A problem which befell the Great Commission Research Movement was that McGavran‘s emphasis upon foresight was overshadowed by the popularity of replication. And who could blame his readers for this partiality? For the first time cross-denominational scientific measurement was applied to the church. Judicatory leaders as well as local pastors were either enthralled or alarmed. But they all were interested, especially in shortcuts. Such shortcuts were not peering into the future, but locating what is working today and replicating it. The focus on the future faded from view as the shortcuts of the present clouded it out.
McGavran had looked to see where the Holy Spirit was moving and then marshalled resources to support future ministry in those areas of fertile soil. McGavran sought to allocate future funding to ministries and cultures where the Holy Spirit was and probably will be moving. His most well-known mentee was the prolific author C. Peter Wagner, a colorful cheerleader for replicating what was working elsewhere to customarily help aging congregations thwart geriatrophy.[14]
While both replication and foresight are important tools, Wagner‘s enthusiasm moved the emphasis away from foresight and placed it on copyright. Thus, began decades of finding what’s working and following it, rather than finding where the Holy Spirit is preparing to move and following Him.
Pulling few punches, Alan McMahan, the former president of the Great Commission Research Network called this proliferation of tactics “faddish,” “shrink-wrapping” and a “paint-by-numbers” approach to McGavran’s missiology:
“I have concluded that McGavran‘s missiology was really quite a bit different than the church growth practice in the US and there is a bit of a disconnect there. As it became faddish in the US and proliferated to thousands of churches with all the church growth conferences and church growth products, and as places … shrink-wrapping it all into a tape, a workbook, or a textbook, it became a paint-by-numbers, kind of an approach that many people adopted.”[15]
While McMahan attributes this paint-by-numbers to a loss of cross-cultural experience, it could also be attributable to the lack of foresight that’s required of a missionary. It might be said that McMahan is suggesting, “We don’t analyze sufficiently how and where the Spirit is moving or will move in a community.”
Three Disadvantages of Paint-by-numbers Methodologies
And so, the Effective Evangelism Movement came to be criticized for promoting the latest trend or tactics.[16]And, when such tactics start to be used by many churches, the tactics lose their effectiveness for at least three reasons.
A faddish reputation creates a distain among innovators and skeptics. As a result, organizations led by innovators or change-agents will avoid and even ridicule tools or programs associated with prefabricated methodologies.
The more that people experience certain tactics, the more good (and bad) experiences will result. Because bad experiences are more likely to be shared than good ones,[17] even worthy tactics can lose their positive regard. For example, the cohesive power of a small group has been attested to from Jesus’ example, through the small group methods of Wesley,[18] to the sticky groups of Larry Osborne.[19] But one bad small group experience in one church can lead an attendee to conclude all small groups are irrelevant to them. Popularity breeds potential for innovation to be more widely criticized … and avoided.
Finally, this creates a copycat culture rather than a culture of creativity and innovation.
McGavran saw methodology as dependent upon the opportunity. Opportunity was observed through foresight. Foresight dictated the methodology, not reduplication.[20]
Where did leadership foresight come from (and how do we get it)?
What then is the antidote to prefab tactics? The solution is to focus on where and how the Holy Spirit is moving and to begin planning to meet future needs. Richard Slaughter, the scholar most associated with foresight thinking (also known as futuring or futurethinking), described foresight as “the ability to create and maintain a high-quality, coherent and functional forward view, and to use the insights arising in useful organizational ways.”[21] Here are his three principles of leadership foresight.
1. Predicting the future is not as difficult as deciding to study it.
Leadership foresight as a practicum has largely escaped the examination of theologians and practical ecclesiology. But we have been dancing around it for decades. As a secular academic practice, it first came to prominence with the research and writings of Richard Slaughter in the 1990s during a ramp-up to the new millennium. Slaughter came to be concerned about societal upheavals might bring in the next twenty years. Towards that end, Richard Slaughter began to study both how we think of the future and how we act upon that thinking. He studied historical examples of people who thought long and deep about the future and who were then able with a degree of accuracy to predict the future and take advantage of it.
But Slaughter saw reasons organizations don’t study the future and are therefore surprised and disadvantaged by it.[22] These include: “their roots are in an earlier age, change is slow in institutions, turbulent times create problems for leaders, and they avoid thinking about it, and ‘Faulty assumptions in western industrial worldview… e.g., me, mine, now’.” Slaughter warns leaders not to attempt, “to move into the future without foresight.”[23]
2. Predicting is not enough; we must academically critique our forecasts.
2023 is the 54th anniversary of the release of Stanley Kubrick’s magnus opus and Oscar award-winning film, “2001: A Space Odyssey.” In 1968, coauthors Kubrick and science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke predicted what the world would look like at the turn of the millennium. Those of you who have seen this film know it is sometimes confusing. But the film predicted that, by 2001 there would be active archaeological digs on the moon and artificial gravity manufactured by slowly rotating space stations. While some of the predictions such as landing on the moon, space stations, etc. were in part correct, this was a predictive exercise by Kubrick and Clarke, not an effort to engage what’s next.
