Episode 36: 7 church trends that will disrupt 2024, part 2

We discuss Part 2 of church trends predicted for 2024. Building on the trends we explored in the previous episode, we delve into disruptive trends such as the political influence on churches, the increasing adoption of AI in church operations, and the emergence of a new kind of mega-church pastor. We discuss that churches will need to rethink how they operate to address societal and technological changes. We also shared our own predictions for 2024 including a focus on evangelism, changes to worship styles, and a potential divide in churches becoming either on-fire or apostate.

For the blog we reference from Carey Nieuwhof go to https://careynieuwhof.com/church-trends-2024/

Below is the transcript from the show, the transcription may not be completely accurate

For the video episode of the show, go to https://youtu.be/FDoJVOgXYeA

You can find the Eyes on Jesus Podcast with Drew and Tim on Spotify and Apple Podcasts

Episode 36_ 7 church trends in 2024 part 2

[00:00:00] Drew: Hey, welcome to the eyes on Jesus podcast with Drew and Tim. This is part two of a two parter. So this is the end, which is really exciting. And we’re diving in to an article. That is talking about trends in 2024. So these are church trends. These are predictions of what might happen, what could happen.

And as Christians, as church leaders, it’s important for us to keep our eyes on this and recognize, okay, As we’re moving through the year, what do I need to be aware of? Not just from a perspective of judging your church, but like, how can you be involved and how can you help? And how can you maybe see like where your ministry fits into this, where your life fits into this in order that you’re influencing and making everyone around you.

Better. So, for those that missed part one, Tim, why don’t you give everyone just a little bit of background on how you came across the article, where the articles from, and then let’s dive into, I think there’s seven or seven trends that we’re talking about. We’ve already hit the first four and we’ll lead off with number five.

So go for that.

[00:01:10] Tim: Yeah, this was on Carey Niewhoff’s blog. I’ll put it in the show notes and it’s, he does this every year church trends for the year. And, I’ve never really followed him before, but I do listen to his podcast. I love it. It’s for leaders. Also not just church leaders, but leaders in general.

So we definitely check that out. Carey, if you’re listening, I know you listen to the show and you’re welcome to come on anytime you want. So, um, the ones we talked about last week would encourage you to listen to them. It was a great conversation, but just real quick to get you caught up to speed. Number one trends for, and these are disruptive 2024.

These aren’t just general trends you’ll see in churches. These are trends that will disrupt. the church in 2024. . The first one is the stable church has become an endangered species. Number two is millennials are the new core of your church. Number three is the Gen Z will start to reshape the church.

And number four is the discipleship. Has a growing digital component. So we talked through those we’re going to finish off today with the last three. And then drew and I are going to talk about some of our thoughts on trends that we’re going to see in the church. So number five, now that we’re caught up, partisan extremism will continue to fuel short term church growth, but not long term church growth.

And so this one is awesome. We just did a political podcast actually talking about, I think it was, I don’t know how many ago. It wasn’t that long ago. So I would encourage you to check that out because we said, here we go again. We’re in the election year. Here we go again. How do we as Christians respond to an election year?

Did we learn anything from 2020? I pray to God we have because that was a brutal year. of extremism. And so it really was this trend is talking about churches that will plant their stake upon a political party or idea or a candidate. And it’s one thing to support somebody. And it’s another thing to you know, make it your entire focus.

And when you do that, you run the risk of alienating 50 percent of your population because you’re so focused on the person you’re trying to reach. And the thing with Jesus is that he is applicable to a hundred percent of the population. And so we’re not going to overcome political barriers. I think that like we talked about in the political episode, it is important to know what you believe and to care about real societal issues.

And I think the Bible is very clear on many of them. But at the same time to understand that the people come into your building might be of a different political party than you are. And so how do you reach them with the gospel, not reach them with the candidates. Right. That’s a big distinction.

[00:03:48] Drew: And it’s so important because you’re right. We lose 50 percent of who we’re alienating. And on top of that I’ll just tell you from experience in being in churches where pastors did this, it doesn’t work. It just, it doesn’t work. You’ll get claps. I mean, if that’s what you’re, if that’s what you’re about, go with it and you’ll get claps.

[00:04:13] Tim: You’ll get short term growth like this talked about. Yeah. You may not get for a period of time. During the election year. Oh, this church is supporting this. Let’s go there. Right. But what happens?

