A recently convened panel of church experts reached various conclusions on what churches of the future will look like. Rev. magazine's January/February issue fast-forwarded 10 years to attempt to anticipate what the future holds for churches—and thereby to anticipate what changes are necessary for a church to have a future.

Executive editor Alan Nelson writes that he participated in a roundtable discussion a few years ago on future church leadership development. Nelson said George Barna remained notably silent during the talk so he finally asked the researcher point blank where the Church would be in 10 years. Barna's response: he didn't know. Barna said things were changing so fast the best he could estimate was five years ahead.

That's funny—but wise too. Hanging one's hat on a future yet to be determined could lead to tactical (and expensive) miscalculations.

Coming trends?

Still, Nelson found plenty of other prognosticators willing to go out on a limb and predict everything from fewer mega-campuses (but not fewer mega-ministries), to an emphasis on family ministry.

The obvious predictions concerned trends already noted in U.S. culture, namely: denominational decline, fewer churchgoers, increasing multi-ethnicity, and more emphasis on niche marketing. If this isn't part of your church's outreach strategy, you're already behind.

One prediction was clearly tied to prognosticator bias, such as a predicted emphasis on church service in the community and world from a panel that included the Externally Focused Church Network. But I hope they're right.

The group also predicted "decentralized training" for Christian and church leaders. They say training will come via the Internet or other electronic, anytime media, which may force Christian higher education institutions into crisis and virtually eliminate the traditional M.Div. degree.

However, that may not be the end of the world. Instead of signaling the demise of movie theaters, the VCR and cable brought niche marketing and multiple channel sales for entertainment. Instead of complete denominational die out—enter the megachurch.

Must-have chalk talks

The most important response from church leaders considering the future may not be cultural awareness, or depression over declining denominations and a de-Christianized country. It may not be multi-ethnic outreach or niche marketing.

I remember Bob Russell, retired senior minister of Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Ky., talking once about church trends in light of decades of ministerial experience that included the "must-have" chalkboard sermons of the 1970s. That was THE tool of the time to reach people. Today, that sounds amusing.

It's funny because technology and methods change—maybe faster now than ever before. Certainly, churches should get with the times. But more certainly, churches shouldn't sacrifice their focus on making disciples for any hip trends.

I like what church consultant Aubrey Malphurs said in the main article on ChurchCentral.com this week, debating the efficacy of program-based churches. He boiled it all down to determining a church's health through their disciple-making process. Malphurs' three questions may work well to help churches navigate the impossible changes of future style as well:

• What are we doing?
• How are we doing?
• What are we supposed to be doing?