Here are a couple of interesting facts. In the US ten thousand people turn 65 years old every day now. And world wide by 2030 one in six people will be over sixty years old. This is a trend that will continue for many years, until the baby boom generation passes from the scene.
The problem is that after the boomers, no generation following is as large as their predecessors. Gen Z and Gen X are much smaller. Like Japan, much of the developed world if reaching a point where we do not have enough marriage and babies to replace the population. This will not be fixed in a year or two. This will take a generation or two to turn around.
Some of our larger churches have reached a point where the explosive growth is over and they have leveled off in attendance. We still outreach and we still pray with a lot of people but we do not grow in numbers.
We have reached a point in time where we must come up with ways to reach the world as it is with the people we currently have. It is a time for innovation and new ideas. Grandma and grandpa do not go to music concerts or listen to rap. Middle aged couples who both work do not attend morning prayer or go to every service.
We have for all of our lives lived in an atmosphere of growth and our future has always been bigger and better. We had growing attendance, growing income, growing numbers of church plantings. Now those old pools seem to be shrinking and we are left with big budgets and few workers.
This is a time for leaders to lead forward into the future. It is not a time to reminisce about the past or to complain. It is time for leaders to find out what God is doing today and to lead us into that brave new world.
"...the night is coming when no one can work." Jn.9:4b
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