This year, however, growing churches will focus less on gathering and much more on connecting. Historically, the church has wagered almost everything on gathering people in a building. Growing Churches Will Shift Their Focus From Gathering to Connecting In the post-pandemic church, your most engaged people may not be in the room. In the post-pandemic church, it’s possible that the majority of attenders as well as your most engaged people may not be in the room. In the same way retailers have come to understand that an online purchaser is still a client, and restaurant owners have embraced the fact that drive-thru, take out and delivery can still be fulfill their mission around food, so church leaders have to get good with the fact that people who aren’t in the main room count. If you can be good with the fact that micro-gatherings, distributed gatherings and people watching from home count, then you can mobilize those people in the same way you would people who are in your building. In the future, the number of people participating in the mission who are not in the building on a Sunday will surpass the number of people participating in the mission inside the building. What pastors have to understand quickly is that this trend isn’t about people who are dropping out. More and more growing churches will embrace online viewing from home, micro-gatherings and micro-campuses as normal. And as a result, some won’t do that nearly as much in the future.Īs 2021 rolls on, many growing churches will see off-facility attendance (home partipation, micro-gatherings and distributed gatherings) eclipse facility-based attendance: the number of people participating in the mission who are not in the building on a Sunday will surpass the number of people participating in the mission inside the building. People have realized they don’t have to go to a building to engage. Over the last year, so many things have shifted home: work, shopping, food, fitness, school and (at least for a season) church. Moving forward church leaders will realize that people who are engaging from home or other places will count just as much as those who are attending in a facility. Moving forward, many church leaders will realize that people who are engaging from home or other places will count just as much as those who are attending in a facility. The average church has seen their re-opened attendance come in around 36% of previous levels. Almost no leader I’ve interviewed expects church attendance to jump back to pre-COVID levels for a while.įor years, most pastors didn’t know how to handle anyone who engaged the message or mission outside of their facility. Physical church attendance has been in decline for decades and COVID in all likelihood accelerated the decline even further. The Majority of Attenders May No Longer Be In The Room Instead, it will be a gradual emergence into whatever our normalized future looks like. It won't be the light switch you hope for (and suddenly, we're all back!). 2021 will lead the church into the post-pandemic world. While no one can say exactly what the future holds, here are 8 trends I’m watching and would encourage you and your team to consider and process as well. The Original 2020 is History: 7 NEW Disruptive Church Trends Every Leader Should Watchĥ Disruptive Leadership Trends That Will Rule 2020 You can access the entire archive for free here: For the most part, many of the trends have emerged and are still relevant to what we’re all experiencing right now. Since 2016, I’ve done an annual church trends post. The question is, what kind of new reality will emerge?įor church leaders, it will be a different world for sure. But at some point in 2021 you’ll look back and realize most of the pandemic is behind you and the future is ahead of you. It won’t be the light switch you hope for (and suddenly, we’re all back!). In all likelihood, this year will lead the church into the post-pandemic world. Having been through a year like no other, what can you expect as a church leader in 2021?
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