November 22, 2011

The future of the American church

Mike Breen, a futurist, has written a new post entitled “The future of the American church” which looks at what might happen to the American church in the next 10 years. This is an interesting topic to me (see my posts on futuristics, and especially The Generational Future of Missions), and while I agree with some that he has written, I disagree with others. Here are the highlights: 1. The explosion and continued growth of the mega-church, particularly with multi-site churches Others have written about the supposed end of the mega-church. On this point, I think I’m going with Mike. [...]

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November 2, 2011

Religious Conversations with an AI: will future missionaries be droids?

Yesterday I saw the following tweet by Russell Moore:   “Siri” is the new artificial intelligence system built in to the iPhone 4S. You can say things like, “I just locked myself out of my house” and it will automatically respond (i.e. with a list of locksmiths within a certain radius). I found Moore’s comment amusing: it’s interesting what we will begin asking of a computer, just hacking away at it, trying to see how it will respond. Yet it does point the way to the future. Here’s a short blurb I wrote for Futurefaith, a newsletter I produced many [...]

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September 23, 2011

Surveillance+Conflict=Drones Killers

Links to latest developments in drone autonomy.

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September 2, 2011

On the dilemma of the futurist: dismissed, or wrong

Futurists have to endure a lot of rejection.

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August 16, 2011

Cross-cultural generational collision

What happens when an American Generational pattern collides with a Chinese one.

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July 22, 2011

FutureVideos: Toyota’s take on the kid’s window in the backseat.

Like Corning’s “The future of glass,” this video presents Toyota’s idea of a media interface via the car window. My kids would be fighting over who gets to sit next to the window in the car. What would happen on airplanes, I wonder?

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July 15, 2011

The Short Term Future: Tech Driven Trends to 2025

Lots of people make wild guesses about the future. Some haven’t arrived yet. Some are inspiring: we liked what we saw, so we created it (e.g. Star Trek communicators compared with today’s cell phones). Estimates of the future, on the other hand, are made based on what is known about the rate of technological advancement, change and improvement coupled with what is being explored right now. In that vein, here are some pieces that are being worked on at rates likely to bring us advances in the next decade: CISCO’s Chief Futurist Dave Evans projects (and I annotate): 1. The Internet [...]

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July 14, 2011

Living as though you are watched, because you are

Just in case you thought my nightmare scenario of surveillance in Chongqing was farfetched, consider this new post from Slate: Face-recognition software: It’s coming, everyone will use it, and you can’t stop it. The fact is, this software is way too useful (especially in our security conscious world) to not be used. It’s been used before, and the ubiquitous part is simply a derivative of incredible new computing power. We need to live as though we are being watched–because we will be. (And just to make things a little more frightening: here’s a Slashdot article about computers learning based on reading manuals. [...]

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July 8, 2011

Scenarios on the short-term future of ministry in China

Once, China was fairly open. No longer. If we are watched, how shall we then minister?

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July 8, 2011

Friday Futures: autopilot for cars, F-18s

Toward 2025 Self-driving cars may be here by 2018. Will Americans be able to adapt? Looks at the idea of a self-driving car and that holiest of American values, independence. Navy One Step Closer To UAV Carrier Ops. An F-18, using drone-based software, performed dozens of unassisted landings on a carrier (the Eisenhower). Someday in the near future, carriers will likely not launch fighter jets but rather drones. “Top Guns” will be iPhone drone jockeys rather than pilots sitting in the cockpit!

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July 5, 2011

Indians are moving to the cities

India’s Urban Awakening (McKinsey Global Institute) projects that, by 2030: The number of megacities (1 million+) will rise from 42 today to 68 (twice Europe’s total). This doubling represents only a small potential of future urbanization. Today, only 30% of Indians live in cities. Indian cities could be responsible for three quarters of new employment and India’s GDP. Urbanization could lead to a quadrupling of national per capita income. A larger middle class could develop: from 22 million households today to 91 million households by 2030. Significant urban infrastructure problems will need to be dealt with.

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May 10, 2011

The Century View

Try to imagine your ministry—the vision that you are about—as relevant 100 years from now. You might hope that your people group is completely reached in far less than 100 years, and your ministry done. Is that realistic? You probably won’t live another century. How do you provide for multigenerational reproduction of your vision? The believers in your people group will likely encounter cross-cultural situations within the scope of 100 years. How are you preparing them not just to evangelize their own, but for cross-cultural mission? What trends might impact you in 100 years? Do you follow any futurists whose [...]

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April 30, 2011

LinkJournal: The Future

The Future of Mobile in Africa is not even close to evenly distributed yet: A curated collaborative outlook on the mobile industry in Africa. China Plans Space Station By 2020: along with a cargo ship to ferry supplies to and from orbit. China launched its own manned rockets in 2003. Mexico could become oil importer by 2020 without new investment: which will add to the pressure on oil supplies. Chile seeks to eliminate extreme poverty by 2020: 500,000 live in extreme poverty now. Jakarta ranks 28th among world cities in 2020 The “Peak Human” scenario: Will China’s peak see “peak [...]

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April 30, 2011

Do you have a 100-year plan?

Try to imagine your ministry—the vision that you are about—as relevant 100 years from now. You might hope that your people group is completely reached in far less than 100 years, and your ministry done. Is that realistic? If it’s not—and I think for many people groups, it isn’t—then imagining a 100-year plan forces you to think in a different way. You probably won’t live another century. How do you provide for multigenerational reproduction of your vision? The believers in your people group will likely encounter cross-cultural situations within the scope of 100 years. How are you preparing them not [...]

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April 22, 2011

Friday Futures: The Generational Future of Missions, 2010-2120

The interaction of the American generations with missions for the period 2010-2120, roughly the the lifespan of the Millennials.

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April 20, 2011

The future according to Google Search Results

In preparation for this Friday’s Futures, here’s a comic from the blog xkcd which is actually a collection of futuristic scenarios, compiled by including events for each year determined by the first page of Google Search results for certain phrases. Check it out and tell us what you think in comments.

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April 8, 2011

Wildcards: extreme possibilities and how to prepare for them

How to get ready for something that cannot be anticipated yet will change everything.

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April 1, 2011

How to predict the future (of Libya)

Futuristics is about probabilities, not certainties: weather forecasts, not prophecies.

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March 16, 2011

On the accuracy (or impossibility) of long-range predictions

We know now what will shortly be–unless we change it. But we always change it.

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April 28, 2010

Changing the future

On Black Swans and Futuristic Scenarios, Charles Hugh Smith writes: “The present is the perfect guide to the future, until it isn’t. Then we change.” (via FutureJacked).

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