21ST CENTURY FAITH FORMATION · Social Network, Internet, and Mobile Revolutions are coming...

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21ST CENTURY FAITH FORMATION John Roberto, LifelongFaith Associates

1. Changing Context

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Headline Diversity in Society & Church

Ø  Generational Ø Developmental Ø  Ethnic & Cultural Ø  Family Structures Ø  Faith Practice &

Community Engagement

Ø  Religious & Spiritual Needs

Key Studies

www.PewResearch.org www.FaithCommunitiesToday.org

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Cultural & Religious Change

Once there was. . . .

The 1950s Family

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But now there is. . . .

The 1950s Family The 2010s Family

A Family

Not a Family

Married Coupled with Children 99 1

Married Couple without Children 88 10

Single Parent with Children 86 12

Unmarried Couple with Children 80 18

Same-‐Sex Couple with Children 63 34

Same-‐Sex Couple without Children 45 52

Unmarried Coupled without Children 43 54

Pew Research, 2011


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Ø  Fully eight-‐in-‐ten adults younger than 30 say a same-‐sex couple with children is a family, more than double the proportion of those 65 and older who share this view (80% vs. 37%).

Ø  Among those ages 30 to 49, two-‐thirds (67%) see a same-‐sex couple with children as a family, compared with 58% of all 50-‐ to 64-‐year-‐olds.

(Pew Research, 2011)


Ø Delaying marriage: marrying later and having children later in life

Ø Growing diversity in family structures Ø  Increasing number of unmarried couples

living together Ø Not marrying and having children Ø Decreasing number of children in two-‐

parent households Ø Declining levels of family faith practice &

socialization

But now there is….

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A Culture of Faith

Generational Change & Religious Diversity

¨  19% of Americans claim no religious affiliation

¨  30% of 18-‐34 year olds

¨  18% of 18-‐39 year olds say that are “spiritual, but not religious”


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iGeneration (2000 -‐ )

Millennials (1980-‐99)

Generation X (1961-‐79)

Baby Boomers (1946-‐60)

Builders (pre 1946)



¨  Declining worship attendance

¨  Declining participation in marriage and baptism

¨  Declining levels of family religious socialization and faith practices

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Fewer Marriages & Later in Life

Fewer Baptisms

Fewer Young

Families

Lower Sunday Worship

Fewer First Communions

Fewer Confirmations


Not Religiously Affiliated

Spiritual but Not Religious

Minimal Engagement

with Faith and Community

Vibrant Faith & Active

Engagement


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Youth (teens) Abiders Adapters Assenters Avoiders Atheists

20% 20% 31% 24% 5%

Emerging Adults (20s) Committed Selected Spiritually Religiously Religiously Irreligious Traditionalists Adherents Open Indifferent Disconnected

15% 30% 15% 25% 5% 10%

Youth & Young Adult Religiosity

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Ø  Abiders: highest levels of religiosity and practice: believe in God, pray regularly, engage in personal religious practice, attend services, serve others, think about the meaning of life; most likely to say their religion is the only true faith

Ø  Adapters: high levels of personal religiosity + accepting of other people’s faiths + attend religious services more sporadically

Ø  Assenters: believe in God and feel somewhat close to God, but they are minimally engaged with their faith and practice only occasionally. Religion is tangential to other aspects of their lives.

Ø  Avoiders: believe in God but have low levels of religious practice; God is distant, impersonal; and often don’t name a religious affiliation.

Ø  Atheists: don’t believe in God and don’t attend services.


Ø  Committed Traditionalists: strong religious faith; articulate beliefs; active practice; commitment to faith is a significant part of their identities and moral reasoning, at least somewhat regularly involved in some religious group

Ø  Selected Adherents: believe and perform certain aspects of their religious traditions but neglect and ignore others; more discriminating about what they are willing to adopt of their religious tradition’s beliefs and practices

Ø  Spiritually Open: not very committed to a religious faith but are nonetheless receptive to and at least mildly interested in some spiritual or religious matters.


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Ø  Religiously Indifferent: neither care to practice religion nor oppose it; simply not invested in religion either way; too distracted with and invested in other things in life and unconcerned with matters of faith to pay any real attention to religion.

Ø  Religiously Disconnected: have little to no exposure or connection to religious people, ideas, or organizations; neither interested in nor opposed to religion; faith simply has not been a part of their lives in any significant way.