(Article continues on the next page with Slide 13)
Why prediction alone is insufficient was brought to my attention by one of the pastors in the MissionalCoaches.network. This drawing from a Salvation Army newsletter in 1929 depicts a salvationist doing their work in 2029 via multiple television screens.[24]Humorous then but strangely accurate now, it nonetheless did not lead The Salvation Army to be an early adopter of technology. Even to this day, one of my former students, a salvationist utilizing electronic outreach in Southern California told me, “We (the Salvation Army) are still wrestling with funding electronic outreach. In the last century, we were innovators in evangelism through musical outreach. But we are skeptical about technology today.”[25]
3. Use future thinking to inform current strategies & innovation will result.
There’s a difference between predicting the future and adopting future thinking into our current actions. Dreaming about the future is easy, but it is not enough. We must start planning now how we will engage it. This is the fundamental difference between fantasizing and futuring.
As I look back over the Effective Evangelism Movement, I see bursts of creativity taking place when leaders think about what they can start doing now to pivot and engage what’s next. It’s not about just predicting the future. And it’s not even to bemoan it and fear it. It’s about integrating future thinking into our current plans. As Richard Slaughter said, foresight leadership is “the ability to create and maintain a high-quality, coherent and functional forward view, and to use the insights arising in useful organizational ways”[26]
Three Ways to Embrace Leadership Foresight into Your Current Plans
Much has been made lately about the influence our assumptions and biases have on our ecclesial thinking. This is a good exercise. In fact, it should be increased if we are to also learn about biases we naturally have regarding future thinking. Talk to others who see your biases and cultural perspectives. Have others hold you accountable by questioning your assumptions and biases about the future. And when talking with others learn about their biases too.
2. Scan futuring from the outside in.
Don’t just read books and articles about church leadership but discover how leaders from varying fields are planning to meet future needs. Futuring has a robust canon of literature and not surprising more is being penned every day. So instead of reading about what is working elsewhere, try reading about what industries such as technology, communication, service and healthcare are doing now to prepare for tomorrow. Read their articles, books and follow their social media postings.
3. Be provocative: ‘any useful idea about the future should appear to be ridiculous.’
Richard Slaughter says, “The natural next step of scanning is to use your imagination. Challenge yourself to think of provocative implications of ideas, innovations and events. Connect the dots between seemingly disparate pieces of information. Think provocatively — as said by legendary futurist Jim Dator, ‘any useful idea about the future should appear to be ridiculous.’[28] In 20, 30, 50 years, what might happen because of a trend we see today? If you are afraid to let your mind wander, you’ll never find yourself at the leading edge.”[29]
The missio Dei at the Leading Edge
Like the salvationist who uncomfortably chuckled at a cartoon depicting the Good News traveling over televisions, today we worry and fantasize about the future, without making plans to engage it. And copying only what is working now leads only to a proliferation of cloned ideas and instills in the church a lack of innovative ministry. Rather for innovation to resurface, I call upon this research community and others within the ecclesial world to begin to study the future as much as we study the past and the present. Innovative participation in the missio Dei tomorrow and beyond, depends upon it.
NOTES AVAILABLE HERE >
[1] For example, ChatGPT and artificial intelligence are currently of particular interest to the church leaders. Also, future thinking is being applied to planning in the communications, service and healthcare industries.
[2] Richard Slaughter, The Foresight Principle. (Westport: Praeger, 1995).
[3] Donald McGavran, “What is the Church Growth School of Thought?” manuscript, as quoted in Wilbert R. Shenk, The Challenges of Church Growth: A Symposium, (Scottdale: Herald Press, 1973), p. 17. McGavran defines effective evangelism as a movement that, “enlists in Christ’s school all segments of human society, and incorporates in his body, the church, all the ethnic and linguistic units of the world.” Donald McGavran, “My Pilgrimage in Mission” IBMR, April 1986: 58.
[4] Jeff Walters, “The Legacy of Donald McGavran: A Forum” edited by IJFM Editorial Staff, International Journal of Frontier Missiology, 31:2 Summer 2014, 61.
[5] To understand the difference between dissonant adapters, selective adapters and consonant adapters see Bob Whitesel, The Healthy Church: Practical Ways to Strengthen a Church’s Heart (Indianapolis: The Wesleyan Publishing House, 2013), 69-70
[7] Donald McGavran, The Bridges of God (Cambridge, UK: World Dominion Press, 1955), 109.
[8] Outside of coastal cities existed an American heartland with little diversity in the 1980s. The result was that practical theologians such as McGavran and Wagner, though they had grown up in cross-cultural mission fields, did not see today’s multiculturalism as a requisite factor in Great Commission strategy. Formative years in non-English-speaking cultures had bred in them a respect and appreciation for different cultures. In fact, not wanting to see those cultures assimilate, they understood from firsthand experience how such cultures took pride (as dissonant adapters) amid a worldwide proliferation of Northern European cultures. They didn’t want to see the One-third World push its cultural language, music and artistic expressions upon the Two-thirds World. This gave them a high respect for dissonant adapters, and a desire to see their dissonance preserved. As a product of their time, they did not see diversification as a pressing need within the North American church. Subsequently, this became an oversight toward which church growth under Wagner internalized. McGavran and Wagner were the furthest you can be from cultural supremists. Rather they saw the need to let indigenous peoples experience the Good News and celebrate that news in culturally relevant ways.
