What If Your Church Wasn’t Supposed to Look Like Theirs?
What if your church wasn’t supposed to look like theirs?
Years ago, I sat in a room with a bunch of pastors, and someone threw out a question that’s stuck with me ever since:
“What do you think the future of the church looks like?”
Now, before I answer that, full disclaimer—I'm not claiming prophetic insight into God's 10-year strategic plan. I don't have a hotline to heaven’s planning department. But I do have a sense. A deep one. Something I’ve seen brewing under the surface, growing louder with time.
Here it is:
The future of the church is unique.
I believe the pastors who will lead the church forward aren’t the ones copying blueprints—they’re the ones tearing them up.
The ones with the guts to stop mimicking, stop trend-chasing, and start listening to what God is doing here, now, with these people.
How Did We Get Here?
We arrived at this moment because God moved in the past—and pastors and churches responded.
If I had to summarize the past two decades of church development in one word, it’d be this (and yes, I’m inventing it): contemporisation.
We modernised. Kinda.
Music got better. Buildings got cooler. Suits got swapped for sneakers. And thank God—some of those shifts were overdue.
Hillsong and others helped give the church a modern soundtrack. Rebels and renegades in leadership broke out of old, stuffy molds and left breadcrumb trails for the rest of us to follow.
I’m deeply thankful for them.
But here’s the plot twist:
In trying to move forward, a lot of us ended up in the same place.
A few dominant voices, models, and conferences rose to the top.
And what started as bold innovation eventually became quiet imitation.
Whether you were in Sydney or Seattle, church started to look... kind of the same.
Same stage. Same strategy. Same playlist.
Cue “Growth Track.”
Again—hear me: I believe God used it. It helped. But just because it worked doesn’t mean it’s what’s next.
The Future Is Unique
It belongs to the pastors who are brave enough to break the mold again.
To attend to the actual story God is writing in their context.
With their people.
In their city.
On their page.
We don’t need another Craig Groeschel or Rick Warren. (Love those guys—they’re pioneers.)
But we don’t need copies. We need originals.
So, How Do We Do It?
Here’s what I’ve learned—often the hard way.
1. Have Courage
Not to be different for the sake of it.
But to be exactly who God made you to be.
Every pastor is different.
Every community is a wild mash-up of story, scars, and spiritual hunger.
Lean in.
2. Listen to the Story
God is writing something with your church.
Not a sequel to someone else’s highlight reel.
What’s He saying?
What chapter are you in?
What page are you on?
3. Embrace Your Context
Pastoring in New Zealand isn’t the same as in Texas.
A downtown church isn’t a suburb church.
Your city shapes your strategy. Period.
4. Know Your Season
Church planting? That’s one thing.
Two years in? Different again.
Ten years deep with legacy people and worn carpet and holy history?
That’s something else entirely.
Context matters. So does timing.
5. Take Social Media with a Bucket of Salt
Comparison is the fast-track to confusion.
The more we scroll, the more we feel pressure to replicate.
Resist it.
Guard your voice.
6. Impose a Conference Cool-Down
One of my biggest regrets?
Coming home from a conference, fired up and ready to retrofit everything we did to someone else’s playbook.
I wish I’d waited. Given it two months.
The good ideas would’ve stuck.
The bad ones would’ve quietly faded.
7. Practice the Holy No
Clarity requires boundaries.
When you know what you're for, you’ll know what to say no to.
And you’ll need to say it—a lot.
8. Have Faith
Sometimes what God calls you to looks absurd.
Just ask Noah, who built a boat without knowing what rain was.
Don’t wait for it to make sense to everyone else.
Just be faithful.
Let’s Wrap This Up
The future of the church doesn’t look like a megachurch conference.
It looks like faithfulness in your neighborhood.
It looks like showing up, telling the truth,
and listening for what God’s whispering in your corner of the vineyard.
Let’s learn from everywhere.
Let’s copy no one.
Let’s absorb widely. Let’s become uniquely.