Ø  Irreligious: hold skeptical attitudes about and make critical arguments against religion generally, rejecting the idea of personal faith


1.  Will trends in U.S. culture lead people to become more receptive to organized religion, and in particular Christianity or will trends lead people to become more resistant to organized religion and Christianity?

2.  Will people’s hunger for and openness to God and the spiritual life increase over the next decade or will people’s hunger for and openness to God and the spiritual life decrease.

Interpreting

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Dominant Cultural Attitude toward Organized Religion Receptive

Low High

People’s Hunger for God and the Spiritual Life

Resistant

Interpreting

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Scenario 4 Uncommitted

& Participating

Scenario 1 Vibrant Faith

& Active Engagement

Scenario 3 Unaffiliated & Uninterested

Scenario 2 Spiritual but Not Religious

Interpreting: 4 Scenarios

¤  People are actively engaged in a Christian church, are spiritually committed, and growing in their faith.

¤  People have found their spiritual home within an established Christian tradition and a local faith community that provides ways for all ages and generations to grow in faith, worship God, and live their faith in the world.

¤  The future of faith formation in Scenario #1 is being significantly impacted by people in their 20s & 30s leaving established Christian churches, and the decline in family religious socialization and practice at home.

Scenario #1

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¤  People attend church activities occasionally, but are not actively engaged or spiritually committed.

¤  They may participate in significant seasonal celebrations and celebrate sacraments and milestones (marriage, baptism). Some may even send their children to religious education classes.

¤  Spiritual commitment is low and the connection to the church is more social and utilitarian than spiritual.

¤  While receptive to an established church, their occasional engagement in church life does not lead them toward spiritual commitment, and their spiritual commitment does not lead them to engagement.

Scenario #4

¤  People are spiritually hungry and searching for God and the spiritual life, but most likely are not affiliated with organized religion and an established Christian tradition.

¤  Some may join a nondenominational Christian church focused on their spiritual needs, while others may find an outlet for their spiritual hunger in small communities of like-‐minded spiritual seekers, in local or global acts of service, or in online spiritual resources and communities.

¤  The Spiritual but Not Religious reflect a growing minority of the American population, especially among the eighteen-‐ to thirty-‐nine-‐year-‐olds.

Scenario #2

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¤ A world in which people experience little need for God and the spiritual life and are not affiliated with organized religion and established Christian churches.

¤ The Unaffiliated and Uninterested reject all forms of organized religion and reflect an increasing percentage of the American population, especially those in their 20s and 30s.

Scenario #3

Scenario #4

Scenario #1

Scenario #3

Scenario #2

4-‐Scenario Thinking

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Technological Change


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0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%

June 2000

April 2001

March 2002

March 2003

April 2004

March 2005

March 2006

March 2007

April 2008

April 2009

May 2010

May 2011

August 2011

Jan 2012

INCREASE IN HOME BROADBAND Home broadband

66%


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Increase in Internet Users – 80%

Increase in Social Networking – 52% of Adults

9%

49%

67%

76%

86% 83%

85%

7% 8%

25%

48%

61% 70% 71%

6% 4% 11%

25%

47% 51% 52%

1% 7%

13%

26% 33% 35%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

18-‐29 30-‐49 50-‐64 65+

% of internet users

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Increase in Smartphones – 46%

67 million iPads sold since 2010

when it was introduced.

Increase in Tablets

2012 Sales: 120 million tablets – a 100% increase over 2011

2016 Prediction: 665 million tablets by 2016

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Societal Change

EMBEDDED


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EMBEDDED SOCIAL NETWORKS


New Social Network Operating System

The Triple Revolution

1.  Social Network Revolution 2.  Internet Revolution 3.  Mobile Revolution


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The Social Network, Internet, and Mobile Revolutions are coming together to shift people’s social lives away from densely knit family, neighborhood, and group relationships toward more far-‐flung, less tight, more diverse personal networks.


The Social Networks Revolution provided opportunities—and stresses—for people to reach beyond the world of tightly knit groups Ø  afforded people more diversity in relationships and

social worlds—as well as bridges to reach these new worlds and maneuverability to move among them

Ø  introduced stress of not having a single home base and of reconciling the conflicting demands of multiple social worlds


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The Internet Revolution has given people communications power and information-‐gathering capacities that dwarf those of the past. It has allowed people to become their own publishers and broadcasters and created new methods for social networking.