[9] Mark DeYmaz, Should Pastors Accept or Reject the Homogeneous Unit Principle? (Little Rock, AR: Mosiax Publishers, 2011).
[10] Lyle Schaller, The Interventionist (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1997).
[14]Geriatrophy is a term coined by Kent Hunter to describe churches “wasting away because of old age” in Bob Whitesel and Kent R. Hunter, A House Divided: Bridging the Generation Gaps in Your Church (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2000), 33.
[15] Alan McMahan, “Stewarding Legacies in Mission, The Legacy of Donald McGavran: A Forum,” edited by IJFM Editorial Staff, International Journal of Frontier Missiology, 31:2 Summer 2014.61.
[16] For an interesting historical perspective, reread this evaluation of The Church Growth Movement through the eyes of McGavran’s foresight and Wagner’s practicality: Gary L. McIntosh and Paul Engle (eds.), Evaluating the Church Growth Movement: Five Views (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2004).
[18] Note the critical role small groups play in the Methodist movement’s effectiveness in George G. Hunter III’s classic To Spread the Power: Church Growth in the Wesleyan Movement (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1987) as well as his The Recovery of a Contagious Methodist Movement (Adaptive Leadership) (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2012).
[19] Larry Osborne, Sticky Church, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2008).
[20] Other examples of McGavran’s foresight, beyond the length of this article but suitable for further research, are the role of foresight in funding, the role of foresight in theology (e.g. harvest theology vs. theology) and the role foresight in ministry training. Regarding the latter, McGavran’s foresight appears to have spurred him on to found schools to train future leaders while he was in an advanced age. He was 64 years of age when he founded the Institute of Church Growth at Northwest Christian College and 68 years old when he founded the School of World Mission at Fuller Theological Seminary.
[21] Richard Slaughter, The Foresight Principle. (Westport: Praeger, 1995).
(RNS) — Forgiveness is an age-old practice central to the teaching of many of the world’s religions. In Islam, forgiveness suggests alignment with Allah. In Judaism, acts of atonement — or Teshuva — are expected for wrongdoing. In Christianity, forgiveness is unconditional, by loving one’s enemies as oneself.
… When it comes to the transformative power of forgiveness, scientists and faith leaders agree on its benefits for long-term mental and physical health. It is clear that the ability to forgive — to transform anger and resentment into hope and healing — can indeed be a restorative and healing act requiring faith. But forgiveness is also backed by an ever-growing body of scientific evidence, one that refines and extends our faith in new ways
… We now know that to receive the most powerful benefits of forgiveness, it requires both the head and heart. Decisional forgiveness, which accesses the cognitive centers of the brain, must be accompanied by emotional forgiveness, which involves a full range of affective consequences. In addition, over the past two decades research has delivered high-quality evidence that forgiveness improves overall health and well-being, down-regulates the body’s stress response and improves cardiovascular outcomes.
And for those whose ability to forgive may not be as automatic, scientific knowledge based on tested interventions can support the work of spiritual leaders who seek to help their communities with their forgiveness journeys. Likewise, scientific research has engaged directly with aspects of faith, demonstrating through empirical studies how belief can enhance a person’s ability to forgive.
I took my doctor of ministry students to England to learn from English church leaders who embody a modern spirit of John Wesley. They balance a concern for people’s eternal salvation with people’s need for physical salvation from poverty, crime and lack of opportunity.
One such colleague is Rev. Canon David Male, the Church of England (C of E) director of evangelism and discipleship. Below is a quote he recently gave to the English Guardian newspaper about how innovative “fresh expressions” of the church are coexisting along traditional congregations.
“C of E traditionalists launch fight against worship in ‘takeaway, cinema or barn’” by Harriet Sherwood, The Guardian Newspaper, London, UK, 8/6/21.
“The Rev Canon David Male, the C of E’s director of evangelism and discipleship, said: ‘It is really heartening to see people coming together with a passion and concern for the parish, which is a precious inheritance at the heart of every community in England and the core of the C of E.’
A key part of the church’s strategy was to ‘revitalise the parishes and churches up and down the country,’ he said. ‘Throughout our history there have always been other forms of churches alongside and within [parishes] – from cathedrals and chapels to fresh expressions and church plants, all of these come from and are part of the parishes. We need them all.’
by Emma Young, British Psychological Society, 5/4/21.
… Now a new study in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, led by Saima Noreen at De Montfort University, specifically investigates how different types of forgiveness towards an offender can help people who are intentionally trying to forget an unpleasant incident.
