The 2015 National Symposium on the Future of Adult Faith engaged more than 100 Christian faith formation leaders in analyzing the forces affecting the lives of adults and faith communities today, envisioning potential futures for adult faith based on current realities and future possibilities, and developing strategies for more faith communities toward more effective and comprehensive adult faith formation. The Symposium addressed three central questions:

• • What could adult faith formation in faith communities look like in five years?

• • How can faith communities provide vibrant faith formation to address the four seasons of adulthood—young adults, midlife adults, mature adults, and older adults—over the next five years?

• How can congregations envision the future shape of adult faith formation and design initiatives to respond proactively to the challenges and opportunities in faith formation with adults?

The symposium created four scenarios for envisioning the future of adult faith formation. The four scenarios are stories that address significant forces affecting adult faith formation and stimulate new ways of thinking about the present and the future. The four adult faith formation scenarios frame key issues and developments that will shape what the future may hold for congregations—as well as denominations—and help leaders prepare more effectively.

Introducing Scenario Planning

Scenarios are “narratives of alternative environments in which today’s decisions may be played out. They are not predictions. Nor are they strategies. Instead they are more like hypotheses of different futures specifically designed to highlight the risks and opportunities involved in specific strategic issues” (Jay Ogilvy and Peter Schwartz, Global Business Network). The scenarios are an attempt to provoke a realization that the future need not simply be more of the same. They are intended to begin a stimulating discussion about the future of adult faith formation—not to propose readymade answers or solutions.

The point is not to gather evidence for some “most probable” future. Rather the point is rather to entertain a number of different possibilities in order to make better choices about the future of faith formation in the face of inevitable uncertainties.

Scenarios are designed to stretch our thinking about emerging changes and the opportunities and threats that the future might hold. They allow us to weigh our choices more carefully when making short-term and long-term strategic decisions.

At its most basic, scenarios help people and organizations order and frame their thinking about the long-term while providing them with the tools and confidence to take action soon.

At its most powerful, scenarios help people and organizations find strength of purpose and strategic direction in the face of daunting, chaotic and even frightening circumstances.

No one can definitively map the future of adult faith formation in congregations. However, developing alternate futures can contribute to good decision-making processes that will determine the direction of faith formation.

Driving Forces

What are the driving forces that will most directly impact the future of adult faith formation in faith communities over the next five years (2016-2020), and more specifically, the ability of faith communities to provide vibrant adult faith formation over the next five years?

We know that faith communities are confronted by a number of significant social, cultural, technological, and generational forces that make faith formation for adults of all ages and generations quite challenging. There are driving forces that we can be reasonably certain will shape the worlds we are describing—these are predetermined elements such as the increase in adults over 60 years old and the fact that 10,000 Americans turn 65 years old each day—and that will continue for the next decade.

Predetermined elements are important to any scenario story, but they are not the foundation on which these stories are built. Rather, scenarios are formed around critical uncertainties—driving forces that are considered both highly important to our central questions and highly uncertain in terms of their future resolution. Whereas predetermined elements are predictable driving forces, uncertainties are by their nature unpredictable. While any single uncertainty could challenge our thinking, the future will be shaped by multiple forces playing out over time.

Participants at the Future of Adult Faith Formation Symposium identified forces that were “global”—affecting all adults in society, and forces that were specific to the four seasons of adults—young adults (20s-30s), midlife adults (40s-50s), mature adults (mid 50s-mid 70s, and older adults (75+).

Critical Uncertainties

A number of critical uncertainties—forces that are considered both highly important to the central questions and highly uncertain—were identified by Symposium participants. After careful consideration two uncertainties were selected to form a matrix that define a set of four scenarios for the future of adult faith formation in churches. Each of the two uncertainties is expressed as an axis that represents a continuum of possibilities ranging between two endpoints.

Uncertainty #1

The response of faith communities to the increasing diversity in society (economic, ethnic/cultural, households/families, sexual/gender, spiritual, religious). The opposite sides of this uncertainty are resisting diversity and embracing diversity.