This has changed the point of contact from the household (and work group) to the individual. Each person creates her own internet experiences, tailored to her needs.


The Mobile Revolution has allowed ICTs (internet communication technologies) to become body appendages allowing people to access friends and information at will, wherever they go. In return, ICTs are always accessible.

There is the possibility of a continuous presence and pervasive awareness of others in the network. People’s physical separation by time and space are less important.


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Networked Individualism The three revolutions have made possible

the new social operating system – Networked Individualism. The hallmark of

networked individualism is that people function more as connected individuals and less as embedded group members.


Networked Individuals

Individual

Family & Friends

Education

Life Stage

Work Sports & Activities

Interests

Shared Experiences

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Networked Individualism Ø  This stands in contrast to the longstanding

social arrangements formed around large hierarchical bureaucracies and small, densely knit groups such as households, communities, and workgroups.

Ø  It is an operating system because it describes the ways in which people connect, communicate, and exchange information.

New Social Operating System

Group-‐Centered Society

1.  Contact within and between groups

2.  Group contact 3.  Neighborhood

community 4.  Local �es 5.  Bowling leagues 6.  Homogeneous �es 7.  Somewhat involuntary

kin and neighborhood �es

Networked individualism

1.  Contact between individuals

2.  One-‐to-‐one contact 3.  Mul�ple communi�es 4.  Local and distant �es 5.  Shi�ing networks of

friends who bowl 6.  Diversified �es 7.  Voluntary friendship

�es a

Group-‐Centered—to—Networked

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Group-‐Centered Society

8.  Strong social control 9.  Broad spectrum of

social capital within group

10.  Tight boundaries with other groups

11.  Organized recrea�on groups

12.  Public spaces 13.  Bulle�n boards 14.  Focused work unit

Networked Individualism

8.  Weak social control / shi� to another network

9.  Diversified search for specialized social capital

10.  Permeable boundaries with other networks

11.  Shi�ing networks of recrea�onal friends

12.  Private spaces and online 13.  Facebook, Twi�ers 14.  Networked organized

Group-‐Centered—to—Networked

Re�lection

How are these changes affecting Men’s Ministry ?

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2. Adaptive Challenges

Leadership is the activity of

mobilizing people to tackle tough challenges (problems) and do the adaptive work necessary to achieve

progress and thrive. (Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky)

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Adaptive Leadership Principles

1.  Adaptive leadership is specifically about change than enables the capacity to thrive: new environments and new dreams demand new strategies and abilities, as well as the leadership to mobilize them.


2.  Successful adaptive changes build on the past rather than jettison it: what is essential to preserve & what is expendable; make the best possible use of previous wisdom and know-‐how; anchor change in mission and values.

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3.  Organizational adaptation occurs through experimentation: leaders need an experimental mind-‐set; learning to improvise as they go, buying time and resources along the way for the next set of experiments.


4.  New adaptations significantly displace, reregulate, and rearrange some old DNA: adaptive change generates loss; learning is often painful. Leadership requires the diagnostic ability to recognize these losses and the predictable defensive patterns of response that operate at the individual and systemic levels. It requires know-‐how to counteract these patterns.

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5.  Adaptation takes time. It takes time to consolidate adaptions into new sets of norms and processes. Adaptive leadership requires persistence. Significant change is the product of incremental experiments that build up over time. And cultures change slowly. Those who practice this form of leadership need to stay in the game, even while taking the heat along the way.

Adaptive Work as Spiritual Work

What Heifetz describes as adaptive work is, at its heart, spiritual work. It involves the central dynamics of the

spiritual life and of transformation, which includes loss, risk and trust, even death and resurrection. Our sacred

Scriptures, sacraments and our symbols are all powerful resources for adaptive challenges and adaptive work that we

face at this time. No program, effort at restructuring, or ‘right’ leader alone will meet this challenge. It involves our

own changes of minds and hearts.” (Anthony Robinson, Leadership for Vital Congregations)

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¤  Technical problems (even though they may be complex) can be solved with knowledge and procedures already in hand.

¤  Easy to identify. ¤  Require change in just one or a few places; often

contained within organizational boundaries ¤  Everyday, people have problems for which they do,

in fact, have the necessary know-‐how and procedures—technical problems.