Noreen and her colleagues set out to explore possible interactions between intentional forgetting and “decisional” vs “emotional” forgiveness. Decisional forgiveness is making the decision to forgive the perpetrator, and not to seek revenge — indeed, even to make efforts to maintain a relationship — but while still bearing a grudge. In contrast, emotional forgiveness involves getting rid of negative emotions towards the perpetrator and replacing them with positive ones.
…The team found that participants in the emotional forgiveness group showed greater forgetting of the detail, though not the gist, of the offence than the other groups. These participants also reported feeling more psychological distance from the offence.
…
The team’s analysis revealed that for these participants, emotional, but not decisional, forgiveness was associated with greater forgetting of the detail of the original transgression (though again not the gist of it). It was also associated with a shift to reporting feeling more forgiveness for the perpetrator.
“Collectively, our findings suggest that the act of emotional forgiveness leads to a transgression becoming more psychologically distant, such that victims will construe the event at a higher and more abstract level,” the team writes. (In other words, retaining the gist, but not all the detail). “This high-level construal, in turn, promotes larger intentional forgetting effects, which, in turn, promote increased emotional forgiveness,” they go on.
Small group: 8-12 for a focused study on the gospel
Visitation: knocking on doors, neighbors, initiating conversations
Liturgical: church calendar as opportunity to integrate gospeling
Church growth: new ports of entry
Prophetic: challenging to pursue gospel in word and deed and public
Revival: organized crowd with music and evangelism and invitation and follow-up
Media: using various media
Which is your most preferred model?
I will not on this blog go through each of these because I’m encouraging you to get ahold of this book, read it, and devour it. It could make a fantastic 6-8 week adult Bible class or Sunday School class.
She treats each model with kind hands and careful definitions and fair evaluations. This is no book griping about #1 and #5 and #7 and instead suggesting we should all be part of #4 and knock it all off. No, she knows there’s good in each and God has used each. (Think of our posts now on missional theology: If God is the God of mission then God is at work in all the models.)
But what I thought was also fantastic about Priscilla’s book is how she ties it altogether into five major practices and habits of those who engage well in evangelism.
She uses the term “good” and so I add that the Hebrew is “tov” and this is what tov evangelism and tov evangelists look like. They practice five qualities. They are the “gold standard of an evangelistic endeavor.”
Which churches will thrive, which will struggle, and what is the way forward?
… Look at ways to right-size sanctuaries. Converting part of the sanctuary into classrooms, welcome centers and prayer spaces can create intimacy in the once larger space. And look for ways to monetize facilities. My co-author Mark DeYmaz suggests ways churches can lease out portions of their facilities, create local business hubs, develop shared working spaces, etc. to increase income from aging buildings. – @BobWhitesel via @OutreachMag
but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.”
The first type are those the NIV calls “unreliable friends.” In the Hebrew, rea`,it is defined more like a “companion” (ESV, HNB) that journeys with you because they benefit from your companionship.
Leaders will always encounter these type of people. These are the ones that partner with your leadership because of what they derive from the relationship. They get more than they give. And they are probably the majority of our partners in leadership.
The second type of friend, in Hebrew ahab, is one who “loves you as family.” Leaders will also encounter these people. They may be fewer and farther between, but they are evident because it is their nature to give to another rather than to take. Hang onto these relationships. They will be there with you through good times and more importantly bad times.
This proverb also suggests many of the first types of friends (companions) lead “to ruin.”
The second type of friends will “cling to you” (Hebrew dabeq) like family.
To help visualize (and identify) those friends who love you like family and will cling to you through difficult situations, we have only to look to the friendship exemplified by the New Testament disciple: Barnabas. His very name means son of encouragement. And, he was the one who encouraged skeptical disciples to accept the redeemed Saul, now named Paul.
In my life these people who have clung to me and stayed with me like family have been the greatest source of encouragement. They don’t seem to be the majority, maybe only 10 percent of the friends I know. However, I love them and value them.
The author of Proverbs reminds us to deepen our relationship with the “Barnabas friends” who will last forever.
The survey, conducted Feb. 4 to 19, 2019, asked respondents to name the first person who comes to mind when they think about Catholicism, Buddhism, evangelical Protestantism, Islam, Judaism and atheism.
For three of the religions, Americans are most likely to name a figure from long ago: for Buddhism, Buddha; for Islam, the Prophet Muhammad; and for Judaism, Jesus. For the two Christian groups asked about, people are most likely to name a modern religious leader – for evangelical Protestantism, Billy Graham; and for Catholicism, the pope…
Asked about evangelical Protestantism, nearly half of Americans (46%) say “no one” or “don’t know” or do not answer the question. An additional 21% name Billy Graham, 5% each name Jesus and Martin Luther, and 9% name other religious leaders…
About half of respondents asked about Judaism name a person who appears in religious scripture, including Jesus (21%), Moses (13%) and Abraham (8%). And 7% name either a well-known historical figure, such as Anne Frank or Albert Einstein, or a celebrity such as Jerry Seinfeld. An additional 5% name someone they are personally acquainted with, and 4% say God.
…it turns out, there may be a sweet spot for failing, according to new research out from a team led by the University of Arizona with help from researchers at Brown University, Princeton, and the University of California, Los Angeles.
