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April 16, 2009

Lindsay Lunnum, a young parish priest, and Rachel Lyle Hatch, a young future forecaster, discuss the provocative and imaginative work of wondering what the future has in store for the Church.

Lindsay Lunnum: The Institute for the Future sounds very intriguing. What do you do there?

Rachel Lyle Hatch: The Institute for the Future is an independent nonprofit research group; we’re a cross between a think-tank and a consulting group. What we do is called future forecasting. It’s not actually predicting the future, because we don’t believe anyone can do that. Rather, we’re looking for emerging trends or unexpected developments and determining how those can transform existing organizations. In the case of our work with the Episcopal Church, we’re looking at how the future might disrupt and also hold great opportunities for parishes and the Church more broadly.

LL: So, when you use the word forecast, a future forecast, it’s not a prediction. What do you do with this forecast?

RLH: A forecast is different from a prediction in that it has a different objective. It’s meant to be a provocative, internally consistent scenario about what the future will look like. The process is foresight, leading to insight, and then using those insights in concrete action. Organizations like a parish or a diocese use forecasts as provocative foresights that stimulate thinking and discernment. The insights could be a question, they could be recognizing an area of opportunity, or discovering somewhere that you have unrealized potential. It’s figuring out what it is to be a church, and to be doing the work of the church in the world right now, in this moment, moving forward. Action is where the rubber hits the road, with forecasting being not just about imagining the future, but actually using our insights to make a difference, to make better decisions here and now.

LL: This sounds like a reversal of the traditional way churches look at the future. I think we tend to start with insight and move to foresight. So, how does one start with a forecast?

RLH: I think part of it is what you’re describing, in terms of taking stock of where you’ve been and what the needs in this moment are, I would actually call hindsight. I think the distinction that we use when we talk about foresights and insights is that these foresights are intentionally not tethered to the past. They’re much more projected into the future, and are meant to help people be less reactive to what’s happening now and much more proactive in terms of deciding where it is that the church is called to be in the future.

LL: It sounds like a fun and creative process. How do you see a vestry using forecasting?

RLH: I think one of the most rewarding things about doing forecasting, and about our work with the Episcopal Church, is that we’re tapping into something that the faithful have been doing through the ages. Making bold, future-oriented statements that we see even in Scripture. The hungry will be fed. That’s such a provocative and future-oriented, declaratory statement to make. We get a chance to connect with the communion of saints who have been doing this over the course of time and participate in what God is doing. Believing in the future that is there, that God is calling us into. This is an imaginative process, where we try to think as divergently and as broadly as possible. It’s something that’s exciting, creative, and a prophetic endeavor in the biblical sense of prophetic, of calling the future into being.

LL: What’s the theology behind thinking futuristically?

RLH: The onus for the theological lens is on the parish group or vestry that’s working with these resources. The Institute for the Future tries not to impose any sort of particular theological framework on our forecast. We intentionally present an outside- in, external perspective. That said, as an Episcopalian, I’m reminded of the phrase “the wideness of God’s mercy.” I think that’s part of engaging with divergent provocative thinking. Churches tend to lay out several possibilities and then narrow them down as quickly as possible, so that we can feel as though we’re making progress. Sometimes we miss wonderful chances to explore a different side of what God is calling us into.

As a Christian, that’s something I feel is part of the responsibility we all bear in living out our Baptismal covenant — to hold ourselves accountable, to be co-participants in what God is doing.

LL: It seems like there’s a new challenge or change to the life of our spiritual communities every week. The economy collapses in the middle of a stewardship campaign, or the church splits in the midst of hope for reconciliation. Changes are happening so fast that it’s almost impossible to articulate the challenges for the future — the only challenge we are able to see is just keeping the church afloat. It sounds like the kind of work that you’re offering the church is a way of not just keeping afloat, but starting to paddle somewhere. From your vantage point, what do you think is the outlook for the Episcopal Church? Am I going to have a job in the future?

RLH: I can’t exactly answer that question, because that’s a prediction. But a forecast can serve to unexpectedly name some of the pain points that people are experiencing within the Church. People are contending with all of the uncertainty of life, both in the parish and outside of the parish. There’s something powerful in naming some of those factors. Concerns about average Sunday attendance, for example, present opportunities for provocative conversations about the relevance of the Episcopal Church and the necessity of always communicating the Christian message, forcing ourselves to grapple with how we translate the Gospel message into new communities and to each generation, with new relevance.

I think looking into the future serves to depolarize the present for the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. Forecasting puts a different frame on some of the challenges that we’re facing right now. It jostles us out of our very deep and understandable tensions in a constructive way as we look at the future together.

LL: I know that they’re different for every community, but can you name some of the pain points that you’ve seen the Episcopal Church identify and some forecasts that these groups are working towards?

RLH: There are groups that have been working with one of our tools, The Book of Provocations, at the parish level. They’re doing some analysis of the dilemmas that they face and trying to decide how to mitigate them. One parish, for example, is in a time of transition, so they’ve used the book to look at what they need to grieve together as a parish and what they can dream together for the future.

There’s also a parish that’s using this for discernment around environmental stewardship. The foresight, as they looked at the forecast, is global climate change. The insight that they drew from that is a realization that they are one of several Episcopal parishes that are in close proximity to each other and that they’re duplicating resources in a resource-scarce world and in a very resource-scarce future. That’s led them to beginning conversation about whether any of those four parishes, including their own, should be combined. They’re talking about what that would do in terms of environmental impact and also how they might serve their community differently if that were what the future looked like for them.

LL: In a lot of ways, this sounds to me like kingdom-building. It’s that tension between waiting for God’s kingdom and bringing about God’s kingdom on earth now. Forecasting seems like a way for us to imagine ways of bringing about God’s kingdom now, instead of biding our time until God intervenes somehow in the future and makes it happen.

RLH: It’s been interesting how churches are using this in unexpected ways. I heard a sermon preached in Indianapolis that was about the future that God is calling us into and how the Church contends with the rapid speed of change, and has throughout its history. The message was about looking backwards and forwards at the same time. I know you’ve preached on this topic, too, Lindsay. I’m curious if you have anything that you would add about that.

LL: I preached a sermon where I talked about the Institute for the Future’s idea of “get there early” and that, in essence, that’s what Jesus was saying. If this is the world we want, and this is how we’re imagining it, we start working towards it now, we don’t wait for it to happen. God gives us desires and hopes and imaginations to think of new things in order to bring them about.

Jesus said the kingdom is coming. I’ve heard that in a traditional way, which is that the poor will be filled with good things and the meek will be blessed — but that’s something God will do, eventually. Hearing it from a futures point of view means that I believe these things — the kingdom is coming, the poor will be filled, the meek will be blessed — and so I’m going to start building my world, building my community, to be ready for that. I’m going to get there early.

Soundtrack: Frank Martin, Mass for Double Choir