[00:04:22] Drew: Yeah, totally. What are you going to do next year? Who’s going to be here? And that’s the thing. Then you got to find a new enemy.

And we only have one. We only have one. And so there’s no point. There’s no point in pointing the finger at anybody else from stage. This kind of stuff. Man, this is why I believe people have a tough time trusting the church, trusting leaders. You know, it’s hard to get on stage and tell everybody, love everybody, and then just absolutely shout someone down.

That’s a really, that’s a really tough line to straddle. So, you know, in this situation, in a political climate, you should start getting your people prepared. Now, the important thing in these kinds of situations is to already make up your mind, how you’re going to respond before you have to respond that way, you don’t do it from a reactionary state.

But a place that, you know, you have proactively thought through and prayed about and recognize that you’re not going to change anyone’s mind because you posted something on social media or change anyone’s mind because you said something from the bullpen I’ve to this day, I’ve never had anybody come up to me or come up to anybody I know and be like, you know what, I used to be a Democrat, but hearing what you said today, I’m a Republican people make up their mind.

Yeah. And so if they’re Christian. If they’re Christian, you encourage them to use Christian values and use the Bible to filter their decision of who they vote for. If they’re not, I don’t know how you can hold them accountable. I don’t know how you can be mad at somebody who doesn’t call Jesus savior.

For doing what they think is right, just because you think is wrong. And here’s the big newsflash Republican or Democrat, both of those fall short of the Bible so, you can vote Republican and think that’s the Christian thing to do. I could tear apart the Republican Party with biblical values.

You could vote Democrat because you think that’s the Christian way to do. I could tear apart the Democratic Party. Party with the Bible. So it really doesn’t matter how you vote, but it is your right to vote. And I would encourage you, if you are a Christian to do it through a biblical view, and that’s really where it stops.

That’s really where it stops. But if you’re like, gosh, man, I mean, you know, it’s going to happen, right? Like it’s, you know, it’s going to happen. We’re going to have these pastors. Get on stage and talk about, you should vote for Trump or you should vote Republican or you, and look, you know, I get it.

It’s easy to look at the democratic party and be like abortion, you know, LGBTQ community, like you can, you know, acceptance of across everyone. You know, more than two genders or gender identity and phobias and all this. And so I get it. Don’t think that I’m just numb to it. Listeners. Like I do understand.

I do get it, but man, could you imagine if someone who voted as a Democrat and was planning to vote as a Democrat this year, walked into a church and maybe they had some hope in Jesus. They just weren’t quite there yet. And some pastor was like, if you. if you vote a certain way, like you’re demonic or you’re a terrible person or you’re not, I just, that, that person will never trust the church.

[00:07:46] Tim: Yeah. Those topics are important , to even talk about during your sermons and stuff. But when you start idolizing a person, and when you start, we talked about in that episode two of you know, prophecies for the year, when you start talking about the chosen one, when you start talking about all these things that are just it’s gonna.

Make people that, Oh yeah I believe in that person. I’m going to vote for that person. That sounds good. It’s going to make those people kind of a self fulfilling prophecy, if you will. But it’s also gonna, I think, you know, there’s so much extremism. And when you look at this, there’s a Duke university research that shows 6%.

Of the radical positions on social media, drive 73 percent of the traffic. So 6 percent of the radical positions drive 73 percent of the traffic. Most people are moderate is what Carey Nieuwhof is saying. Most people are moderate. Most people are like, I really don’t care. I’ll vote. I, this is my party that I will vote along these lines because there’s no better option, but at the same time, I don’t care about this extreme nonsense.

[00:08:45] Drew: I cannot believe that.

[00:08:46] Tim: Yeah, just go on X for a while and start seeing the insanity on there and the conspiracy theories. Bro

[00:08:54] Drew: X is dude, just search a topic, any topic. It doesn’t matter. Any topic, just search it. And I, within the first six tweets, you’re going to be like, what? You’re going to lose your mind.

[00:09:07] Tim: Yeah. So, we really have to be careful about going into a political year, a politically charged year. You know, I think along the moderate lines, along the the Bible is a blend of both. Kind of a walk between But the Bible is not a political party or ideology and certainly it’s a kingdom of God which is across all countries, all nationalities, all political divides.

And with that, you know, there’s also the Something to be cautious of is the you know, we’re in America. It’s the nationalistic leanings. And this is a tough and I’m curious your thoughts drew because we’ve not talked about it, but I’m curious your thoughts on you know, on one hand, we love America.