“These ideas that were out there in the education field–that there is this ‘zone of proximal difficulty,’ in which you ought to be maximizing your learning–we’ve put that on a mathematical footing,” said lead author and Arizona professor of psychology and cognitive science Robert Wilson, ina release.
…“If you have an error rate of 15 percent or accuracy of 85 percent, you are always maximizing your rate of learning in these two-choice tasks,” Wilson said, adding that the 85 percent rule was also seen to hold in previous studies of animal learning.
…If you aren’t failing, you aren’t trying.
“If you are taking classes that are too easy and acing them all the time, then you probably aren’t getting as much out of a class as someone who’s struggling but managing to keep up,” Wilson said.
Learning comes from challenges and challenges come with a risk of failure. What’s new is that we now know that risk should be at about 15 percent.
…it turns out, there may be a sweet spot for failing, according to new research out from a team led by the University of Arizona with help from researchers at Brown University, Princeton, and the University of California, Los Angeles.
“These ideas that were out there in the education field–that there is this ‘zone of proximal difficulty,’ in which you ought to be maximizing your learning–we’ve put that on a mathematical footing,” said lead author and Arizona professor of psychology and cognitive science Robert Wilson, ina release.
…“If you have an error rate of 15 percent or accuracy of 85 percent, you are always maximizing your rate of learning in these two-choice tasks,” Wilson said, adding that the 85 percent rule was also seen to hold in previous studies of animal learning.
…If you aren’t failing, you aren’t trying.
“If you are taking classes that are too easy and acing them all the time, then you probably aren’t getting as much out of a class as someone who’s struggling but managing to keep up,” Wilson said.
Learning comes from challenges and challenges come with a risk of failure. What’s new is that we now know that risk should be at about 15 percent.
Commentary by Dr. Whitesel: I tell my church growth and health clients that I will be brutally honest with them and they must be prepared for direct and non-sugarcoated feedback. If they’re not willing to receive such feedback, then I can’t take them as a client. That is because I’ve learned over the years that without clear and honest feedback clients will misinterpret the severity of the situation. Below is research that explains the illusion of transparency bias.
Are You Sugarcoating Your Feedback Without Realizing It?
by Michael Schaerer and Roderick Swaab, Harvard Business Review, 10/8/19.
… Managers tend to inflate the feedback they give to their direct reports, particularly when giving bad news. And by presenting subpar performance more positively than they should, managers make it impossible for employees to learn, damaging their careers and, often, the company.
Previous research into this kind of feedback inflation has centered on the idea that managers deliberately sugarcoat tough messages for fear of retaliation, or to protect their employees from feeling bad about themselves. But our research shows that many managers deliver inflated feedback unintentionally, and in fact think they’ve been much more clear than is the case. These findings point to some simple ways to improve how managers impart criticism.
We believe that managers’ assumption that their direct reports understand what they mean is due to a common cognitive bias called the illusion of transparency, in which people are so focused on their own intense feelings and intentions that they overestimate the extent to which their inner worlds come across to others. As a result their words may be too vague to convey their true intent. The illusion of transparency is one of the most commoncauses of misunderstandings when we communicate with others…
What to Do About It
While it can be helpful to become aware of unintentional behaviors, overcoming them is notoriously difficult. Our research points to several ways to combat the illusion of transparency.
First, increase the frequency of feedback. As a manager, you can augment your annual appraisals with continuous reminders, ongoing training, and structured weekly or monthly “pulse checks” to break the discomfort that may be preventing you from communicating more clearly. Research has found that giving feedback more frequently makes feedback more accurate. This repetition will also help reinforce your message.
Firms should also promote a culture that encourages employees to request more candid feedback from their managers prior to appraisals. Failing that, firms can institute a formal process obligating them to do so.
… Ultimately, clarity and specificity of language are managers’ best tools. Use clear language and avoid phrases that could obscure your meaning. One phrase to avoid, for example, is “a real possibility,” which people interpret as conveying a likelihood of anywhere from 20%–80%. Also, ask your employee to paraphrase what you’ve told them to make sure they fully understand your message. Managers also need to actively encourage employees to tell them how they see their own performance. As a manager, ask open-ended questions like, “What am I not seeing here? What may I be overlooking?”
Employees themselves can dispel many incorrect assumptions by asking questions, or by requesting that managers use precise, explicit terms when delivering feedback. If your manager doesn’t ask you to rearticulate what they’ve told you, try using statements that begin, “So if I’m understanding you correctly, you’re saying…”
…The normal line of thinking goes that if you want to improve at something– let’s say it’s a key sales presentation you’ve just given– that you should ask the people you just gave it to for feedback. Seems reasonable.
But theHarvard researchers discoveredthat there’s a real problem with this approach. Feedback is often too vague to even be helpful. And in my experience, when you frame it as asking for feedback, people often default to being nice and not wanting to say what they really think. It’s human nature. But human nature doesn’t nurture in this case, it just glosses over.
The researchers say there’s a far better alternative if you want to get better at something–ask for advice.
