Continuing from the last post here are some thoughts and quotes from the book The Present Future.

“Churches that understand the realities of the present future are shifting the target of ministry efforts from church activity to community transformation. This is turning the church inside out.”

“Postmoderns are wildly spiritual. It is a spiritualism that reflects a hunger for meaning and connectedness. It is a spiritualism that seeks to unite people of faith (a shift from the modern era’s fracturing and splintering into denominations).”

“There is little tolerance for institutional-brand religion that focuses more on its own support and survival than on helping people.”

“Just when the church adopted a business model, the culture went looking for God. Just when the church began building recreation centres, the culture began a search for sacred space.”

The book starts to lose its way halfway through and begins to talk about vision, learning and leadership which seem less relevant. But as a whole it does a good job of explaining some of what is happening to the church and the culture and the hard questions the church needs to face up to.