Technical Problems & Fixes

¤  Adaptive challenges are situations for which solutions lie outside the current way of operation.

¤  Difficult to identify (easy to deny). People often resist even acknowledging adaptive challenges

¤  Require experiments, new discoveries, and adjustments from numerous places in the organization.

¤  Adaptive challenges call for changes of heart and mind—the transformation of long-‐standing habits and deeply held assumptions and values. Without learning new ways—changing attitudes, values, and deep-‐seated behaviors—people cannot make the adaptive leap necessary to thrive in the new environment.

Adaptive Challenges

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Adaptive Change ¨  People don’t resist change per se. ¨  People love change when they know it’s a good thing.

(No one gives back a winning lottery ticket.) ¨  People resist loss. When change involves real or

potential loss, people hold on to what they have and resist the change.

¨  The common factor generating adaptive failure is resistance to loss. A key to leadership , then, is the diagnostic capacity to find out the kinds of losses at stake in a situation.

¨  Adaptive leadership leadership almost always put you in the business of assessing, managing, distributing, and providing contexts for losses that move people through these losses to a new place.

Adaptive Change

¨  Adaptive leadership is a process of conservation and loss.

¨  “Of all that we care about, what must be given up to survive and thrive going forward?”

¨  “Of all that we care about, what elements are essential and must be preserved into the future, or we will lose precious values, core competencies, and lose who we are?”

¨  As in nature, a successful adaption enables an organization or community to take the best from its traditions, identity, and history into the future.

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You May Be Facing an Adaptive Challenge If. . .

Ø  the solution requires operating in a different way than you do now. . .

Ø  the problem AND the solution require learning. . . Ø  the solution requires shifting the authority and

responsibility to the people who are actually affected. . . Ø  the solution requires some sacrifice of your past ways of

working or living. . . Ø  the solution requires experimenting before you’re sure

of the answer. . . Ø  the solution will take a long time. . . Ø  the challenge connects to people’s deeply held values. . .

3. Networks of Faith Formation

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21st Century Faith Formation

Creating Networks of Personalized &

Customized Faith Formation Activities

& Resources focusing on addressing people’s spiritual and religious diversity by

offering a wide variety of religious content and

experiences

Children & Families

Adolescents & Families

Young Adults

Mid-‐Life Adults

Mature Adults

Older Adults

We now have the resources and technologies to build networks around all of our people by: Ø  Expanding faith formation to address the

diversity of people today – life tasks and issues, religious and spiritual needs

Ø  Delivering content and experiences to people wherever they are, 24 x 7 x 365

Ø  Engaging people in a wide variety of experiences tailored to their needs, interests, spiritual journey, and tailored to their busy lives

Ø  Connecting people to each other – in physical places and virtual spaces


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Not Religiously Affiliated

Spiritual but Not Religious

Minimal Engagement

with Faith and Community

Vibrant Faith & Active

Engagement


Targeted Strategies to Respond to Diverse Needs

Environments

Face-‐to-‐Face & Virtual

On Your Own

Mentored

@Home

Small Group

Large Group

Church Community

Community & World

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Virtual -‐-‐-‐ Blended -‐-‐-‐ Physical

Fully online with options for face-‐to-‐face interaction in physical settings.

Mostly or fully online with regular interaction in physical settings.

Online platform that delivers most of the program with support, mentoring, and small groups.

Programs in physical settings guided by a leader with online components.

Programs in physical settings with online resources to supplement the program.

Intergenerational Experiences

Worship Learning Service

Community Life

Scripture Enrichment

Faith Enrichment

Spiritual Enrichment

(Re)Discovering Faith

Sunday Worship

through the Week

Mature Adult Life Issues,

Transi�ons, & Milestones

Family & Grandparents

Jus�ce, Service, Mission

Intergenera�onal Connec�ons

Peer Connec�ons

Blog Social Media

Mature Adults Network

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Intergenerational Experiences

Worship Learning Service

Community Life

Weekly Gathering & Worship

Life Issues, Transi�ons, & Milestones

Scripture Enrichment

Faith Enrichment

Spiritual Enrichment

Jus�ce, Service, Mission

Third Place Care

Discovering Faith (Alpha Course)

YA Community Events

Social Media Connec�ons

Young Adult Network

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Men’s Ministry

21ST CENTURY FAITH FORMATION · Social Network, Internet, and Mobile Revolutions are coming...

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