Tomorrow’s leaders—Christian graduate and undergraduate students—describe their vision for the church's future.

In classrooms, student centers, hallways, common rooms, dormitories and libraries across the country, undergraduate and graduate students regularly engage in thought-provoking discussions about the future—theirs individually as well as the broader social and professional environments in which they will soon find themselves. These collegiate atmospheres and the aspirations of young adulthood often give rise to some great innovations and fresh perspectives that can dramatically shape what is to come. When we make a point of listening to what these future leaders have to say, we can see glimpses of what tomorrow may bring—to society in general and to the church in particular.

In October, Outreach columnist, pastor and teacher Dan Kimball sat down with a group of students from George Fox University in Portland, Ore., to talk about what they think about the current status of the church and what they dream the church of the future will be like.

Dan Kimball: We’re talking here about the church and looking to the future of the church. There are all kinds of studies saying that a lot of younger people are leaving the church. But when I get to travel around the country, I see churches, like Solid Rock Church in Portland here, where a lot of young people are coming. So I want to ask you, What do you think the future of the church is? If you could start a church, or be a part of an ideal church of the future, how would you describe it?
Facilitator: Dan Kimball, teaching pastor, Vintage Faith Church, Santa Cruz, Calif., and professor of missional leadership at George Fox University, Portland, Ore.


Emily-Grace Cropper: The future church or the ideal church would be one that’s based around relationship, being in community, and then also learning about people because of the want to love people the way Christ did and then loving people well. I think a big problem with churches today is that we want people to be able to come to heaven, and so we tell them, “Well, you’re sinning because you’re doing this, this and this.” They might be sinning and that might be really bad for them, but said in that way, it’s really not good. [They’re] just like, “OK, well, screw you. If you’re just going to tell me how messed up I am, I’m going to either not go to your church at all or not go to any church at all.” So something I would appreciate about a church of the future would be that it was based on relationships and getting to know people, getting to know their culture and background, loving them and entering into mutual relationship. Then, when you talk to someone about how they’re sinning, it’s like coming to someone and saying, “I’m really and legitimately concerned about you, and I want to speak this to you because I want your life to be better.”
Emily-Grace Cropper, 20, of Newberg, Ore. Junior at George Fox University, studying sociology with minors in Spanish and Christian ministries. Grew up in and attends a Friends church


Elizabeth Tolon: I want to see a church that’s diverse. I want to see young, old, black, white, families, single, married, all of them. Let us reflect the kingdom of heaven in what we do and who we are. I want to see intentional community, and I want to see a church that serves its community. … A church that lives outside its means and says, ”We will be radical in our generosity and overwhelming in our hospitality.” How that’s played out, that’s not for me to define. And honestly, I’m not too worried about it. But I feel like if you hold to this doctrine, to this message of Christ and Him crucified, then you will see His love and His life overflowing and pouring out of that church. … Christ shows us in His life, and ultimately in His death and resurrection, how to live a life poured out for Him. So I look at a church and say, “Are we not supposed to be that? Are we not supposed to be radical in all that we do and how we give and how we show love to one another?”
Elizabeth Tolon, 22, of Gresham, Ore. Senior at George Fox University, seeking a double-degree in political science and music. Grew up in the Church of Christ. Attends a nondenominational church.


* * *

Kimball: If you had to describe the status of today’s church, what are some terms or words that you would describe it as? What’s the church of today like?

Cropper: I think a reason that a lot of people, at least in our generation in particular, are having trouble with the church is because it’s seen, I think someone mentioned, like very traditional, maybe even legalistic. Not necessarily, but like the church is very firm in where it stands. And our culture is transitioning to a more postmodern culture, which is more of like, “Whatever is true for you,” and I think a lot of my peers and even myself, when I get to school, when I get away from my parents, away from the views that I’ve looked at, you take it apart. And, at least for myself, I’ve seen people grab kind of things they like from different faith traditions and put them together, which I think is where that limbo kind of comes from because it’s like, “Well, I like this here, and I like this here, but I’m not really sure how to fit that together.” I think that’s where a lot of the confusion can come from, at least from our generation, and why that transition is needing to happen, of the church and the culture and how we can translate what we want to say best.

Gavin Bennett: I feel like we’ve been raised in this education system that teaches us to find the right answer, and I feel like we’re at this point where we realize that methodology isn’t necessarily as black and white as we think it is. … I think some methodology—whatever we would term evangelism to be, or what we would term what instruments to play or how the service is structured, I think there’s a lot of methodology that in our minds, because we were raised in such an academic society, we want to figure out what is the right answer, but we come to realize maybe there’s not a right answer regarding certain things.
Gavin Bennett, 20, of Beaverton, Ore. Junior at George Fox University, studying Christian ministries with an emphasis in missions. Grew up in a conservative, evangelical Bible church. Attends an evangelical, nondenominational church.


