Four Things the Church Needs in 2026

#BeSober2026

The Apostle Paul told the early church to be sober. In Ephesians 5:18, he’s talking about not being alcohol-drunk. But in other places, it’s about not being drunk on life. He counsels the church to employ sober judgment (Rom 12:3) and to be “awake," not asleep, and “sober” (1 Thess 5:6). We should imagine the church as the apostles in Gethsemane: they couldn’t stay awake to pray with Jesus, but, because the Spirit is indeed willing, we can.

In the spirit of sobriety, I want to offer some reflections on what I think the church in the United States needs to do in 2026. One (perhaps obvious) footnote: I’m speaking from the perspective of an Assemblies of God minister. What I say here will resonate most deeply in that context because that’s my immediate audience, but I’m sure others will find my thoughts useful.

I used to find church doomsday warnings inspiring. It meant we needed revolution, and I had a lot of energy for it. But now, for a number of reasons I’m not interested in talking about here, I find ecclesial doomsday scenarios as cringeworthy as triumphalist ones. I think the church has a lot of challenges in the immediate future, but I have no doubt that God’s kingdom will keep causing dough, the sun, and dead bodies to rise.

1. Stop the Hype.

Major conferences, the Evangelical worship industrial complex, and megachurch culture lean hard into phrases like,

• “the best is yet to come!”

• “you won’t want to miss it!”

• and “welcome home”

When I hear canned phrases like these, I always feel like I’m being lied to. That’s because it’s all marketing language, and the role of marketing is to stretch the truth about a product as far as it will go to hype it up. The truth is that the church doesn’t need marketing. Let’s be sober, not drunk on our own “brand.” And church shouldn’t be a product we’re selling anyway.

Here’s some recommendations on what to do instead:

• Instead of saying, “the best is yet to come,” say: “God’s kingdom is coming, and that is our hope.” That way we’re always being clear that the best is, in fact, yet to come, but that the best is a singular superlative about the kingdom of God coming in it’s fulness—not an empty promise that we can keep upping the excitement of our spiritual life ad infinitum and ad nauseam.

• Instead of “you won’t want to miss it,” say, “we’re always happy when you join us, but we’re never angry when you can’t.” Let’s rid ourselves of the guilt trip, the manufacture FOMO, and the belief that spiritual transformation is like buying a lottery ticket.

• Instead of saying “welcome home,” let people feel at home if it actually feels like it. People don’t need to be told they’re at home if they actually are. If people don’t feel like they’re at home when they’re at church, saying “welcome home” isn’t going to change that.

There’s a long trail of collateral damage in the wake of church hype. People fall off the church train either because the hype doesn’t live up to reality or because it doesn’t help when the very real trials and tribulations of life come at them.

2. Say No to Dominionism

This leads me to perhaps the most insidious form of hype: Dominionism.

Dominionism is a quasi-eschatological belief that the church will slowly but surely, by the power of God, take over society—from government to education to the entertainment industry and beyond. It’s been made popular by people either in or in proximity to the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), which is a loosely-knit free association of churches around the world that emphasize prophecy and fetishize the spiritual authority of a select few. It’s a diverse charismatic movement that, like animism in indigenous religions, has constantly changing emphases. The NAR is hard to nail down, but its influence is far, wide, and deep through influencer-pastors, the worship music industry, and their commitment to using all forms of media to remold the church.

Former Hillsong pastor, Carl Lentz, and Justin Bieber

One of the hallmark beliefs of the NAR is that Christians are meant to have dominion (following a particular interpretation of God’s command to humans Gen 1:18), and that this means being in charge of everything. Most people haven’t heard the term “dominionism,” but its ideas are leaking into the church everywhere. The reason it is so influential is because it seems biblical and strategic—and why shouldn’t the church have a biblical strategy?

The proof of its misdirected hope in strategy is in the pudding. Regrettably, dominionism has resulted in significant missional drift. Instead of inviting people to believe and be baptized, it busies itself with proximity to political power. Instead of caring about the poor like Jesus did, it focuses on getting access to celebrities, believing that it can change the world by joining their ranks. And instead of preaching a kingdom that will come by the promise and power of God, it preaches a collapsed hope of “kingdom-now.” It never says it out loud, but it constantly implies that every promise of the Last Day is available now. In other words, it’s just rebranded prosperity gospel. Where televangelists used to promise wealth (which we will have in the kingdom) dominionism now promises political supremacy (which we will have in the kingdom.)

The way to confront dominionism isn’t necessarily to address it head on. It’s shifty and camouflaged, often times taking up residence alongside true, bible-based, gospel beliefs. And it’s always married to a genuine fervor for the work of God in the world, which should never be squelched. We should always point out (like I just did) that it’s a rebranded health and wealth Christianity, but we’ve only done half the job if we don’t proclaim something true in its place.

The true things that we need to say are to return to the ways Jesus talked about his own kingdom.

• The kingdom of God is like yeast, which is invisible and subtle (Matt 13:33).

  (It’s not like, e.g., a self-crowned, self-aggrandizing, and highly visible “apostle”).

• The kingdom of God is like finding a treasure hidden in a field (Matt 13:44).

