Where is the Church Going in 2025?
In his celebrated novel describing the time of the French Revolution, A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens’ opening lines are breathtakingly appropriate for today:
“It was the best of times; it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, . . .”
In these thirty-nine words, Dickens reminds us that two opposites can, at the same time, be true. Where, in London at the end of the 18th century, it was the best of times, an age filled with wisdom and belief, in Paris, it was quite the opposite; it was the worst of times, an age of foolishness and incredulity.
Not to compare our time or situation with that of the French Revolution, it is apparent in the American evangelical Church that it is a “best of times, worst of times” era: segments of the Church are at once healthy and unhealthy. The Church is headed in two opposite directions.
These two directions will be made more apparent in 2025. I’ll label them The Cultural Church (TCC) and The Remnant Church (TRC).
Be sure to read all the way to the end for the good news, the “best of times.”
THE CULTURAL CHURCH
“As Jonathan Edwards observed a long time ago, we act on our strongest motive. If our strongest motive, our deepest desire, is to know God, it will generate the discipline that we need to pursue this, because we will want to know God more than anything else. If this is not our strongest motive, we will find ourselves with multiple, alternative, and competing foci. These will inevitably distract us.”
David F. Wells,
In 2025, the Cultural Church will see fewer:
- Churches;
- Denominations;
- Worship services;
- Adherents;
- Conversions to Christ;
- Water Baptisms;
- Spirit Baptisms;
- Altars and Altar Calls.
In 2025, there will be less:
- Prayer in Services;
- Waiting on God in Services;
- Community and Relationships;
- Preaching.
This is not a change, but a continuation of a trend. What has and will continue to feed these trends?
1. Dilution
“The word religion comes from the Latin word religare, meaning “to bind.” From a sociological point of view, religion is a coherent system of beliefs and practices through which the community of believers know who they are and what they are to do. These beliefs and practices are held to be rooted in and expressive of the sacred order, both grounding and transcending existence. They tell and enact the story that holds the community together.”
Rod Dreyer
Diluted doctrine, diluted disciples. Weak doctrine, weak faith community.
Doctrine will continue to be de-emphasized in 2025. TEDtalks will continue to be de rigueur, the primary teaching form. The focus of these talks will be on two things: personal happiness and success.
Largely gone will be expository preaching. Rather than let God speak for Himself through the Word, preachers will express their personal opinions on what God has said. The Bible will be more decoration than foundation in many pulpits. The Church will continue to erase biblical language from its preaching for fear of offending people. Doctrine will be diluted or avoided to maintain a seeker-friendly model.
To its own destruction, churches will continue to ignore teaching Christian worldview. As a result, the pew will be unable to think Christianly in an ever more pluralistic and perverse world.
The Self rather than God will continue to be the central teaching theme. Pulpits will feature psychology more than Christology and therapy more than theology. Discipleship will find itself filling out a visitor card in most churches. The culture will continue its steady infiltration of the Church as pastors fail to emphasize the doctrine upon which The Way of Christ culture is built.
Not sure? Let me offer two tests: check the messages of the most popular churches in America among preachers; ask local church pastors to name their favorite preachers.
2. Diminishment
“Where passion for God is weak, zeal for missions will be weak. Churches that are not centered on the exaltation of the majesty and beauty of God will scarcely kindle a fervent desire to “declare His glory among the nations.”
John Piper
The weakening of the biblical mission will continue. The focus will be on growing our local church rather than making disciples of Jesus in all nations, beginning in our altars and cities. The prize will not be Heaven’s Christ growing in the hearts and lives of people but positive numbers glowing in our reports. This is a continuation from 2023.
Compassion ministry and social issues will continue to displace the verbal, propositional proclamation of the Good News of Jesus and making disciples of Jesus in all nations.
Missions efforts overseas will continue to focus on projects rather than boots-on-the-ground missionaries, embedded practitioners who have built relationships, know the culture, and can speak the language.
Evangelism will remain dormant in the church. Discipleship will remain a five-step program.
We will continue to miss the missional key: reaching the lost is not in a more winsome presentation but more discipleship, not more buildings but more builders, not more compassion for the lost but more passion for God. The key is more discipleship.
3. Superficiality
“The fact is that the meaning of life, in all of its grandeur, complexity, and tragedy should be understood nowhere more profoundly than in the church on Sunday morning. This is because it is being understood in the light of God’s Word. This, however, is an uncommon experience. We are, instead, adrift in so many of our churches on a sea of triviality, amusement, and superficiality. And I dare say that none of this would be true if our knowledge of Scripture were better, if our knowledge of God were deeper, and if our desire to make him central in our worship were greater.”
