1. The potential to gain is still greater than the potential to lose.
Every time there is a change in history, there’s potential to gain and potential to lose.
I believe the potential to gain is greater than the potential to lose. Why?
As despairing or as cynical as some might be (sometimes understandably) over the church’s future, we have to remind ourselves that the church was Jesus’ idea, not ours.
It will survive our missteps and whatever cultural trends happen around us. We certainly don’t always get things right, but Christ has an incredible history of pulling together Christians in every generation to share his love for a broken world.
As a result, the reports of the church’s death are greatly exaggerated.
2. Churches that love their model more than the mission will die.
That said, many individual congregations and some entire denominations won’t make it. The difference will be between those who cling to the mission and those who cling to the model.
When the car was invented, it quick took over for the horse and buggy. Horse and buggy manufacturers were relegated to boutique status and many went under, but human transportation actually exploded. Suddenly, average people could travel at a level they never could before.
The mission is travel. The model is a buggy, or car, or motorcycle, or jet.
Look at the changes in the publishing, music and even photography industry in the last few years.
See a trend? The mission is reading. It’s music. It’s photography. The model always shifts … moving from things like 8-tracks, cassettes and CDs, to MP3s, and now streaming audio and video.
