Signal Café Podcast with Chris Forbes
Brought to you by Forbes Nonprofit Strategies and Incite Futures Labs, Signal Café, hosted by Chris Forbes, explores the signals, trends, and drivers shaping the future of ministry. Each episode invites pastors, nonprofit leaders, and faith-based strategists to think ahead, discern cultural shifts, and respond with clarity and conviction. It’s a space to scan the horizon and prepare faithfully for what comes next.
At Signal Café, we apply the best practices of strategic foresight to spark meaningful conversations about the church’s future. Episodes cover topics such as digital discipleship, spiritual formation in a fragmented culture, rebuilding trust in institutions, generational transitions, the rise of global Christianity, and emerging models of funding and cooperation.
This podcast is for those called to lead with wisdom in uncertain times. Whether navigating denominational change, rethinking missions, or anticipating what’s next for ministry, Signal Café helps you see what’s emerging and respond with grounded hope.
This isn’t just another ministry podcast. It’s a curated foresight lab for leaders ready to engage complexity with vision and courage. If you’re planting churches, leading networks, or stewarding resources for lasting impact, Signal Café offers future-focused insight for faithful leadership.
To learn more about Strategic Foresight for Faith-based Nonprofits, visit: https://www.forbesstrategies.com/
Signal Café Podcast with Chris Forbes
Why Ministries Need Faith-Based Foresight with Dr. Jay Gary
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The next ten years will change everything. Is your ministry ready? Economic instability, cultural shifts, technological disruption, and institutional decline are reshaping how churches and mission organizations serve in the world. The question is not if change will come, but how ministries will respond with wisdom and faith.
Foresight gives leaders tools to see what is emerging, steward resources wisely, and act with conviction. Thriving ministries will be those that discern the times, adapt faithfully, and lead with courage in seasons of uncertainty.
In this episode of Signal Café, Dr. Jay Gary joins us to explain why foresight matters for missions and ministry. Known as America’s “Dean of Foresight,” Dr. Gary leads the Doctor of Strategic Leadership program at Oral Roberts University, serves as a commissioner for accreditation with the World Futures Studies Federation, and is a former chair of the Association of Professional Futurists. His calling is to help organizations anticipate and create the future.
Many mission leaders know him as the developer of the Perspectives Study Program. Today, he serves as a foresight consultant to global Christian networks, including the Lausanne Movement and the World Evangelical Alliance.
This conversation invites leaders to pause, consider what is changing, and begin discerning how to prepare their people for the decade ahead.