A few months ago I was on retreat with a group of other pastors. We were talking about how things were going in our own churches and how things were going in the church in general when I said: “Fifty years from now will we still be doing this?” “Doing what?” they asked. “Fifty years from now will we still be getting up on Sunday mornings, knotting our neckties, getting into our cars, and driving to some central location to sit in a pew, say our prayers, sing some hymns, and hear a sermon?” And to a person they said no. What would make them say such a thing? Well, let’s see. It’s 2010. Fifty years from now will be 2060. When you look back fifty years to 1960 you find that roughly half the US population was going to church on a regular basis. By 1971 that number had dropped to 41 percent. In 2002 the number had dropped to 31 percent, but in 2005 a team of sociologists did the same survey but used a different question: instead of asking people, “Do you attend church regularly?” they asked, “Did you
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