We love the freedom. That’s here. We love the religious freedom. We love this country. But on the other hand, it can get it. on, you know, flags all over the front of the church and, you know, singing patriotic stuff when it’s not 4th of July. And it can get a little extreme too, when you’re there for God.

And so what are your thoughts on that?

Right.

[00:10:11] Drew: How far should

[00:10:11] Tim: we go? Yeah. What’s the. What feels good? And what feels gross when you see some of the stuff that people do with that?

[00:10:20] Drew: What feels good is pointing people to Jesus if you know Jesus, you have everything. If you don’t know Jesus, you have nothing. And I think too many times when people are arguing a political party.

This is for my Christians that are listening too many times when people are arguing with the political party, they try to point to their own political party. It’s that’s not gonna fix anything like you, you try having a conversation with somebody who doesn’t believe in Jesus and believes that it’s, there’s more genders than just male and female. You’re, it’s a lost cause. And I’m not saying like it’s a lost cause because they’re stupid. I’m saying it’s a lost cause because they don’t know Jesus. And we spend the majority of our time arguing with people who don’t have the first step. Show them step 10. That makes us ignorant, understand, like we’re trying to call out someone’s ignorance that makes us ignorant.

Right. So what I like is pointing people to Jesus. How should I vote? Do you know Jesus? Get to know Jesus. And then he’ll let you know how to vote like that’s what I like. The flags and the Patriotic songs and the god bless america’s and the man. We don’t do any of that, bro I’ll tell you cause I’ll tell you right now

if we could live in any country right now and this I’m will do church. I’m will do church. So I’m

[00:11:49] Tim: certainly grateful countries. Like I said, you know, it’s not just an American gospel, right? So

[00:11:54] Drew: I’m certainly grateful for our country. I mean, my grandfather. My grandfather served this country in World War Two, fought on a Navy destroyer, was part of the Pearl Harbor cleanup crew.

This man has seen a lot and been through a lot and has lost a lot of people defending my freedom, my family’s freedom, and part of that freedom is your ability to vote.

Also, part of that freedom is freedom of religion and don’t put freedom to vote before religion. I guarantee you that if I asked my grandfather, what’s more important to you, my freedom to vote or my freedom to go to church he built a church with his bare hands. He 100 percent say go to church.

yeah. You know, I just, I think I get it like separation church and state, but we love America and all that stuff. And it’s biblical to love your country. Yeah, man, I think America is a great place, but like church is a whole nother thing. And so to me I don’t think you’re going to have a service where we have the American flag up front and I’m preaching between two American flags.

I just don’t think it’s going to happen.

[00:12:55] Tim: Yeah. For me I think that You know, I love America. I love the fact that I don’t want to change that, you know, under God and our money. I don’t want to, I wish we still said the pledge in school. Cause that’s what I grew up with. You know, I wish prayer was an option in school and not forced.

You know, all those things I wish for this country. And but at the same time I think there’s a distinction between what I do and how I support America and what flag I have out in the front of my yard versus what we do in church and what I’m comfortable with in church. And there’s variations on this.

I’m comfortable with maybe a social media post on a holiday, God bless America. I’m comfortable with praying for America from the stage on a holiday praying for our leaders. That’s about it. That’s about the extent.

[00:13:35] Drew: Yeah. Yeah. I’m with backup and stand with everything. You just said but again, like the, that just it’s icky when it becomes the focus, man, it’s just it’s a little gross, you know, it’s a little gross.

[00:13:50] Tim: All right. Bring us to our next one.

[00:13:53] Drew: All right. AI adoption will become normative and growing churches. I, this one’s grown on me. I’ll be honest. What are your thoughts on this? Are you using AI currently? What are you doing?

[00:14:06] Tim: You know what I’m using it at? I don’t know. I’m using it because it’s integrated already in so many of the apps I use for posting on social media or creating content even on how I edit this podcast.

There’s a thing that says, ask AI, and you can ask AI different things once you’re done editing. And one of those is create a social media post, create a YouTube description, create all this different stuff. It does even like the chapters, you know, it would take me forever to know, like when a chapter ends and starts, you know, but AI does it in seconds.

Yeah. And so I’m not actually going on to chat GPT specifically and asking questions. I have, and I do, but it’s not too normal, but it’s how this will change is it’s just going to be a part of your life. You’re going to start using Microsoft word and not even know the AI program is in there and you’re using it.

