The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
We're all about helping create a healthy, positive, and spiritually positive environment for church staff members and leadership teams.
The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
7 Cultural Trends Every Church Leader Needs to Know
How can the church adapt to a world in constant flux without losing its essence? On today's episode of the Healthy Church Staff Podcast, we tackle this pressing question by exploring seven key cultural trends reshaping both society and ministry. Join Todd Rhoades and the Chemistry Staffing team as we navigate the concept of the "perma-crisis" and why churches must become beacons of stability amidst global uncertainty. We also dive into the rise of the creator economy and discuss how churches can harness the power of social media to amplify their message and connect more authentically with their communities.
But that’s not all. We delve into the increasing quest for genuine relationships and how the church can offer a sanctuary for authentic connections. With the boundaries between various aspects of life becoming increasingly blurred, we highlight the need for innovative approaches to ministry. Hear our thoughts on fostering community in an isolated world, addressing the growing focus on mental health, and adapting to shifting religious landscapes. This episode offers practical strategies to keep your ministry relevant, impactful, and life-giving. Tune in every Monday through Friday for more insights on maintaining a healthy and vibrant church staff.
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Hi there, welcome to the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. Today we're going to grab our trend reports and explore some of the cultural shifts that I think are changing our world and your ministry. I'm Todd Rhodes. I'm the host for the Healthy Church Staff Podcast, one of the co-founders over at chemistrystaffingcom as well, and I know what you're saying is Todd the gospel's the gospel.
Speaker 1:Why should I really care about the latest TikTok challenge or the latest fashion craze? Here's the thing Culture isn't just about fads and trends. It's about values and beliefs and behaviors that shape how people see the world and how they interact with it, and as church leaders, we can't afford to be out of touch with the culture around us. Matter of fact, the culture impacts the way that we do outreach, the way that we reach people for Jesus, and it's really important to stay on top of. So let's dive into. I've identified seven cultural trends that I think are not just going to reshape our society, but also impact your ministry. And, trust me, these aren't just fleeting things. They're really some seismic shifts that are here to stay. And I just want to say this before I dig in to these seven things is that we are living in a time. It's just unbelievable the amount of change in our culture. Even if you look at the news cycle over the past what three weeks, it's just been incredible how the narrative changes, how the culture and everything changes little by little. Culture Even some of the things that we've seen at the Olympics have spoken into culture and caused some pretty interesting and harsh reactions, whatever side of issues that you're on. So let's look at some of these cultural trends, some of these things that are happening in our culture that I think we should be aware of and that they might be affecting our church in the very near future, if they're ready.
Speaker 1:The first is what I call the rise of the perma-crisis and just goes to speak of what I was just talking about. We live in a world that's boy. It just seems like it's in constant upheaval. There's pandemics, there's economic instability, there's political polarization, there's political polarization, there's environmental crises and people are really seeking stability and hope and meaning in the midst of this just constant chaos. And churches can and boy. I hope they do. I hope yours does offer a really safe haven, a community of support and a message of hope that transcends the chaos. So, as much as we want to complain about everything that's going on in the world, man, the church is there. The church should be there to be able to speak to these things and to offer this place of stability and hope and meaning. Okay, so that's the rise of the perma-crisis and, man, we've seen that in spades, just here, in the past few weeks, in the past few months, past few years.
Speaker 1:Number two is the creator economy. Everyone's a content creator now Everybody. Social media has empowered individuals to share their stories and their talents and their perspectives, and if you, as a church, are not leveraging this trend by empowering members to create and share content that reflects their faith and their values, man, you could be missing out. It used to be that only a handful of people in our country had a voice, and now everyone has a voice. Whatever your church can do to speak into this, however, you can empower not just your church media relations or whatever you call it internally, your church social media presence, but whatever you can do to encourage your people. Maybe you've got 300 people at your church. However, you can encourage them to use this creator economy and their voice to be able to speak the gospel and to be able to speak a positive message to our culture about Jesus and about even your church. That could be huge.
