Becoming a Future-Ready Church: 8 Shifts to Encourage and Empower the Next Generation of Leaders

Are Church Leaders Missing the Generational Handoff? There’s Still Hope.

• Are we building institutions that will meaningfully serve the next generation of believers and their leaders?
• How does a church thrive in a culture where we have to earn credibility?
• How do we create a sense of belonging to the body of Christ and a strong sense of identity for the next generation?

Becoming a Future-Ready Church is a blueprint to guide you through eight critical shifts to help lead your church into the future with wisdom and hope. It describes several major converging trends that will greatly impact the church in America over the next few decades: the Great Resignation of Boomer leaders from churches, the shrinking percentage of Christians in America, and the change in felt needs among rising generations shaped heavily by anxiety, skepticism, and fragmentation.

Missiologist and pastor Daniel Yang, religion journalist Adelle Banks, and church researcher Warren Bird have come together in Becoming a Future-Ready Church to help church leaders evaluate whether their ministries are entrenched in strategies that worked well in the past but need to be adapted for the future. By helping us ask better questions about the issues and needs facing the church, they reveal practical ways in which the next generation of church leaders can gain a sturdier foothold as they navigate into the future.