David Sugawa: Being part of a church plant is a lot of hope and excitement, but I wouldn’t have had the same answer nine months ago. I sense there’s a lot of frustration that the church is just looking within and is so concerned and wrapped up with taking care of everybody inside and maintaining the building and maintaining the staff. … And there’s resistance with some in the church with looking more outward.
David Sugawa, 40, of Honolulu. Graduate student in George Fox Evangelical Seminary’s virtual learning community program. Pursuing a Master’s of Divinity degree. Grew up in Assemblies of God. Recently helped plant a Foursquare church in Honolulu.


Aaron Swor: I would say confused. A lot of people I know right now, especially at George Fox, a lot of my peers, just kind of don’t know where they fit theologically because, as you’ve heard from a lot of us, we grew up one way, and now we’re starting to question things, and was the way we grew up necessarily correct or right for us? Do I fit the mold of the standards that my parents and church set me? … I think our generation, especially, is very inquisitive and very, I hesitate to use the term doubtful because that has negative connotations, but I’d say doubtful and kind of challenging the ways that we were brought up.
Aaron Swor, 20, of Gresham, Ore. Junior at George Fox University, studying theater. Grew up in conservative Baptist and Foursquare churches. Today, self-describes as being “in a church limbo.”


Tolon: I think that at least this generation deals with the divide in churches. A lot of them see churches in this traditional view, in which the method that they brought theology into practice was somewhat difficult and hard to swallow, whereas you see other churches, to use the word relevant churches, very socially applicable type churches, use their method to translate theology into a very understandable way. And so you have these different ways of communicating it. I think at times, we look at it, and we see them as in contrast to each other or as in opposition to each other, but more often than not, they’re communicating the same thing. And so I think that for a lot of our generation, it’s a matter of taking apart the method in which this theology has been given to us, and that’s where the challenge lies because that involves a lot of deep thinking, a lot of questioning, and seeking of truth, which is a challenging process.

Sarah Klatt: I think the church of today is in transition. There’s a lot of new thoughts coming in with a younger generation and wanting to do things more relationally maybe, more creatively, and then there’s still this kind of the tradition of things that is positive and negative. There’s a richness to it, but there also can be a stuckness to it. So I think, right now, we kind of are at a crossroads of are we going to continue in the total tradition path? Or are we going to jump on board with the new thoughts and follow that? Or are we going to figure out some way to combine the two?
Sarah Klatt, 22, of Beaverton, Ore. Graduate student at George Fox Evangelical Seminary. Pursuing a Master’s of Divinity degree. Grew up in Church of Christ. Attends a Friends church.


* * *

Kimball: In your upbringing in churches, what was the one thing, if you could think of one theme or one thing, that you would say, “This was very helpful to me in my experience in a church in growing up, and this was the thing that wasn’t very helpful. In fact, was either confusing or pushed me away from wanting to be in that particular church”?

Tolon: I actually have thought about this a lot because of my choice to identify with a different denomination than that with which I was raised. I’ve asked myself the question of what was good about this church family, and I realized that something that was so incredibly beneficial for me was the sense of community. There is definitely, at least the church in which I was raised, the entire church raised the children, and it was the old imparting wisdom to the young and the young refreshing the old. And there was this sense of, “We care for one another. We love one another in all that we do. We are brothers and sisters in Christ.” And so from that, I was able to take that sense of what church is to be. It’s not always perfect, but that idea of community, of what it’s supposed to be and see it actually played out. And so, taking that and seeing that even applied in other areas such as the George Fox campus or in my personal relationships and the small pockets of students that I’m in, I see that, and it’s been great to see that.

Swor: I think I’ve had a hard time with that question as well, been struggling with it a lot. I feel like most of the reason why we change churches is because we often don’t think about the positive that came out of it, but there had to have been. And so, because I’m still technically “in the church,” I guess, but I think that the positive that came out of my experience from the churches I went to growing up was like, they were very passionate. They were very convicted and passionate about their beliefs and encouraged that “live for what you live for” and “live for what you believe” and that could translate badly to a lot of people, but for me, that got me excited about the Gospel. I think the part that I struggled the most with was I was a young male who wanted to dive into the arts and wanted to explore that area, and I was being taught men and women, gender roles, like “men don’t do that.” I guess there was no church way for me to express the creative inclinations that I had. And also, I was very passionate about helping people and social justice, and that’s again probably the reason I love it here at George Fox, because they’re very big on that. But growing up, there wasn’t a lot of that. It was like “give your money to somewhere else” and you didn’t really see that Christ moving in the oppressed and how Christ can use us to be there for the oppressed, I guess.