And. We did a one, this is one of our first, you know, I forgot what episode it was on chat. GPT. We talked about it in the impact for churches. And what this is saying is that, it’s gonna grow. ’cause 19% of church leaders say they use it on a daily or weekly basis. 62% say they rarely or never use AI in their work.

Yeah. And so is that a good thing? Should that grow? Should a hundred percent of churches use it? That’s really a big question mark for the future. How is this going to impact our life?

[00:15:26] Drew: Yeah, I think you gotta be careful of how you use it with anything. I mean, just with anything, right? I remember a pastor I knew in Georgia way back in the day, he used to go online to YouTube.

And there were a couple pastors, he would look at their sermons and he would do that sometimes for like creative ideas, creative energy, you know, maybe like reference some things they said, well, that turned into, I’ve had a busy week, let me just. Let me just use their sermon So you gotta get like with anything right if something’s easy, you just got to be careful and disciplined with it So i’ll be honest.

I use ai every single week not as it pertains to my sermon but I copy after i’ve written out my sermon i’ve copied the entire thing and then I paste it into chat gpt And I say, here’s my sermon I need three social media posts geared towards Facebook along with hashtags that will encourage people to come to church Sunday based on this message.

And within 30 seconds, I have three, you know, who’s not good at making social media posts about themselves because it kind of feels weird telling people how great my sermon is going to be. I don’t like doing that. So AI has been incredibly helpful to me. And it’s actually gotten me to a point where I’m thinking, I’m not there yet, but I’m thinking in the future about creating an entire AI identity through our social media, so that I can just copy and paste exactly what AI says instead of trying to make it my own, because I don’t even like doing that.

And I can copy directly what AI says, put it into social media, and then put like a little picture or put like a little post that says like AI bot says, or we’ll name our AI bot something and there’ll be our AI bot social media manager. And so every time you see something with them, from them, you know.

That it’s an AI generated thing and not something someone written has written. So I’ve even gotten to the point where I’m thinking about leveraging it for that. That’s mostly where I’ve leveraged it so far. There was one week I couldn’t come up with a sermon title and I put the scripture in and I said, this is the sermon title I’m thinking about going with.

Do you have anything? They gave me one. I said that’s too long. They gave me another one I said, do you have any more like that? They gave me 10 more and I went with number like eight or nine. So yeah, there’s been some moments where I use it sometimes you just get creatively blocked and so you dive into it and then I don’t like talking about Myself and what you know something i’ve produced is going to do something for you Like I don’t like getting into that but sometimes I need to Post stuff on social media.

So I use AI.

[00:18:15] Tim: Yeah. And for people that are completely against this, I would just ask you , do you use Google? Do you use other resources? It helped you do your job better, right? That’s all this is. It can be abused just like anything can be abused. But if it’s used as a resource to help you through I mean, churches in general need.

Need help. They don’t have a ton of full time people that can just, you know, crank out some, just have one, some have one, just have one. And so this could be an awesome tool to help with social media. It could be an awesome tool to help with you know, content creation in other ways. We talked about online discipleship last week.

It could help with that. There could be a lot of ways that this is used, but Carrie Newhoff says that the AI train has left the station, meaning that like it or not, it’s here. It’s only going to continue to grow. It’s only going to continue to be used more and more in apps that you already use, and you won’t even know you’re doing it.

[00:19:10] Drew: And if you want to think outside the box and challenge yourself as a leader, go to chat GPT. And build your profile and say my name’s this, I go to this church, we have this many people and be honest with it. It’s hard to do, but be honest with it and just say I’m struggling.

To promote growth. Do you have any ideas of what might work and get humbled by having 15 ideas thrown at you in 90 seconds, and at least five of them being something that’s good. And you’re not doing allow it to humble you.

[00:19:42] Tim: Yeah. Yeah. There’s a joke with my senior pastor at my church is you know, he always like, that sounds really good, but the chat GPT write it.

Cause if it did that, I hate it. You know, I love that. That’s funny. And then uh, he was thinking about a new sermon series for February. And so it was like, while you’re thinking, here’s 10 ideas that chat GPT came up with, you know, just to trigger him because they were just very basic

and so he’s no, absolutely not, but love it. So anyway there needs to be somebody, I think, Sounding this bell at your church, at your business. Cause like I said, it’s going to be one of those things where normally in the past church is a late adopter on technology. We just are we think that things are demonic when they’re not.

