Redesign The Future | Pastor Chat LIVE!

Today we are talking about how to look ahead with some cultural wins for 2021. This past week, Pastor Shawn started a new sermon series called “Look Ahead”, and we want to continue talking about ways we can do this!

As you know, yesterday was Cyber Monday. We pray that you were able to support some small businesses. We’ve been in a pandemic for nine months, but the Lord has sustained, kept, been gracious and good, so we have much to be grateful for. If you did not support a small or black business yesterday, we encourage you to do so. Also, Today is Giving Tuesday! Please align yourselves with an organization you can support. If you don’t, we invite you to partner with Movement Church and the multitude of nonprofits we run.

Nevertheless, as we discuss looking ahead into 2021, this year has been tumultuous; it’s been a roller coaster full of ups and downs, but we are now looking ahead into the new year. Everyone is being to do so; I’ve seen vision board parties and multiple ways people are planning and strategizing for how to move forward from 2020.

We must look ahead in this Advent season and parallel it with this season we’re in, where Christians are to wait with great anticipation for the second coming of Christ—what we’re ultimately looking ahead to. As business owners, entrepreneurs, students, and everybody else is looking ahead, asking, “What does my life look like in 2021?”, there are so many important principles to embrace as we forecast the year.

In Will Mancini’s book, “Future Church”, he challenges believers to flip the script on how they view things while looking ahead, suggesting there are ways we can in the cultural moment in our planning for 2021. One particular thing we’ve looked at for years is reimagining what the church can look like in the digital age. Mancini suggests that if we’re going to look ahead and plan, we have to flip the script from recapturing the past to redesigning the past. For the past to reoccur, there are cultural moments that would have to repeat, but this won’t happen; the cultural moment has shifted. Whatever we’re doing in life, we have to begin redesigning the future. Mancini writes, “Recapturing the past seems easier because you’ve done it before. You have systems in place for the processes of the past.” Stop trying to capture a future using systems from the past! There has been a cultural shift; we’re amid a pandemic. Because of this shift, we have to shift with it in how we think, strategize, and operate. We cannot capture the future with systems from the past.

So what does it look like for you to redesign your future, not based on systems from the past? For you to recapture the past, all of the disruptions in culture would have to return to their state before the disruption—that’s not going to happen. Let’s think about how we can glorify God in this coming year while waiting with great anticipation for the second coming of Christ, redesigning the future with what’s in our hand.

To find more ways to connect the culture to Christ, watch the whole Livestream embedded above or explore the articles linked below.