David F Wells
Little doctrine and light worship mean lean discipleship. In its place, “experiences” and feelings-driven faith have taken root and are yielding a dangerous harvest. By all signs, discipleship will continue to be equated with a five-week class.
Biblical illiteracy will remain high in the church, but there is hope (see below). Sadly, Christians won’t change their handling of Scripture, still not studying the Bible, much less reading it. This will be emphasized by pulpits where the Bible is not preached and sometimes not even carried.
Worship will remain low in the church, but there is hope (see below). Sadly, Christians will continue coming to church not to bow in selfless worship before the Almighty but for the feel-good of a “worship experience.” This will be emphasized by churches where a concert instead of worship is offered.
4. Church-Idolatry
“Leonardo da Vinci invited a friend to offer critique of his masterpiece of the last supper. The friend remarked, the most striking thing in the painting is the cup! Da Vinci immediately took his brush and wiped out the cup and said, nothing in my painting shall attract more attention than the face of my master. Nothing in our church ministry or our leadership shall attract more attention than the love we have for Jesus . . . .”
A.C. Dixon
Sadly, without a revival, the focus of the church will be itself rather than Christ, working harder to attract attendees to the church than making disciples of Jesus.
To attract more people, topical and practical themes focused on the Self rather than the Soul will continue to be front and center in the pulpit. Expository preaching and Christ-focused teaching will be the exception rather than the rule as pastors focus on believers’ happiness rather than their holiness, the Self rather than the Soul.
It will be “all about the numbers,” and so church branding will be King. “Success” will be measured by numbers in services and events. Churches with large numbers of attendees will be held up as exemplary, whatever their principles or practices.
This will translate into giving people emotion-filled “experiences” in the guise of worship and preaching and teaching focused more on the Self than the Soul, more on the attendee than on God. And yet, as noted above, more churches will close than are planted.
5. Relativism
“Therefore, in a post-Christian world and in an often post-Christian church it is imperative to point out with love where apostasy lies. We must openly discuss with all who will listen, treating all men as fellow men, but we must call apostasy, apostasy. If we do not do that, we are not ready for reformation, revival, and a revolutionary church in the power of the Holy Spirit. We are all too easily infiltrated with relativism and synthesis in our own day. We tend to lack antithesis.”
Francis Schaeffer
God gives us salvation individually but not privately. This is a fundamental doctrine of the New Testament. Paul extensively writes about our baptism into the body of Christ at salvation. But because of the influence of American culture and its emphasis on individual freedoms, most American Christians are now living privatized faith built on personal interpretation of Scripture and separated from corporate life in Christ. They do so thinking they are making their own decisions, not realizing how much their decisions are driven by a desire to fit in with the culture. The Bible calls this worldliness or loving the world.
This will lead to more religious relativism, a.k.a. “My truth, your truth.” Increasing numbers of Christians will define their faith and practice not by biblical teaching but by their internal compass of feelings. Because of the incredible reach and power of media, social media in particular, Christians will more than ever follow and imitate the culture rather than the Christ revealed in Scripture – our addiction to social media and absence of Bible study make this inevitable. In Reformation language, the Church will further abandon Sola Scriptura for Sola Cultura.
Led by American culture, many individuals will deem themselves free to interpret the Scriptures for themselves without responsibility to the Church of history or today, all the while clothing their choices in Christian wrappings. Churches or pastors who insist on fidelity to church doctrine will see these believers leave for more “tolerant” churches. Ironically, these believers are acting on the Self-Idolatry preached and practiced by their churches.
6. Self-Idolatry
Two quotes of consequence:
“Everyone is now in the business of relentless self-promotion: presenting themselves, explaining themselves, defending themselves, selling themselves or sharing their inner thoughts and emotions as never before in human history. . . . The great goals of life, we are told, are to gain the widest possible public attention and to reach as many people in the world with our products, and as always, our leading product is us.”
Os Guinness
“Our world has replaced the word soul with the word self, and they are not the same thing. The more we focus on ourselves, the more we neglect our souls.”
John Ortberg
And the more we neglect our souls, the more we miss the Savior. The Self is the number one obstacle to full life in Him: it’s hard for Jesus to sit on the throne of our lives when we won’t move off of it. Case in point: the worship of God presented as a “worship experience,” again placing the Self at the center. All signs say this will continue.