And you know, I’m sure someone thought TVs were back when those first came out. And I mean, music

Oh, my goodness. Obviously, you don’t want it to write your full sermon for you. Don’t want it to be misused. But at the same time people can have been able to do that for years. Now, there’s sites where you can actually just download sermons and.

Slap your name on it if you wanted to. So it’s really nothing different as far as that goes to go like five years down the road with this. I think a lot of maybe small part time jobs that churches have had or businesses have had might go away. There’s a lot of ways that I think apps will continue to grow and be used and be, I mean, I constantly go into, I have different apps like CapCut and Captions and Descript and every time I go into these things, it seems like something is getting updated or changed or making my life a little easier.

You know, I remember not that long ago I had to do captions all manually. That’s just an easy thing that has changed. And you don’t even think about it anymore. And so anyway we’ll see. We’ll see. All right. Number seven, a new kind of mega church pastor will continue to emerge. So this one’s talking about we’ve seen a lot of scandals.

We’ve seen a lot of mega church pastors come and go. Many have led well and step back quietly after decades of ministry. But What this is talking about that a new leader will emerge that is younger that caters more to gen X. We talked about that last week, how they have a lot to say that we need to include them in what we’re doing.

And so you won’t just see the 60 plus year old mega church pastor. You won’t just see maybe the same type of teaching approach. There might be a different focus on community. There might be a different focus on outreach or You know, I mean, say what you want about Michael Todd, but he’s someone that brings people in with his analogies and his things he does from stage, which might seem a little crazy, but it’s great for views and it draws people in to see Hey, what else is this guy going to say?

And hopefully they hear about Jesus

[00:22:25] Drew: or what else will he spit on? Totally.

[00:22:28] Tim: Oh my gosh. Yeah. So anyway, what do you think is going to change for the, so obviously we’re not mega pastors. Have you worked with mega church pastors? So what are your thoughts?

[00:22:37] Drew: Yeah. Yeah. I just think that, I think the reason a new kind of mega church pastor is evolving is because , these are the pastors that we all wish we were led by.

I think there are a lot of people who have spent a lot of years in ministry and here’s the thing. That’s not a knock that this is just, this is how we evolve as human beings. Anybody you’re around, you should be trying to learn something from them. Sometimes you learn something good.

Sometimes you learn something bad, neither one you know, is better than the other, like when it comes to leadership, like what an opportunity you have to learn how to not lead well. And how to lead well, right? It’s great opportunities to learn either way. So, I think that a lot of people that have served in ministry for a long time, I think what they’re finally doing is going, You know what?

Now that I’m in a leadership position, I know who I’m not going to be like. And I think we’ve just seen too many mistakes. That’s one thing social media has done. We’ve just seen too many pastors mess up. And so what we’re recognizing is That this is not sustainable having one person do everything.

It’s not sustainable having one person leave their family for hours on end Every single day every evening every night not put their kids to bed Doesn’t end well for the marriage doesn’t end well for the relationship with the family and so I think people are just starting to see this and go hey, what if we Took a different approach.

What if it was more Not so focused on me, but focused on us collectively as a group as a community as a staff What if it wasn’t just about my talent? What if it was about your talent and my talent? What if we both contributed? What if we saw each other as equals and not I’m the lead pastor bow down to me.

I’m basically Jesus. What if we saw it differently? And I think people are finally doing that. And I don’t think it’s because. I don’t think it’s because there’s some big, I mean, I get it. This article is to show that there’s a shift and I guess it is generationally, but I think Craig Groeschel is a phenomenal leader.

Okay. But let’s not confuse what he’s built. Nobody knows another name on that staff. You know, I mean, we do because we’re in it, but nobody thinks Life. Church and thinks of, you know, Bobby Greenwald before they think of Craig Groeschel, they think Craig Groeschel, Elevation.

Church, Steven Furtick, this is what you do, Transformation. Church, Mike Todd, like this is what we do. But there are some pastors out there that are not as prolific and not as polarizing and they’re coming up and what we’re finding is they’re way more group focused. They know, they don’t know everything and they recognize what they’re good at and they do that.

And then they recognize what they’re not so good at and they don’t do that. And I think it’s awesome. I’ll tell you this. I’m good at giving money away. I love giving money away. I’m not good at running church finances. I’m not so we have people who do that Oh Who would have thought right?

