Obviously, I have no better idea of what’s going to happen tomorrow or 5 years from now than you do. Anyone who tells you they know exactly what’s going to happen is almost guaranteed to be wrong. And the further into the future the prediction, the more likely it is to be wrong. Having said that, there are some things that are likely to happen in the next couple of decades that we need to think about.
These are not my predictions. They’re coming from books and radio interviews with people who study various fields, and who are making informed suppositions about what the world will look like in 20 to 50 years.
The climate is going to continue to change. Many people are working really hard to shift our global use of fossil fuels. It’s still possible that we’ll see an energy revolution, but the odds are that the decline in fossil fuel use will not be enough to prevent really significant changes in our climate. This is likely to mean that some regions and cities will be less habitable than they have been. It’s likely to mean that regions that produced large amounts of food will produce less. It’s also likely to mean that regions that didn’t produce a great deal of food may begin to produce more. If that happens, we will see large migrations of people from some regions to others.
On a completely different note, there are experts in the field of computers who are suggesting that whole sections of our economy will not need human input. That sounds crazy, but think about transportation: self-driving cars are on their way in the next few years. In order to replace people, they don’t have to be perfect—they just have to be better than human drivers. As we all know from our drives into work this morning, that’s not all that hard. But automating every vehicle that industry requires pulls a whole lot of people out of the work force. And it won’t just be in transportation. We may be approaching social change on a level not seen since the industrial revolution.
For those of us in the Anglican Church, the next 20 years are probably going to be hard. We have yet to hit demographic bottom. That means that our parishes are going to be doing a lot more funerals than anything else. It means that we are going to shrink drastically. It means that some parishes are going to be unable to sustain paid staff of any kind. Many will close. There will be exceptions: maybe your parish is one of them, but they will be exceptions. Inevitably, the shrinking and closure of parishes will impact dioceses. There will be diocesan offices that shrink or disappear.
It all sounds kind of grim. Except I don’t think it has to be. Some of this change will be slow, and some of it will come quickly. There will be pieces we haven’t anticipated, and things that come as a complete surprise.
But the story of God is new life after death. The story of God is the story of hope, even when there should be none. The Spirit has a role for you and me in the world that is coming, even if we don’t know what that role is.
I do, however, have some thoughts about how our church should respond. Stay tuned.
By Kathy Anderson May 25, 2016 - 10:42 am
My children no longer go to church , Why? They find the services boring!!ð£ð£
By Linda Neely May 25, 2016 - 4:39 pm
Find a new church it is important for children to learn the bible…
By Norma Poff May 25, 2016 - 4:39 pm
That why you have to change churches….a church that teaches the full gospel…
By Gregor Sneddon May 27, 2016 - 11:31 am
Maybe as the Church no longer serves the many social and even pastoral functions it did a few generations ago, and is searching for its primary identity again. Even social justice is not the property of the baptized – far from it. Secular agencies serve ethical and social justice ends with great proficiency. There are battalions of organizations serving social, community building and even pastoral needs.
So what is the thing the Church can do? What is the thing the Church can do that no other can do?
By Tony Houghton May 27, 2016 - 1:27 pm
The problem as I see it is that we have tried to make the church something it was never meant to be .It is primarily a place where Christians come together to worship God in Spirit and Truth. Not a service or social club but a place where Christians gather worship their creator and Lord and to up build one another so that we can go out and fulfill our calling to declare and share the Gospel in word and deed. We don’t bring people to church or to faith God does ,we are called to be faithful to our calling “Where I am lifted up ,I will draw all men to me . We should study the letters to the 7 churches in the book of Revelation.We have become a church that is a cross between the church in Ephesus ,lost our first love ,and the church in Laodicea, a church neither hot nor cold.Lets get back to basics.