The Diocese of Arizona Celebrate the Past Embrace the Future 50 TH DIOCESAN CONVENTION > OCT. 15-16,...

The Diocese of Arizona

Celebrate the Past • Embrace the Future

50TH DIOCESAN CONVENTION > OCT. 15-16, 201050TH DIOCESAN CONVENTION > OCT. 15-16, 2010

Remember BACK to the future ?

In it, a mad scientist finds a way to time-travel using a specially-equipped DeLorean car.

Let’s watch as he gets the car up to 88 mphin order for it to go back in time!

Now let us travel back in time and see what our Diocese was like 50+ years ago.

(Thanks to The Rev. Canon Ray Dugan

and his film-making team you won’t need a

DeLorean!)


We have come a long wayin 50 years!

• 23,000 members• 65 congregations• 200+ clergy• eight schools• and countless community outreach

projects and programs!


But “times they are a-changin’”

“…about every 500 years the church feels compelled to hold a giant rummage sale.” - Phyllis Tickle

“Our churches still function and even grow in places. But unless we can find the courage to snip the bands of modernism so that we

can mature to our potential, we will die.” - Brian McLaren


But more exciting has been working with congregations that “think outside

the box.”


Sometimes my job has been delivering “bad news” when old ways no longer work.

1. Planting new congregations

2. Children and youth programs

3. Immigrant communities

4. Using new technology


You have already heard me talk a lot about:


What will the church of the future look like?


Here is what I see when I gaze into my crystal

ball….

But this is “through a glass, darkly”

• Transformation, not revolution

• Blend old and new approaches to church life

• Parallel development


The future church will be:relational

• Smaller, “house church” congregations

• Alternative churches and leaders

• Mission vs. buildings• Outwardly focused


The future church will be: “browner”

• Changing demographics• Cultural refuges for new arrivals• Spanish-speaking congregations• More culturally sensitive



• “A little child shall lead them.”

• Church, schools and “hang outs”

• Key to congregation growth

The future church will be: younger

• Virtual meetings

• Social media

• Multi-media

• Internet word-of-mouth


The future church will be: wired

• Stewardship will be front and center

• Old funding sources will be gone

• Staff and clergy will be harder to fund

• Opportunity for different kinds of congregational life


The future church will be: leaner

• Relational• Browner• Younger• Wired• Leaner

Transformational!50TH DIOCESAN CONVENTION > OCT. 15-16, 201050TH DIOCESAN CONVENTION > OCT. 15-16, 2010

The buzz words for the next50 years?

Are you Ready?



The Future belongs to Godand to God’s people.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband… And the one who was seated on the throne said, "See, I am making all things new!" – Revelation 21:1-5

The Diocese of Arizona Celebrate the Past Embrace the Future 50 TH DIOCESAN CONVENTION > OCT. 15-16,...

Documents

Transcript of The Diocese of Arizona Celebrate the Past Embrace the Future 50 TH DIOCESAN CONVENTION > OCT. 15-16,...