A study of current preaching reveals its focus to be not God but the Self, calling us to be “true to ourselves” and presenting Jesus as our means to happiness.
“How can I grow my faith, be a better parent, operate in the gifts of the Holy Spirit – how can I be happy and find fulfillment?”
For pastors, “How can I grow my church, be a more effective leader, be a more influential preacher – how can I be happy as a pastor?”
“How can I?” is the central question in many believers’ minds and so is the central subject of preaching.
Or is it that “How can I?” is the central subject of preaching, so it is the central question – and “I” is the central answer – in most believers’ minds?
“I” focused questions will never find satisfying answers because they are not focused on God or a life rooted in Him. Consequently, our life and worship become self-focused, a never-ending obsession with self-improvement, coping, and therapy. This focus on the Self will leave us dissatisfied, anxious, and exhausted – and, ironically for pastors, see people leaving for churches with better self-focused experiences.
“It’s a small universe that makes you its center” (Allison Luna, article: “The Value Beyond Choice: How Abortion Maims Us All,” Journeypastoralcoaching.com)
7. Isolation
“A tree planted in a clearing of an old forest will grow more successfully than when it is planted in isolation in an open field. The roots of the new planting will follow more easily and deeply the hidden pathways of old root systems. Likewise human beings thrive, best, and following the path of life already taken by others before them. None of us needs to reinvent the wheel or live as if no one has preceded us in the pathways of the wise.”
James M. Houston
Privatized or isolated faith will grow among Christians. Believers will, effectively, deny the core New Testament doctrine that at salvation, the Holy Spirit baptizes us into the body of Christ – to come into communion with Christ is to come into community with His body, living as active, serving members of the body of Christ (Ephesians; I Corinthians 12-14; Romans 12; etc.). Instead, they will continue to choose the “attendee” option they think God offers.
Ironically, this will lead to a continuing dearth of meaningful relationships in the Church, even as Christians cite the loss of relationships and community in the Church as a reason for leaving a local church and the Church globally.
Note: isolation is the number one “killer” of ministers. There is no reason to believe this is not equally true of people in the pew. We weren’t built to walk alone. Find a mentor. Find mature peers who can share your journey in Christ, believers in whom you can invest and who can invest in you. Jesus commanded it of The Twelve. He commands it of you and me.
8. Presumption
“We are merely stewards, not lords, of all that is put into our trust. The sovereignty of God puts us in our place, and that place is in God’s service.”
Albert Mohler
Despite the expected improved economy in 2025, church finances will be even more challenged.
The core issue is that churches are not teaching the Word of God, specifically, life stewardship or a holistic life in Christ. Topical, Self-focused preaching has displaced doctrinal teaching focused on Christ and discipleship. As a result, Christians are not living as disciple-stewards but as believer-owners. Financially, this means people have separated giving from The Faith: financial giving is seen as a personal expense rather than a holy duty (tithe) and opportunity (offerings), directed by God in His Word.
This will lead to church leadership seeing themselves as director-owners of church finances rather than servant-stewards: they will make financial decisions based first on money rather than ministry and programs rather than people.
Until life stewardship is again emphasized, this will continue to be an issue for the church.
I’ll cite two examples: missions and pastoral compensation.
Feeling the squeeze, many churches will reduce or erase missions support as their first response to financial challenges, a grave mistake given Jesus’ last and most definitive command. Note: write me at journeypastoralcoaching@gmail.com to learn how God saved a struggling church and turned it into a strong one through missions vision and giving. I know the story because I pastored the church.
Many churches feeling the squeeze will reduce or erase pastoral compensation – salary, health insurance, and retirement. Many, if not most, pastors of small churches already go without retirement benefits. Many have no health insurance – this is especially concerning when the pastor has a family. The number of bi-vocational passers will increase in 2025. This will lead to a challenged pastor, pastoral home, and church.
9. Exodus
“All too often we have prided ourselves on our orthodoxy, but grown our churches through methods and techniques as worldly as the worldliest of Christian adaptations to passing expressions of the spirit of the age.”
An Evangelical Manifesto
People will continue to leave the Church altogether. Because of the weaknesses of the 21st century American Church and the force of 21st century American culture, people will choose to abandon the Church and become full-throttle devotees of culture, following its influencers as surrogate pastor-priests.
But there is already a second exodus from evangelical churches, and this move will continue: the move from evangelical churches to conservative traditional and orthodox churches – especially among young men and young families.
Studies show that young men began this move post-Covid. In an American culture where “experts” in medicine, government, and education don’t know what a woman is, gender is fluid, and meaninglessness is the new meaning, young parents report that their churches are not responding by teaching the sound doctrines of The Faith once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3) – the teaching young parents know their children need from the church.