Why asking for advice is better than asking for feedback.
In one study, the researchers asked 200 people to give input on a job application, asking some to give feedback on the application and others to give advice. Those who gave feedback were vague and glossed over flaws in the application, giving only praise.
Those who were asked to give advice gave more critical and actionable input. In fact, advice-givers gave comments on a whopping 34 percent more areas of improvement and gave 56 percent more ways to improve.Three more studies by the researchers produced similar conclusions.
The studies also highlighted another problem with asking for advice–it’s associated with evaluations.
Imagine you just got off stage from giving that sales presentation I mentioned earlier. You then pick out an audience member to give you feedback. What happens? They immediately go into evaluation mode rather than picturing how you could do that presentation better in the future. So their comments migrate to observations of how well you did something (or not), in their minds articulating a mental letter grade they’re giving you.
But if you asked for advice instead, it puts the audience member in a different frame of mind. Now, implicit in the fact that you’re asking for advice, is the fact that you’re open to getting better.
Commentary by Dr. Whitesel: I’ve written a chapter in one of my books about how “over building” usually stunts church growth (you can read that chapter, the “The 7 Don’ts & 7 Do’s of Building” here). Below is a recent story about how over building has thwarted one church’s missional flexibility.
“Southern Baptist megachurch to downsize its campus by 90 percent.”
by Bob Allen, Baptist News Service, 9/10/19.
First Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida, once one of America’s most influential megachurches, determined Sept. 8 to downsize its downtown property footprint by 90 percent in a cost-cutting move the senior pastor described as necessary for the church’s long-term survival.
Under the leadership of pastors and co-pastors Homer Lindsay Sr., Homer Lindsay Jr. and Jerry Vines, First Baptist Church earned the nickname Miracle of Downtown Jacksonville after buying up real estate left behind when department stores and smaller retailers started relocating into suburban malls in the 1970s.
Today the church covers 10 city blocks with buildings including a sanctuary built to seat nearly 10,000 people that was dedicated in 1993.
Heath Lambert, named last year as sole senior pastor of First Baptist, said once a blessing, the congregation’s central location has become a curse as the city continues to expand farther away from its urban core.
“If you want to get people to come to First Baptist Church on Sunday morning, you have to get them to do two things they never do,” Lambert said during his Sunday morning sermon. “You have to get them to come to church, and you have to get them to come downtown.”
Lambert said that after 20 years of declining membership, the downtown church needs about one-tenth of its current space. Plans approved by the congregation on Sunday call for consolidating all operations into one city block.
Wikipedia
“What we can’t do on one block, we won’t do,” the pastor said.
The plan includes borrowing $30 million to renovate Hobson Auditorium, the original 1,500-seat worship space built after a fire destroyed much of downtown Jacksonville in 1901, and to replace other buildings now used for offices with state-of-the-art construction.
Lambert said the church will eventually sell off downtown property and move toward a multi-site church model. The church currently has a south campus in Nocatee, which moved into its own building after meeting at Ponte Vedra High School for a decade in 2019.
“Instead of being the big church downtown that we ask everybody from all over to come to, we want to be a church for the whole city,” Lambert said. “Instead of asking our city to come to our church, we’re going to take our church to the city.”
[To have Faith in Christ] means, of course, trying to do all that He says. There would be no sense in saying you trusted a person if you would not take his advice. Thus if you have really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow that you are trying to obey Him. But trying in a new way, a less worried way. Not doing these things in order to be saved, but because He has begun to save you already. Not hoping to get to Heaven as a reward for your actions, but inevitably wanting to act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside you.”–C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity.
“A Plea to Narnia Fans” by Jeremy Lott, November 18, 2013.
… Susan is one of the four children, including brothers Peter and Edmund and sister Lucy, who find their way through a dimensional portal in the back of a wardrobe into the world of Narnia. Their discovery kicks off the seven-book bestselling children’s series.
She becomes Queen Susan the Gentle, one of four kings and queens of that land on the other side of the wardrobe, ruling it for a very long time. Yet when it comes time to defend Narnia inThe Last Battle, Lewis’s take on the apocalypse, Queen Susan is unexpectedly AWOL.
Peter explains “shortly and gravely” that “my sister Susan is no longer a friend of Narnia.” Other Narnia kids pillory Susan in her absence for a number of things, including denying the reality of Narnia itself and embracing a permanent adolescence which excludes everything “except nylons and lipstick and invitations.”
…You see, children in the 1950s and 1960s readThe Last Battleand were concerned about Queen Susan’s absence. They wrote directly to professor Lewis and he wrote them back.
What Lewis said to his favorite readers was that he hadn’t meant to suggest Susan was damned, just that her story diverged from the one he was trying to tell.
Lewis wrote to one young reader that Susan was written out of the story not because “I have no hope of Susan’s ever getting into Aslan’s country” — that is, Heaven — “but because I have a feeling that the story of her journey would be longer and more like a grown-up novel than I wanted to write.”
Lewis admitted fallibility and issued a startling invitation: “But I may be mistaken. Why not try it yourself?”
