What will the Christian church look like in the next 1,000 years?
If a devout Christian from the year 1000 AD were to be dropped into a mid-morning service at a 21st century progressive church, the medieval Christian wouuld not recognise the Christian faith, says Kevin Kelly in the latest issue of Willow magazine - a publication of the influential Willow Creek Community Church.
It is, therefore, "reasonable and responsible to expect tremendous change in the Christian church" in the next millennium, he writes.
Besides the end of the world happening in this lifetime, Kelly offers five other scenarios - or plausible stories - of what the church may look like in the year 3,000 AD.
And he cautions, "If Christians don't seize the future, then unbelievers will."
Scenario One
The centre of Christianity will continue to shift west. Since the time of Christ, the centre of gravity for the global Christian church has steadily moved west from its epicentre in Jerusalem. It has shifted to Armenia, Greece, Rome, then into Europe, and further west into North and South America.
Many reports indicate that the centre of Christianity is now in Asia and Africa where the Christian population is booming.
But Kelly says it will not stop there.
"If the move west continues as it has for the last 2,000 years, Christianity's center of gravity will keep migrating westward beyond East and Central Asia. The new missionaries based in Asia in the coming century will reach out to unbelievers in the birthplace of Christianity."
Eventually, the epicentre of Christianity will circumnavigate the globe and arrive back where it began in Jerusalem.
That means that "unless Christianity in the US becomes less parochial and more global, what happens in North American Christianity in the next 500 years may simply be the side-show", Kelly writes. "The main event will happen elsewhere around the globe."
Scenario Two
The varieties of Christianity, including the number of creeds and denominations, will continue to increase. Christian denominations have increased from 500 in 1800 to 40,000 in 2007, Kelly cites.
And nothing will apparently halt the diversification.
"When you can get 72 varieties of mustard in the supermarket, choice is accepted," he writes. "There is no known counter force visible in our culture which would work against increased varieties in Christian approaches."
