Why Your Church Can ' t Catch Up To
Culture
By Doug Paul
In 1965 , Gordon Moore , the co-founder of Intel , hypothesized that the number of transistors on a computer chip would double every year . This meant that every year , the computer power of the modern world would see an exponential increase . It ’ s how we ’ ve moved from computers the size of warehouses in the 1960s to today ’ s smartphone supercomputers the size of a large business card .
Culture has been changing at a similarly exponential rate . For thousands of years , culture reinvented itself around the rate of each new generation , which is roughly every twenty to thirty years . People now experience the same quantity of significant generational events , that used to occur over a period of thirty years , every eighteen months . In other words , whether you ’ re ready or not , the most predictable thing about life today is that our culture will change at a rate that is hard to keep up with , no matter who you are .
That means that your church will never really be able to “ catch up ” to culture .
And if the speed of cultural change is ten times faster than it was ten to fifteen years ago , where does that leave Christian leaders ?
The history of God ’ s people is marked by innovators and pioneers in all sectors of
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