Uncertainty #2

The desire and interest of adults today in developing their spiritual life. The opposite sides of this uncertainty are decreasing desire and interest and increasing desire and interest.

Four Scenarios for the Future of Adult Faith Formation

When the two critical uncertainties are connected in a 2×2 matrix, a set of four stories—or scenarios—are created to describe how the future of adult faith formation could evolve. The scenarios express a range of possible futures and explain why the “main story” of adult faith formation will be framed by the response to these two significant uncertainties. The scenarios are not meant to be exhaustive or prescriptive—rather they are designed to be both plausible and challenging, to engage the imagination while also raising new questions about what the future of adult faith formation might look and feel like.

No one can definitively map the future. We do not know which of the scenarios will rise in ascendency over the next five years. Will adults desire and interest in growing spiritually increase or decrease over the next five years? Will faith communities move toward embracing or resisting the increasing diversity in society and the adult population? The “world” of each scenario can be described in terms of these two uncertainties.

The Future of Adult Formation Scenario Matrix

Response of faith communities to the increasing diversity in society

Embracing Diversity

Resisting Diversity

Scenario 1

The first scenario describes a world in which adults have a desire and interest in developing their spiritual life and faith communities are embracing the diversity in the adult population—including ethnic/cultural, sexual/gender, socio-economic, family styles, and religiosity. In this world faith communities are developing approaches, strategies, and programming that respond to diversity and engage adults in growing spiritually.

Scenario 2

The second scenario describes a world in which adults have a desire and interest in developing their spiritual life and faith communities are not embracing the diversity in the adult population (ethnic/cultural, sexual/gender, socio-economic, family styles, religiosity, and more).

In this world faith communities may recognize the desire and interest of adults in the spiritual life, but provide little or no adult faith formation for any adults or provide faith formation that is focused on a particular adult population, such as active adult members of the faith community or parents or older adults. There is little recognition of the diversity of the adult population or of the uniqueness of each season of adulthood—young adults, midlife adults, mature adults, and older adults.

Scenario 3

The third scenario describes a world in which adults are uninterested in developing their spiritual life and faith communities are not embracing the diversity in the adult population

(ethnic/cultural, sexual/gender, socio-economic, family styles, religiosity, and more). In this world adults experience little need for God and the spiritual life and are typically not affiliated with organized religion and not members of established churches.

Many of these faith communities have “given-up” on adult faith formation. They provide little or no adult faith formation, besides occasional opportunities directed to the active adult members of the faith community or parents with children in educational programming. There is little recognition of the diversity of the adult population or of the uniqueness of each season of adulthood—young adults, midlife adults, mature adults, and older adults.

Scenario 4

The fourth scenario describes a world in which adults are uninterested in developing their spiritual life and faith communities are embracing the diversity in the adult population—including ethnic/cultural, sexual/gender, socio-economic, family styles, and religiosity. In this world faith communities are working to develop approaches, strategies, and programming that address diversity and respond to lives of adults who are uninterested in faith and spirituality and uninvolved in the faith community.

Strategies for the Adult Formation Scenarios

The scenarios are meant to stimulate discussion about what choices faith communities can make today in order to thrive over the next five years.

Imagine what adult faith formation could look and feel like in your faith community if you are responding to the challenges and opportunities in each scenario. What could happen in the lives of adults in your faith community and wider community if you develop strategies, approaches and programming that engages a diversity of adults in personal, spiritual and religious growth.

For more ideas to use in designing programming, consult the complete Guide to Envisioning the Future of Adult Faith Formation: www. seasonsofadultfaith.com/future.html. Other resources:

• • Models, approaches, and programming ideas for each season of adulthood: www. SeasonsofAdultFaith.com.

• • For adult programming for the four seasons of adulthood download Practices & Approaches for the Seasons of Adult Faith Formation: www.LifelongFaith.com.

• • Missional programming: www.21stcenturyfaithformation. com/missional.html.

• Intergenerational programming, case studies, and resources: www. intergenerationalfaith.com.

This article first appeared in Episcopal Teacher:
Winter 2016, Vol. 28, No. 2, Special Issue: Adult Formation, page 25-27