A Vision of the 21st Century Church (1989)

We are here in a studio in New England, and knowing you’ve introduced me just now, and having no idea what you’ve said about me, can be very disconcerting. I think the other thing that’s bothering me right now is if this is truly being shown in the auditorium there in Garland, you’ve probably dimmed the lights.  This conference has been going on. All the men in the audience are very tired, and I can imagine them all going to sleep.

Here in New England, back in the Puritan days, there was a cure that a church came up with for that particular problem.  They had a long-winded, very dry speaker. So, on Sunday mornings, they appointed this man who had walked up and down the aisles with a long stick and a very sharp point,  and every time this gentleman saw anyone nodding or about to go to sleep, he would walk over with this long stick and this very sharp point and he would jab… the preacher.  So I’ll try to keep you awake, gentlemen, as best I can.

I’d like to talk with you this morning about a vision of the church in the 21st century.  Now, there are some things that perhaps I should let you know before that. My ministry is on the deeper Christian life, and I hold conferences on that all over America.  But throughout my life, I have also been very concerned about the church as it is today, and I have a hobby, and that hobby has been a study of church history.  Gentlemen, I’d like to talk with you about what the church will look like in the 21st century and what we have to do to prepare for it.

I suppose I’m speaking mostly to the younger men in the audience right now.  Think about it. Let’s say that everybody in this room is given 70 years. How many years will you minister in the 21st century?  I will be ministering two years in the 21st century. Now, don’t misunderstand. I’m not old. I couldn’t possibly be. I’m only two years older than Elvis Presley.

Many of you who are in this room are going to be ministering for 10, 15, 20, or 25 years in the 21st century. I’d like for you to know that you have a responsibility as grave and as great as any men who have ever preached the gospel because there is going to be a titanic change in the gospel.  No, I mean in the way the gospel is presented, or we are going to face catastrophe. Now, let me try to explain to you exactly what I mean, and let’s go back in church history to do so.  In fact, let’s go back exactly 100 years. 100 years ago, I would like for you to consider where the Catholic Church was, and I’d also like for you to consider where Bible-believing Christians who were committed to the fundamentals of the Christian faith were a hundred years ago.  And let’s project into the future where we will be and what we will look like a hundred years from now. And what that means to us today and how it affects our future ministry.

As far as I’m concerned, we’re in a crisis that’s quite grave. And perhaps the most frightening thing about it is that it moves slow enough that it is almost imperceptible over a short period of time.  The Roman Catholic Church, a hundred years ago, had its churches in Europe filled. virtually everywhere.  Today, 100 years later, almost without exception throughout Europe, those churches are closed. They’ve been converted into museums. They are empty.  They belong to the city. They’ve been turned into libraries. And though the Catholic Church speaks of no numerical loss, as far as attendance is concerned, they are in total retreat.

I’ve just recently come from Canada, where I’ve been for the last six weeks. I’ve been in Quebec City. You can stand on Grand Alley in Quebec City and look about 200 yards this way and about 100 yards that way, and you will find five churches.  At one time, 100 years ago, those churches and every one of them had monasteries were filled Today, one of them is a condominium.  Another one is closed. A third one is an old folks’ home, leaving only one church left on that street. And on Sunday mornings, there are a handful of people who walk in there.

Now, would you believe, can you conceive, that this just very well may happen during the 21st century, to those of us who are evangelicals and those committed to the fundamentals of the Christian faith?  Gentlemen, I would like to make a prediction at the beginning of this message. A hundred years from now, the way that we are practicing the Christian faith has nothing to do with theology.  The way we are practicing the Christian faith today will have either radically changed, or our church buildings will be in exactly the same state that they are today among the Roman Catholics in Europe, the modernist churches in America, and, for instance, the churches in the province of Quebec, Canada.  We are headed that way.

Now I want you to consider exactly the debt that you and I owe to men who lived a hundred years ago, the evangelicals who came before us. They were our forefathers. They saw something, and they acted, and we stand today on what they did. The problem is that I, you, and I, are also someone’s forefathers, and we will have to take some dramatic, radical, new course in order to deal with the 21st century’s matrix.  Now, gentlemen, if you’ll consider a hundred years ago, the 1880s, when there were no telephones. Today, science with its enormous leaps, we can only imagine what the 21st century, a hundred years from now, will look like.  We’ve got to prepare now, and it will take radical action, and there are only a few men, and it is to you that I am speaking, who will be able to make that radical change in our practices.

A hundred years ago, modernism had the seminaries, they had the universities, they had the money, they had the church buildings.  And evangelicals breaking from that, men believing in the fundamentals, began with Bible schools, a small minority, seeing what needed to be done, teaching, preaching, and slowly out of that came evangelical archaeology, which has put modernism in retreat.  Today, the churches, the great churches today, are the evangelicals. Today, over 50% of all the churches gathering on Sunday morning claim to be either conservative or very conservative.  The modernistic church, the liberal church, is not only in retreat, it’s becoming an asterisk. And that has happened because of the vision of our forefathers.

Gentlemen, I would give you today a vision of our desperate need. Our battle, as far as I’m concerned, is virtually over with the test of those who question the inerrancy of the Word of God.  That is among the men I’m speaking to today. That’s all. I recognize the battle has got to be fought in many other areas, but to you.