Who would have thought that’s what we do. You know, what else? I am good at preaching on Sunday morning. I’m good at communicating. I feel like I’m good at that You know what? I’m not good at I’m not the guy you want sitting next to you at a hospital When you’re like just looking for three hours of time with someone i’m not that guy It’s not that I think it’s awkward It’s that I don’t like silence and when I don’t know what to say, I might say something stupid And i’m just i’m not the guy so I have a whole group of people elders care team prayer team that reach out to people.

I still reach out to people I still try to care for people i’m not really big on the whole doing house calls And doing hospital visits and things like that. I will I have done that but it’s not like it’s just not It drains me. It’s just and i’m not great at it. You don’t want me there. So so i’ll send you a video I’ll send you a video that’s like a minute and a half long and I’ll talk to you but, you know, let somebody else who’s a wonderful just wonderful care pastor that just does empathy really well.

Let them express that gift because it’s impossible to find a pastor. You’re not going to find this unicorn. That can speak, care, empathize, make awesome social media content, do small groups, organize systems and processes, speak vision, run guest experience, be committed to excellence, do worship, know music, build teams, oh, and you know, he’s also, going to do like finances and he’s also dude, come on.

It’s just, it’s crazy, but that’s what we’ve built for a lot of churches. We built that first and every decision goes through one dude and it’s different now and it’s good. It’s a good change. It’s, it makes me think that we’re going to have more longevity.

[00:27:45] Tim: Yeah, this article talks about future mega church leaders will be less top down and more consensus based, which is what you’re talking about.

Less interested in popularity and platform and more in local ministry. I love that. Less fixated on size and more fixated on health. Ironically with that focus, many are now leading a church larger than their predecessor. And I find it interesting to, you know, I, okay. Here carries podcast, other podcasts where leaders come on and they’re like the biggest church in, you know, the East coast or something.

And I’m like, wow, that’s, I look up the church and it’s huge. And I’ve never heard of this guy. Right. And it’s not like I have this, but I have kind of a bead on people that are out there and leaders. I’ve had a lot of leaders on my podcast. And so, You know, I respect, you know, the fact that people can be a mega church pastor and not be all about them not try to build their own, you know, huge thing and I don’t care if they write books, but, you know, a lot of times you see them just push their own stuff and, you know, wear trendy stuff and hang out with celebrities.

And oftentimes that will fall and fail and. Then you put all your eggs in one person and then when that person has a scandal or falls, which many have done what happens to your church and that’s not a good place to be in. So

[00:29:00] Drew: that’s how it goes. Okay. So that’s all seven and that’s great.

We’re in 2024. What trend are you thinking is going to disrupt churches in

[00:29:15] Tim: 2024? I have two. How many do you have?

[00:29:19] Drew: I have one. I think it’s a big one though.

[00:29:21] Tim: Okay. I’ll do one and hand it to you and then do this second one. Okay. Sounds good. My first one that I think and I pray will happen is that there’ll be more of a focus on evangelism this year with churches.

I think that it’ll be a wake up call for many churches when they start seeing the numbers and the decline that we talked about last week and churches that are decreasing. And I think it’s going to be a real come to Jesus moment where you’re like, Oh my goodness. We actually have to go get these people and not just expect them to walk into our building.

And so, it won’t just be, you know, street preaching with the mega horn. I’m not saying that it’ll be actually invading the communities and maybe doing community projects with other religions even, or being a part of community picnics or starting a pickleball tournament or sponsoring things that are doing awesome things for the community and having your name there, having a table, they’re offering to pray for people.

At a kid’s sports league it could be a lot of those different things. I think that will be a genuine desire for people to walk around and ask to pray for people. Straight up evangelism as far as that goes, if you’re in communities that have people walking around and able to do that.

So I think there’ll be much more of a grassroots movement, if you will, to go get people through evangelism tactics that maybe have been lost by some churches that just Hey, come see what we’re doing. We’re awesome.

[00:30:38] Drew: I hope so. I hope what you just said happens. That’s awesome. Okay. So we’re doing my trend.

I’m hoping other people do too. Love it. Yeah, I love it. All right. So, so mine is I think worship is about to look very different. We had worship wars in 2010. Maybe it doesn’t happen for everyone this year because you know worship wars for me happened in 2010 But then didn’t happen at some churches till 2018 and I’m like y’all are just now Y’all y’all just now had the drum set.