Speaker 1:Okay, so we've talked about the rise of the perma-crisis, we've talked about the creator economy, the third kind of cultural thing and maybe this isn't new, but it's definitely rising right now and that's the quest for authenticity. People are tired of you hear all the time about fake news. People are tired of the fake news. They're tired of the fake smiles, they're tired of the fake lives and they're tired of the fake smiles. They're tired of the fake lives and they crave authenticity and transparency and vulnerability. And churches can meet this need just by fostering genuine relationships. It has to go further than just meeting on Sunday morning or Saturday night or the weekend. You need to create these safe spaces for sharing these struggles and modeling authentic leadership. So relationship is huge and authenticity is huge right now. And the church should be a low-hanging fruit. It should be an easy home run or at least a double or a triple for us to portray and help people in their quest for authenticity. All right.
Speaker 1:Number four the blurring of boundaries. The lines between work life and home life, the lines between online and offline, the lines between sacred and secular are man. They're just increasingly blurred and churches need to adapt to this, and you can do that by just being flexible with your ministry models. Everything that worked five or 10, or can I say it, 30 or 40 years ago may not work now. Matter of fact, it probably won't work now. So you need to try and reinvent those things. You don't change the message. You don't change what you're doing, the outcomes of what you're doing, but you do change the methods of what you're doing. So maybe you create some hybrid online, offline experiences. Try to address challenges and opportunities in this new reality of everybody being so busy and all those lines being blurred. Okay, so the blurring of boundaries. That's number four. We've got three more five, six and seven. Here we go.
Speaker 1:Number five the power of community. It's with everything that's going on at the same time. It's really a paradox. We're also an increasingly isolated world. People are. They're longing not only for that authenticity that we talked about, but they're longing for connection and belonging and community. And man, this is our business, right, guys and gals? Churches can provide a sense of belonging and foster those meaningful relationships that maybe people don't have outside of the church, and churches are in a prime position to create spaces for shared experiences and support. Some churches do this really well. Some churches really need to lean into this in the next year because it's a coming trend. As a matter of fact, it's already here the power of community.
Speaker 1:Number six the focus on mental health. We hear a lot more about mental health now than what we did a long time ago. It used to be a really taboo topic to talk about and it's not anymore. People are openly discussing their struggles with anxiety and depression and other mental health challenges. And, yeah, churches can play a vital role in helping support mental health. With some counseling services, hosting support groups, promoting a message of hope and healing and just presenting the message of the gospel. That does help to create positive mental health. The gospel can do wonders.
Speaker 1:And then number seven the last one is and you've seen this the shifting religious landscape. Religious affiliation. It's declining, but at the same time, here's another paradox Religious affiliation is declining but spirituality when people say, yeah, I'm not religious but I'm spiritual spirituality is on the rise and people are seeking meaning and purpose outside of your church services, outside of traditional religious institutions even. And churches can adapt by offering alternative forms of worship, engaging and meeting people where they are in their spiritual journey. Some churches do a really great job of this, other churches, man, it's just we're rolling along like we did 30 years ago without looking at the very serious shifting landscape of religion and spirituality in the country. Okay, so those are seven things.
Speaker 1:Let me go over them really quickly one more time. Number one is the rise of the perma-crisis. Number two, the creator economy, the quest for authenticity, the blurring of boundaries, the power of community, the focus on mental health and, finally, the shifting religious landscapes and these cultural trends present mental health. And, finally, the shifting religious landscapes and these cultural trends present both challenges absolutely challenges, but also great opportunities for the church. And by understanding these shifts, by acknowledging them, accepting them and adapting our approaches and staying connected with the pulse of our culture, we can ensure that our ministries remain relevant and impactful and life-giving.
Speaker 1:Man, I think there's a sermon there. If anybody wants to take this and make this into a sermon, I think that would make a great sermon as far as how your church is going to engage with culture without condoning culture, but engage with it and what your church is going to do to really be effective in kind of this new changing culture that we see every single day, month and year, all right, I hope that was helpful to you. We are here every Monday through Friday for a short. It's usually, I like to say, five to seven minutes, but it's usually eight to ten minutes, because I tend to be a bit of a gabber. Thanks so much for joining us. We're here. I hope you'll join us again tomorrow right here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. Hope you have a great day.