  (It’s not, for example, like taking over the Wall Street to monetize power and influence).

• The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, tiny and makes for a lovely home for birds once it’s grown (Matt 13:31).

  (In other words, it’s not impressive from the get-go).

What should strike us about the way Jesus talks about his kingdom vis-a-vis dominionism is that it resists tidy strategy. There’s no step-by-step plan for bringing about the kingdom. But it is happening, and we get to notice it, welcome it, and participate in it.

3. Find New Funding Models

The deep irony of dominionism is that the vast majority of churches don’t experience the kind of dominion in political, social, and economic terms that its preachers promise. The only reason it can stay alive is because it looks like it works for a select, visible few. And dominionists are like billionaires: they can only legitimize themselves by constantly suggesting that anyone can be as they are.

Another way we need to confront the empty and pernicious promises of dominionism is to have real-world solutions to real-world problems. Since we can’t and shouldn’t believe that we can expect the wealth of nations to flow into church coffers, the church needs take a fresh look at how it will afford to take the gospel to the ends of America. The boots-on-the-ground economic realities are harsh. Take rural America, for example. Most rural churches can’t afford a full-time pastor, let alone a staff member. Buildings need constant maintenance. And there’s very little hope for numerical and financial growth where populations are declining and jobs evaporated in the previous generation.

Here’s some suggestions on how to think through theses economic challenges:

1. In the Assemblies of God, we already have alternative funding models for ministry we know will never be self-sustaining financially. These include world missions, US missions, and Chi Alpha (college chapliancy). We don’t need to reinvent the wheel to come up with a plan to fund rural and urban (read: small) churches.

2. Bring back circuit riding. In the olden days, a Methodist preacher might be in charge of several churches at a time and would go on a “circuit,” visiting churches on a rotating schedule. We should consider doing this again so that 2-3 churches within a reasonable geographic distance of one another can piece together a full-time, sustainable salary for a pastor. His or her role would be to travel from church to church performing the privileges of the ordained like preaching, baptisms, communion, marriages, funerals, etc. The day-to-day running of the church would be left to the laity.

3. Alternatively, if we’re going to have bi-vocational pastors, or “tent-makers,” we should send them out two by two. Like Jesus did in Luke 10 with the sending of the Seventy. Like Peter was always with John, and Paul was always with Barnabas or Silas. It’s nearly impossible to be in charge of a church and work a full-time job elsewhere as a single individual. But it becomes much more feasible (though not easy) when you have a partner to do it with.

4. Take Care of Staff Pastors

Commissioning tent-making pastors who go out in twos presumes that there are enough ordained individuals to make it a model for ministry, which, at least in the Assemblies of God, we in fact have. The Assemblies of God has 13,000 churches in the US, and over 37,000 ministers (as of 2023). That’s almost three pastors per church. It’s perhaps more like two for every church once we account for retirees, world missionaries, and administrative leadership. But there are innumerable churches without pastors. So what gives?

Here’s a couple of things to think about:

1. Few people want to be lead pastors. I can’t prove it numerically (I don’t know how one would), but as I have led in the local church, mentored, worked with district offices, and taught the next generation of pastors, it has become apparent that very, very few of them are interested in leading a church someday. Anecdotally, some think they’re not qualified, but others have simply never considered it. Most imagine themselves as staff pastors, but, as I tell them, the fewer lead pastors we have, the fewer staff positions will be available since lead pastors are always logically prior. Taking care of staff pastors begins with inspiring them to believe that God has called them to the ministry as such, and that might mean leading a church someday.

2. We need some kind of HR. Another major problem I keep seeing is that staff pastors often suffer in toxic work environments and have no recourse. They’re often underpaid, overworked, and expected to do the lion’s share of the ministry while the lead pastor sits like a king in a castle. Staff pastors routinely tell me they’re afraid of retaliation, and that any attempt to advocate for themselves might result in losing their meager livelihood or sabotaging the relationship with their district office. Staff pastors are burning out early, and it’s our hurting our efforts to fill the many empty pulpits across the country.

   Some kind of Human Resources seems reasonable, though it’d have to be carefully constructed because most HR offices aren’t actually neutral parties. When it really comes down to it, they’re just there to protect those who are already in charge. The truth is that sometimes staff pastors are toxic, but when that happens, they just get fired. Toxic lead pastors generally face no such threat.

   So far the only salutary attempt at HR solutions I’ve seen is what is called a “culture of honor.” It’d be a worthy culture to have if it wasn’t habitually used to silence dissent by accusing staff pastors of failing to “honor” their leadership the moment they give even a modicum of constructive criticism. Honor is a two-way street.

#BeSober2026

“Sobriety” is the thought I began with. Some may think there are other things to add to the list I’ve offered here. Others might take stuff away or nuance it in different ways. Either way, I hope something here gets a constructive conversation going about how to address these grassroots realities.

And I hope that, at the very least, we can agree that sobriety wouldn’t be so bad of a theme for 2026. It’s not sad or pessimistic. But it’s also not optimistic. It’s just hopeful. And the great part about being hopeful as a Christian is that hope will never disappoint us.