Program for the Future Church

A collaborative community that pilots solutions for emerging and pressing challenges facing the Church.

The Program for the Future Church (PFFC) brings together professors and church and community leaders to create time and space for listening and imagining, the very things we need to pilot solutions and love the Future Church well.

The PFFC addresses a need in the Church that is often felt before it is fully understood. Like an uneasiness that slows builds, we may not initially understand all the reasons we feel restless, but we know one thing: something must change. This sense is often expressed by:

• The Church seems like it is behind, reactive, and archaic, instead of creative, responsive, and relatable.
• Churches and other Christian organizations can be unprepared for new challenges for a myriad of reasons. One is that leaders are busy, and another is that they do not have space for imagining and designing experiments to address challenges.
• Professors do not have enough opportunities to listen to church and community leaders, so their research and teaching do not always equip leaders to address pressing and emerging challenges.

In response to these felt needs and structural problems, the PFFC is a collaborative community that pilots solutions for the emerging and pressing changes facing the Church. Without ignoring the complexity and gravity of these challenges, we view this moment as an opportunity to come alongside local communities and their leaders.

Our work brings together church and community leaders, thought leaders, professors, researchers, and students (Masters, D.Min., and Ph.D.) to understand and constructively engage the challenges facing the Church.

Guided by a shared vision to create transformative spaces for belonging, we are fundamentally hopeful about the Church’s future.