Oh, okay. I think for some churches that happens this year I think for other churches that happens maybe in 2030, which is a nice 20 year cycle I think worship is about to be way less produced, way more intimate, way less focused on a worship leader. So, look at the pendulum. The pendulum has swung to where songs now are the title of the song featuring whoever the star is.

So it’s not Elevation Worship, it’s Jireh featuring all the people who are on Jireh, right? It’s not Elevation Worship does Jireh. It’s not elevation worship does names. It’s elevation worship featuring tiffany hudson. Well, who’s tiffany hudson? Oh, no, I mean she’s at elevation. But I mean she’s a personality and this is what everybody’s doing.

Who does brandon lake work for? I don’t even know. Bethel, I think, but he’s been with Maverick City, Bethel, Elevation Worship, he’s winning Grammys, it’s unbelievable. So Chris Brown, Brandon Lake, Chandler Moore, these are names. These are names, these are brands, these are people. You’re about to see a pendulum swing way to the other side where it’s not going to be about that, and it’s going to be about the moment, the room, and it’s going to be about creating an authentic place to not watch a name, but to be part of the names, singing to the name.

That’s going to be it. What it’s about. And so I think that shift is going to start happening this year. We’re already preparing for it at Revolution at my church. We are already preparing for it. We are already taking steps to remove spotlights on our acoustic guitar player when he’s leading a song.

We’re taking steps to change our stage and what it looks like to have some massive rectangular stage. As opposed to something that would be a little more not watch me and a little more inviting, a little more, we’re all in this and on the same level, it’s difficult to stand on a large platform with all eyes on you and tell everyone that we’re the same.

So that needs to change. And I think this year it starts, I think you’re going to see churches do it more and more. Year over year, and I think by 2030, I think we could really be looking at the norm is not to have platform speakers anymore. It’s not to have platform worship anymore, but it’s more of a collective group effort, and it’s all about everyone participating instead of just consuming, similar to what you just mentioned when it comes to evangelism, that’s the outward expression of the church and what happens outside the walls for me. This is what I believe happens inside.

[00:34:07] Tim: I like that. Yeah, not just showing up to consume worship, but be a part of just the heart of worship again.

Man. Yeah, I like that. All right. My last one. Yeah, I got one more prediction for this year. I think there’ll be a dichotomy between churches that are on fire and churches that are apostate. And what you see now is that certain denominations have gone to a way where there’s so many splits because The denomination is like, this isn’t what we believe in is well, now we do.

And so now you’re separating out all these denominations and all this conflict. And I think what you’ll see is just like Asbury last year, you’ll have pockets of revival of people that are hungry for more of God. And that will be highlighted maybe not. As much as Asbury and maybe more, who knows?

But I think that you’ll see pockets of hungry people, but with that, you’ll see more of less middle ground of Oh, this church is dying. And now they’re dead. Now they’re just living for self. They’re living for pleasure. They’re, they look like the world and there’s difference between them and the spirit filled church that’s on fire.

I think that. the more churches you see that are going to one side or the other the bigger gap there’ll be between Christian culture. And we know culture is going to side with the churches that are apostate. You know, we know the churches, we know the culture. If you start looking like the culture, you’re going to get support of the culture.

And so the churches that are standing out and are biblical and are on fire passionate. I think with that will come more persecution either socially social media and whatever that will look like. I think that will ramp up too. So that’s,

[00:35:43] Drew: it’s real man. A great 2024 ahead. Yay. Here we go.

We’ll close this out, Tim.

[00:35:51] Tim: And I’m excited to be on the on fire part. So, let’s do it. Let’s do it. So let us know what you thought about these seven. These aren’t ours. You can read the article in the show notes, but also the ones we added on add your own on, let us know. You can go to the eyes on Jesus podcast, community group, you know, on Facebook, you can leave a comment there.

You can email us at eyes on Jesus podcast at outlook. com. Let us know your thoughts. We’d love to hear from our listeners. Here we go, 2024. We do have some great interviews for you coming up. So we’re excited about a bunch of people that we have scheduled. And so stay tuned, hit subscribe.

We’re excited for this year, the podcast and anything content wise interviews that you can maybe connect us with that you would like to see on the podcast. Let us know that as well. So until next time go with God grow in discernment, keep your eyes on Jesus.