Welcome back. You belong here.

It’s ironic that anyone can make predictions about faith, but if Barna can do it I guess anyone can. I think the Emergent Church is in a good place if #1 is true. Personally, I feel myself going more liturgical and integrated (ancient-future) in the worship arts.

For example, I’m considering a traditional liturgical approach to Christmas Eve 2006. Why? I guess I feel the emptiness of high stage, high energy, stage driven worship and long for more contemplation, connectivity, humanity, rest and mystery in the contemporary church model. Maybe we’ll be one of the first mainstream large churches to go from contemporary to liturgical/ancient-future. I’m not sure if there are others who’ve done it.

FAITH PREDICTIONS:
“1. The home church movement (small, interconnected cell groups) will spread as Christianity remakes itself on the model of its early history.

2. Tensions will rise between conservative believers and liberal nonbelievers

3. Religious bureaucracies will flirt with extinction but evolve into bare-bone operations.

4. Islam will become the majority religion in Europe.

5. Christianity will gain in Africa but lose in the Mideast and Asia (except Korea, where it flourishes).

6. Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Judaism will remain stable; tribal religions decline near the vanishing point.”

Into the future,

davidT