Ford calls Susan’s story “one of the most important unfinished tales of the Chronicles.”
“I’ll Forgive You, If …” by Anne Ferrell Tata, CBN, 2017.
…Catherine Marshall in her 1974 book,Something More, wrote a chapter titled “Forgiveness: The Aughts and the Anys.” The Chapter referencesMatthew 18:18…
The chapter addresses our need as Christians to fulfill Christ’s expectation to forgive, period. Like many of us, Catherine Marshall admits to attaching conditions to her forgiveness. She says, “if the other person saw the error of his ways, was properly sorry, and admitted his guilt, then yes, as a Christian, I was obligated to forgive him.”
She soon discovered Jesus’ words in Mark 11 said something entirely different. Jesus said,
“And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have aught against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.”Mark 11:25(KJV)
“Any” meant anybody and everybody. Catherine Marshall’s commentary on this truth is fascinating as she unpacks the notion of our prayers being hindered by our un-forgiveness.
She references South African-born minister David du Plessis’ explanation of the Matthew 18 verse. He explains that when we hang on to judgment of another person, we bind that person to the very conditions we want to see changed. By our un-forgiveness, we stand between that person and the Holy Spirit’s work in convicting and ultimately helping him.
Dr. du Plessis says, “By stepping out of the way through releasing somebody from our judgment, we’re not necessarily saying, ‘He’s right and I’m wrong.’ Forgiveness means, ‘He can be as wrong as wrong can be, but I’ll not be the judge.’ Forgiveness means that I’m no longer binding a certain person on earth. It means withholding judgment.”
A Biblical example is from Acts 7 when Stephen was being stoned to death. Saul of Tarsus stood watching, holding the garments of the witnesses. The Bible tells us Stephen’s response to his attack is one of forgiveness,
“Lord, do not charge them with this sin.”Acts 7:60(HCSV).
Just two chapters later, Saul is on his way to Damascus when he encounters Jesus, and his world is turned upside down. Stephen, by releasing the group from his judgment stepped out of the way, therefore allowing the Holy Spirit to work.
Pastor Paul Marzahn is best known as the founder of several south suburban churches. But he’s gaining a new reputation for an unusual side job he’s juggling — as a church flipper.
The Methodist minister scouts for “For Sale” signs on churches with an eye toward rehabbing the buildings and selling them back to new faith-filled owners. He’s also a consultant to clergy looking to sell or buy.
Marzahn’s nonprofit, for example, purchased the historic Wesley United Methodist Church in downtown Minneapolis and last year turned it over to a fresh congregation. His own Lakeville church bought an aging Inver Grove Heights church, rehabbed it, and made it an auxiliary campus.
He’s now helping a ministry serving the homeless revamp a former Catholic Charities building.
“I drive by these church buildings for sale and think, ‘Who do I know who would be a good fit into this building?’ ” said Marzahn, senior pastor at Crossroads United Methodist Church in Lakeville. “That’s my calling. To see churches or nonprofits save some of these great buildings…”
“Some people see the profit side of things,” Marzahn said. “I see a different potential…”
A new study published in theJournal for the Scientific Study of Religionhas some interesting findings about gender and God.
…Kent and co-author Christopher M. Pieper, PhD analyzed data from nearly 1400 respondents who participated in theBaylor Religion Survey. In addition to being asked about frequency of church attendance and frequency of prayer, respondents were also asked questions about attachment, such as whether they felt like God is loving and caring, or whether they felt He was distant and uninterested in their day-to-day life. Respondents were also asked questions about Biblical literalism, including whether they believed the Bible contained any human error, and whether it should be taken word-for-word on all subjects as a historical text.
…more so than gender, researchers found that Biblical literalism is tied to a person’s attachment to God. In other words, the more personally attached to God a respondent was, male or female, the more likely he or she was to interpret the Bible literally.
People who take the Bible literally tend to percieve of God more as a person who can be interacted with,” says Kent. “You can talk to God, he hears you, he talks back. Our argument is essentially that in order to sustain a personal relationship with God as a person, one has to take the Bible literally because this is how the Bible presents God. He’s a being that talks to prophets and prophets talk back.”
Biblical literalism is also not exclusively tied to any religious group, Kent says.
“People who look at religion tend to associate literalism with evangelicals,” says Kent. “What we found is that if we break out each of these religious groups – Evangelicals, Protestants, Catholics – we found that you have literalists in each of these categories. There’s more of a relationship between literalism and close personal attachment to God than there is to denomination.”
Commentary by Dr. Whitesel: Growing in faith for most is a journey. And, the important parts of that journey may be when a person begins to perceive the uniqueness and expectations of Jesus’ Good News.
Be ready to speak up and tell anyone who asks why you’re living the way you are, and always with the utmost courtesy. Keep a clear conscience before God so that when people throw mud at you, none of it will stick. They’ll end up realizing that they’re the ones who need a bath. It’s better to suffer for doing good, if that’s what God wants, than to be punished for doing bad. 1 Peter 3:15-18
… The report from the Church’s Evangelism Task Group and Evangelism and Discipleship Team highlights research showing that while 70 per cent of churchgoers could think of someone they could invite to church, between 85 and 90 per cent of these said they had no intention of doing so.
