About the Project
What needs to change?
When the Lilly Endowment put out a call for proposals around the theme of “Compelling Preaching,” we knew right away that many proposals would focus on this or that clever new approach to help preachers offer more compelling sermons. We chose a different course, one rooted in the disruptive work of the Holy Spirit.
There are new missional communities and congregations who are completely reimagining themselves scattered across the United States. They already know a lot about compelling preaching, and, for that matter, compelling forms of Christian community. Our denomination, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, or ELCA, skews older and whiter as a whole, and it has been shrinking in size for decades. The contrast couldn’t be starker between the wider denomination and the Future Church Pilot cohort whose participants are more BIPOC, queer, young, and led by non-binary or femme-identified persons.
What are we doing about it?
While the impulse might be strong to mine these communities for lessons in order to help more traditional congregations, the first impulse of this Future Church Pilots program is to instead provide direct support to these experiments. We want to support them individually, and also help support them to meet and learn from one another. This will both strengthen them individually and will build an ecosystem of what is emerging, the places where the Spirit is “doing a new thing” as Isaiah 43 puts it.
What’s next?
Through this website and through a national conference slated for 2027, it’s also our plan to be a platform where these communities can share what they are learning with the wider ELCA and beyond. We encourage you to get to know the program partners, follow the blog, sign up for the newsletter, and become a part of the future of the church.
“Queering scripture, tending to anti-racism practice, and considering other pathways to a more radical welcome is crucial for the church being safe(r), especially for young people often categorized as ‘nones’--those who often say, ‘I didn’t think there was a church that could work for me’.”
—Christian Scharen, Future Church Pilots Program Director