Churches are no longer addressing this command through discipleship ministries like Sunday School, focused groups, catechism, etc., but are given over to entertainment. Young parents will continue to respond by migrating to less experiential, more doctrinal churches. This exodus will most benefit Orthodox churches.
Now, the rest of the story.
The Remnant Church
Yes, for much of the Church, it will be the worst of times (even if they don’t realize it), but for a sizable portion of the Church, it will be the best of times: there will be a powerful strengthening of God’s remnant Church in 2025.
Here’s what I see coming in 2025 for Remnant Churches:
Doctrine will again take center stage in Remnant Churches. Along with it will come a return to expository preaching and a subsequent discipleship explosion.
There will be a small but strong resurgence of prayer in these churches. These disciples will even gather to pray outside the Church. People will call out to God for His coming in Acts 2 fashion!
Biblical illiteracy, though high in the Church at large, will find itself greatly challenged in Remnant Churches where pulpits will focus on cardinal doctrine and mission. Parachurch ministries will play a decisive role in this move, sparking a slow return to not only reading but studying God’s Word.
Churches will be confronted with their self-focus over kingdom-focus. Many will come back to a kingdom focus and gladly embrace working with other Gospel-believing churches to fulfill Christ’s Great Commission through strong discipleship ministries. Parachurch ministries will again play a significant role.
There will be a growing resurgence of simplicity in pockets of the Church: fewer programs and more ministry; less celebrity and spectacle, more Word and Prayer.
Emotion-focused “experiences” will be de-emphasized, and the Holy Spirit will be given His rightful place as director of worship services. Believers will come to cherish – yes, cherish – time given to waiting on the Holy Spirit in worship services as well as prayer meetings.
Congregational worship will continue to displace the current concert approach. Remnant Churches will displace ambiance with anointing, concerned less with setting the exterior atmosphere with darkness, lights, and fog machines to focus on the interior atmosphere of holiness, expectancy, love, and faith.
Churches will be leaner financially, but many will take this as an opportunity to evaluate their financial stewardship. As a result, they will be wiser and more effective in how they invest their dollars.
Interest will grow in connecting with the Church’s roots in the New Testament and history.
Each person of the Trinity will be front and center in teaching and worship, displacing Me and Feel Good
Jesus as the object of our teaching and singing. A new and powerful genre of worship songs will be written by passionate worshippers.
Tradition, with its emphasis on certainty, stability, and biblical hope in Christ, will be emphasized in teaching and worship.
In 2025, many followers of Jesus will find the trendy consumerism of brand-focused churches unsatisfying. Yes, these churches stroked the Self but left the Soul untended and unfed. They were unable or unwilling to address the deep questions of life: what is life, who is God, who am I, how do I know Him and live in His love, aka, reality, identity, and meaning. They will turn to historic faith and traditional churches in their search for a biblically grounded faith and community.
FINAL WORD
No church, large or small, is destined to follow the path of the Cultural Church in 2025. Home to many members or few, flooded with resources or having little, any church can be a Remnant Church and see the blessing of God this year. Has Jesus not promised, “I will build my church . . . . (Matthew 16.18)!
“It is not going to get easier to be a Christian in the days ahead. It will likely get more difficult. This is a sad reality, but it actually means that strong and sound congregations will stand out all the more. Faithful pastoring will shine all the more brightly. Sheep that believe the truth and reject every counterfeit will only emerge as healthier and more loving.”
Owen Strachan
“We must make no mistake about it. In sending out his trainees, Jesus set afoot a perpetual world revolution: one that is still in process and will continue until God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven. As this revolution culminates, all the forces of evil known to mankind will be defeated and the goodness of God will be known, accepted, and joyously conformed to in every aspect of human life. He has chosen to accomplish this with and, in part, through his students.”
Dallas Willard
Here’s to a mighty move of God in His church in 2025, a move that sees nonbelievers become believers, believers become Spirit-baptized disciples, the Gospel of Jesus preached to all the world beginning at our altars, and disciples made of all nations!
In two weeks we’ll look at my predictions for pastors in 2025
Saddled with large student debt, just beginning to set up homes and start families, and serving in low paying first and second positions, Millennials are those who most desire but can least afford to pay for pastoral coaching.
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“Of all vocations, surely the gospel ministry is the one whose paradigm is most radically formed by the dynamics of godly mentorship.”
Stephen Baldwin
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