Cropper: Something I was going to say I really appreciated about my church growing up, especially when I got into middle school and high school, we have a lot of youth programming. And I really appreciated, I’ve always felt encouraged to participate in not only the youth programming, but then to continue that and go back to my church and participate in the adult programming, participate in the business meetings. I’ve been invited to be on at least two different boards for not only my specific church, but then the northwesterly meeting in general. And I felt very empowered by that and felt very able to speak my mind. I felt like people wanted me there and felt like when they said they were trying to get a perspective from the young people they really were because here I was on this board. Yeah, so that was something that was very encouraging to me as I kind of matured and grew up in the church, or in my church, I guess.

Sugawa: That’s a good question, to think about the good, because I often don’t think that. But I think the good was that it was the passion. They were so passionate. And I saw people working long hours, and growing up, you realize, gosh, there must be something really important, something people really believe in. Then on the flip side, they were so passionate about saving lost people for Jesus, which is a good thing, but they were so passionate about getting just that decision. Just get the decision. Everything will figure itself out after, but just get the numbers, get the decisions. And I just was thinking all the time, there must be some different kind of way.

Bennett: Specifically for me it would be in the youth group I had grown up in. I feel like it was really, we were really intentional about creating room for people to be who they are and inviting people to explore what that meant. But I felt that the intentionality was so focused on opening room to break down the walls to be who you are that there wasn’t a lot of growth encouraged. There wasn’t a lot of like, “Well, this is where you are. Let’s now disciple and walk you through into what your next step is going to be.” There’s a lot of like, “We won’t judge you, we won’t judge you, you know, and we want you to open up and really share your heart and share your vulnerability.” And vulnerability was really encouraged, but it was left at that. It was very like, “OK, well, now what do we do?” So I felt there wasn’t necessarily a balance between vulnerability and discipleship for me.

Klatt: The churches I grew up in taught me to be really grounded. I think that’s something that was really positive is there was an emphasis on not just believing whatever someone told you, but really thinking and praying and studying about it before jumping into something. And once you’re a part of something, you know that you’re there. And I think, kind of the negative of that groundedness is sometimes it became stuckness and became really legalistic and rule-oriented rather than relationship-oriented. How that affected me as a young woman is I wasn’t allowed in any sort of ministry because I’m young and because I’m a woman. And that was really confusing and frustrating as a woman to grow up feeling, you know, a call to ministry and not being able to live that out.

* * *

Kimball: What would you say you believe about how we should be going about the business of evangelism?

Swor: I think a lot of times, it’s very much about the decision and like, “Get them there,” but it’s also about having a relationship with the person ‘cause you love them, not just because it’s about the end goal. It’s the same as our relationship with Christ. It’s not just this one thing and then we go to heaven. I guess it depends on your theological views, but it’s this process. And all this wisdom isn’t going to enter our souls when we make one decision. It’s a process and it’s a relationship that we have to work at. I think it’s the same in evangelism. Like I did mission work in the Czech Republic and I had this one friend who would come to the ministry camp every year for eight years, and it took her—and she’d hear the Gospel every year—and it took her finally on the eighth time she went finally to make a decision. So it wasn’t just one quick, she heard the Gospel and then she’s good and we just bounced out of there [laughing]. It was this constant feeding and nurturing and loving and becoming just friends, like nonbelievers are real people [laughing]. I feel like people are so often, “Oh, the nonbelievers over there who don’t have this wisdom that we have.” Yeah. I just get really frustrated because. It reflects how I was raised.

* * *

Kimball: What are the biggest challenges you think the church has today and the church of the future will have in the years ahead?

Tolon: There’s a separation of, “We are our church, and you are your church.” Or “Let us separate church from everything else in our lives; let it become a compartment.” I think the church has bought into this. We’ve compartmentalized ourselves into these small bubbles or something that is a mirror image of a corporation or something large—an entity, an idea, an ideology—instead of what God has, which is the first couple chapters of Acts. … I think the biggest issue of the church is trying to realize we are above these compartments. Our foundation is Christ alone. It is not this idea that we should be separate from life itself. Like [the Bible] says, “No longer be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our mind.” I think the church needs to renew its mind because I think we’re conforming to the patterns of this world, in which it says, “You are not allowed to be a part of us, therefore, make your own compartment, and we will come to you if we’re interested.” This foundation of separation is a prevailing thought, and we’ve bought into it.

Bennett: I think we need to understand that culture, in and of itself, lives to serve Jesus, and lives to worship Jesus and who He is. … We don’t need to find the perfect culture, and we don’t need to mix a little bit of everything and have this flavor. Culture’s OK. For us, that looks like maybe skinny jeans and tank tops [laughter]. Or nose rings and short hair and tattoos. But as we look back, we also need to look to our parents—suits and ties. That’s great as well. There’s not a right way to do it. There’s not a wrong way to do it. We need to separate culture from biblical doctrine. And I think a challenge the church is going to face is being relevant without being syncretistic and without being isolating at the same time.

More of this discussion appears in the January/February 2012 issue of Outreach.

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