| 22nd
October, 2006
DAVID
ADAMS
The
Church of 2020
Mal Fletcher
Published by Next Wave International, London, England, 2006
 |
"The world is changing, says Fletcher, and Christians
had better get used to - better yet, embrace - the
idea."
|
The future starts now. And
anyone that wants their church to be an influential part of
that future needs to get moving.
Such are the central pillars of Mal Fletcher’s book,
The Church of 2020.
“True influence is not a product of how well we celebrate
the past or enjoy the present,” he writes. “True
influence is a result of how well we engage with the the future.”
The world is changing, says Fletcher, and Christians had better
get used to - better yet, embrace - the idea.
In writing peppered with Biblical examples and quotes from
numerous futurists - including Dr Patrick Dixon and Dr Tom
Sine, Fletcher sketches out a vision of how technology will
continue to shape our daily lives - a dramatic expansion in
the use of micro and nano technologies as they penetrate almost
every aspect of our lives from the clothes we wear to managing
the temperature in our homes, the melding of man and machine,
and the use of holographic projections, to name just a few
of innovations he lists.
In this new world of increasing choice, Fletcher believes
the greatest enemy to sharing the Christian message will not
be secular humanism, existentialism, materialism, rationalism
or liberalism but “predictability”.
Pointing out that Christ is, in fact, anything but predictable,
Fletcher says the church needs to keep up the surprise that
Jesus is, no longer mirroring or Christianising pop-culture
trends but becoming a trend-setter; a body which demonstrates
the usefulness of faith on a daily, practical level; a body
which will “preach Jesus first and foremost”.
Fletcher sees the church of 2020 as one which will increasingly
seek to provide a taste of the supernatural power of God in
transforming people’s lives, one that will release believers
in far greater ‘body ministry’, one which embraces
the concept of “whole-of-life-mission” and one
whose members will be encouraged to think strategically rather
than wishfully, who understand what it means to live simple,
contented lives and to act in addressing issues like global
poverty.
In the age of terror, the church will provide a voice of certainty
and not be intimated by political correctness. It will stick
to the fundamentals of the faith, says Fletcher, but eschew
the negative connotations we now associate with fundamentalism.
“The church will not back away from the big issues or
hide within a comfortable Christian sub-culture,” he
writes. “It will see itself as having responsibility
for the state of its city, rather than simply the condition
of its members.”
This will mean not shying away from “full-on engagement”
with every area of popular culture, from the local city council
to the cinema in a vision that encompasses local communities
but reaches out around the world across the spectrum of spheres
of influence, from universities to the media to politics.
The Church of 2020 is a bold and inspiring look at
a future Christians everywhere should be working to embrace.
Whether it comes true or not is up to us.
'The
Church of 2020' can be pruchased in paperback or downloaded
in an ebook form from www.nextwaveonline.com.
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