‘The problem was not the worshipper’s local church but the main issue the research highlighted was a total lack of confidence in talking about faith at all and with anyone,’ the report says.
However, it says, ‘small behavioural changes’ from the 1 million Anglican churchgoers could make a huge difference.
‘If one additional person in 50 from our regular attenders invited someone to a church event and subsequently they started attending it would totally reverse our present decline. Nationally the church would grow by 16,000 people per year, offsetting the current net loss of 14,000,’ the report argues.
It commends the ‘Thy Kingdom Come’ prayer initiative and calls for the development of a ‘culture of invitation’ across dioceses with a view to encouraging churchgoers to invite people to events. It also calls for 1,000 new evangelists to be engaged by 2025, saying: ‘we believe having more evangelists in dioceses and local churches encourages more of the million to do their part in witnessing confidently in their lives’.
Foresight thinking (also known as futuring or future thinking) is of increasing importance due to today’s rapid pace in technology, artificial intelligence, ChatGPT, etc.
1990s: The next decade saw a dizzying proliferation of programs, tools and tactics. There arose tools to proliferate small groups, plant churches, share your faith, indigenize worship, etc. It was during these years that I developed close friendships with my fellow coaches Charles “Chip” Arn, Kent Hunter, Gary McIntosh, Elmer Towns, Ed Stetzer and others. My greatest angst during this time arose when programs were adopted by churches without sufficient analysis of the community and its trajectory. Ill-advised and ill-suited programs often ended in failure, even though they had worked elsewhere. The result was that at the end of the decade there was an increasing suspicion about church growth tools. 
I spent the last twenty years in varying leadership roles in this organization, which drew me deeper into the thinking and foresight of Donald McGavran. I began to see that McGavran‘s DNA was based on two elements. First, an element of his DNA was his analytical mind. He loved observation and prediction, much like famed church growth writer, Lyle Schaller, who had been a former city planner.
George Hunter summarized these “driving” questions of Great Commission research: 
Question 3 is a gateway to understanding McGavran’s mind, what I call his strategic DNA. It is a question about foresight. Notice it is about “factors that canmake the Christian faith a movement among some populations” (underline mine). Though this foresight question was foundational to McGavran’s DNA, its lack of immediacy made it less attractive to practitioners and publishers. Yet this third question is what makes his writings ground shaking. McGavran’s visionary foresight was to see the harvest not after it ripens, but as it begins to emerge from spiritually fertile soil. 
A problem which befell the Great Commission Research Movement was that McGavran‘s emphasis upon foresight was overshadowed by the popularity of replication. And who could blame his readers for this partiality? For the first time cross-denominational scientific measurement was applied to the church. Judicatory leaders as well as local pastors were either enthralled or alarmed. But they all were interested, especially in shortcuts. Such shortcuts were not peering into the future, but locating what is working today and replicating it. The focus on the future faded from view as the shortcuts of the present clouded it out. 
While both replication and foresight are important tools, Wagner‘s enthusiasm moved the emphasis away from foresight and placed it on copyright. Thus, began decades of finding what’s working and following it, rather than finding where the Holy Spirit is preparing to move and following Him.
The more that people experience certain tactics, the more good (and bad) experiences will result. Because bad experiences are more likely to be shared than good ones,
McGavran saw methodology as dependent upon the opportunity. Opportunity was observed through foresight. Foresight dictated the methodology, not reduplication.
What then is the antidote to prefab tactics? The solution is to focus on where and how the Holy Spirit is moving and to begin planning to meet future needs. Richard Slaughter, the scholar most associated with foresight thinking (also known as futuring or futurethinking), described foresight as “the ability to create and maintain a high-quality, coherent and functional forward view, and to use the insights arising in useful organizational ways.”
Leadership foresight as a practicum has largely escaped the examination of theologians and practical ecclesiology. But we have been dancing around it for decades. As a secular academic practice, it first came to prominence with the research and writings of Richard Slaughter in the 1990s during a ramp-up to the new millennium. Slaughter came to be concerned about societal upheavals might bring in the next twenty years. Towards that end, Richard Slaughter began to study both how we think of the future and how we act upon that thinking. He studied historical examples of people who thought long and deep about the future and who were then able with a degree of accuracy to predict the future and take advantage of it. 
2. Predicting is not enough; we must academically critique our forecasts.
Why prediction alone is insufficient was brought to my attention by one of the pastors in the 
3. Use future thinking to inform current strategies & innovation will result. 
There’s a difference between predicting the future and adopting future thinking into our current actions. Dreaming about the future is easy, but it is not enough. We must start planning now how we will engage it. This is the fundamental difference between fantasizing and futuring.
Heath Lambert, named last year as sole senior pastor of First Baptist, said once a blessing, the congregation’s central location has become a curse as the city continues to expand farther away from its urban core.
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