Building The Church of Tomorrow

We often think about our future and possibly where we will be down the road. And sometimes we may even think of where the church that we attend will be years down the road. Maybe we will have a revival. Maybe we will grow in both numbers and influence. But how often are we thinking of where the capital “C” Church is going to be years down the road. The capital “C” Church, otherwise known as the body of Christ, is the collection of churches and believers everywhere. So let’s dive into that idea and think about that Church for a moment.

What does it look like?

What tools will we need?

How will we reach people?

How will we interact with other Christians?

How will we accomplish all that God is calling us to do?

These are all very important questions when faced with “how are we going to get from where we are to where God wants us to be?”

Well I believe the answer lies in three things:

1) God: hearing Gods direction personally for your life is vitally important

2) You: this is going to take prayer, hard work and sacrifice from you and me as believers and members of the body

3) Tools: we need to use the best possible tools we can come up with

As many church sound techs have repeated, the Bible says that faith comes by hearing, to which they usually add “and hearing comes by the sound team”, or something to that affect. While this obviously shouldn’t be held as theological doctrine, it does bring up a point.

If the apostles and first church had all of the tools that we have today, what would they do with it?

Just to name a few, we have phones, computers, the internet, social media, software, graphics, projectors, instant messaging… and it goes on and on.

Jesus was known for teaching people in a way that was both meaningful and relatable. He used ideas that people understood in their day and age and related them to heavenly things to help them “get it”. Paul traveled for years by foot, animals, and boat to get the Gospel message as far as he could while still being effective and discipling the people he reached. Jesus used tools like hills and boats on the water to speak to crowds of people effectively. We do similar things as well with those tools previously mentioned to reach people in today’s world as effectively as we can like sound systems and projectors. There are some questions we must ask ourselves, though, if we truly want to measure our effectiveness and make sure that we utilize these tools to have the highest Kingdom impact as possible.

1) How effective are we?

2) What things prevents us from being more effective

3) What, specifically, is our goal after all? (Salvation, Discipleship, Healing, Humanitarian Efforts, All of the above)

4) What tools would we WANT if we could have them? Based on the things that hold us back, what types of ideas or things could solve those problems?

There are lots of amazing people with amazing talents out there, and you are one of them. God has no doubt given you some talents that he expects you to use to your fullest ability. And this is where the “You” part comes in. We as individual believers need to be thinking, “What can I do to help The Church be as effective as possible?”

After all, this is the future of the human race we are talking about.

We are doing this for our friends, family, neighbors, coworkers, all the way to people on the other side of the planet, so doesn’t this deserve some serious thought and planning?

Im speaking about every Christian on Earth, from major businesses, ministries, churches and people who have great influence in the Kingdom, to those who haven’t quite figured out their calling yet.

Every Christian is part of the worldwide Church, and we need to start thinking that way.

Let’s step out of our walls and denominations and focus on the BIG picture. Where are we at as The Church? Remember, The Church is God’s Plan A for this world. There is no Plan B.

How and where do we start though?

By being effective. Effectiveness is not gauged by “getting a lot done” or “being busy” all the time.

Effective people are ones that get the right things done in the right way and for the right amount of time

Do you want to be effective for the Kingdom? I sure do. We just need to do these three things:

1) Put God, His plans, and His people first in your life. This means your work, your school, your thoughts, your hobbies, etc. Everything you do should be for Him and with Him.

2) Get ready to work and see amazing things happen. Nobody said this would be easy, but it will definitely be amazing to see how God can use you to do things you never imagined.

3) Start thinking of ways to use the tools you have (skills, knowledge, resources) to help you and The Church progress towards God’s future for humanity.

But what if I don’t have any skills, knowledge, or resources?

Figure out (with prayer and self reflection) where you want to end up in life, and then think of what you think you will need to obtain it. Once you have that, start working your way backwards and setup milestones you will need to accomplish to get there.

Finally, get started. You won’t go anywhere if you never start.

Remember, God loves to use people that feel like they don’t have a lot of influence to change the course of history. You may just be that kind of a person. God can use you. He wants to use you. It’s up to you whether you are up for the challenge. God has given us the power to change the world if we just give it our all and rely on Him.

Ok, so here’s our example…

For several years, my wife and I have been thinking about this and we have prayed and sought the Lord extensively to figure out where He wants us to be by the time we exit this Earth. I talked with Him about the type of man I want to be known as both in public and in my private life. We talked with Him about the impact we hope to make on this world and the suffering we hope to help relieve. And then, once we had a clear idea of what He wanted us to be, we started planning backwards from there.

We want to have a worldwide ministry that touches millions of people, relieves pain and suffering spiritually, emotionally, and physically, and also helps the worldwide Church and local churches be effective at reaching, disciplining, and bringing healing, as well as completely revolutionize how the average person interacts with The Church through technology.

Lofty goals much? Haha. Yeah, I know…

If you don’t dream big, you aren’t going to even come close to what God wants to do with your life

But dreaming isn’t everything…

Since we established these goals, we have come up with milestones throughout our life to help measure our progress and break up these goals into reasonable and understandable tasks. I won’t bore you with the details but this is where you get practical. If your dream requires you to have a doctorate degree, then you probably need to go to school. 😉 Just make sure to ask the Lord when and where. 😁

In the end, we ended up starting a software company called Omnia Church Apps(https://omnia-app.org). Through this company we plan to fulfill most of these goals over the years by building software that helps both churches and individuals learn, connect with others, and (essentially) be effective. We released our first product last year called Omnia Livestream that makes it easy for churches to livestream their services. And, in an effort to help the local church, we have a Forever Free Plan to help churches get started.

We hope to do many more things in the future, but we decided to start here. Whether you build a house or a skyscraper, you first need a foundation. 😉

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I hope this helps you figure out your calling and how to plan it out practically.

I’d love to hear what you think and also what you come up with! Join me in strategizing where The Church of Tomorrow is going to be. We would love to connect with you so please feel free to reach out!

All My Best,

Josh Torres