12 Disruptive Church Trends That Will Rule 2022 (And The Post-Pandemic Era)

Having been through two excruciating years as a church leader, what can you expect in 2022?

As you can see by the sheer number of trends (the most I’ve ever covered in my annual trends series), 2022 is shaping up to be a pivotal year.

A new reality will emerge, and it will be different than we think.

The last few years have been (necessarily) characterized by a very narrow focus.

The questions church members and leaders have been preoccupied with the past couple of years include:

• Can we reopen, and if so how?
• Who’s coming and who’s not coming?
• Online or digital?
• Is hybrid the future?
• Masks or no masks?
• Vaccines or no vaccines?
• Democrat or Republican?

There will undoubtedly be some urgent issues that are impossible to predict, but two more significant shifts are happening.

First, some of the pressing matters that have characterized the last two years are now morphing into the culture as a whole. The hybrid-church model is emerging as a norm, as is leading in a polarized culture, and some of the battle lines drawn are emerging as semi-permanent cultural fixtures.

Even without the emergence of another global crisis or virus variant (both of which are plausible), 2022 will be a year where the new ‘normalized’ world will further emerge.
It won’t exactly be what we used to know as normal, nor will it be entirely stable, but the year will likely give us a chance to see where the dust is settling and to move on.

Many of the trends I’ve outlined in the last six years are still active. If you and your team want to do a deep dive, here are the links. For the most part, many of the trends have emerged and are still relevant to what we’re all experiencing right now. Some accelerated dramatically.

https://careynieuwhof.com/12-disruptive-church-trends-that-will-rule-2022-and-the-post-pandemic-era/