“We need help forming a vision for our congregation,” the congregational leader told me.

"Coming out of the pandemic, we seem lost, like we can’t figure out who we are or how to move forward,” he went on. “I don’t know how to lead us through this. I am just as disoriented as everyone else. It seems like it’s time for some outside help.”

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Cameron Trimble, CEO & Founder Convergence

These are conversations we frequently have with congregational leaders at Convergence. We are living in such transitional times that it has become difficult to fix and maintain our bearings. For many congregations, the pandemic has left them with 50% of their pre-pandemic attendance. Those who have returned are aging with less energy to give to leading programs. To top things off, this year the budgeting process was painful as giving is dropping as investment decreases. It’s not easy being in congregational leadership right now. 
While none of us can see the future of institutional religion, we can use our imaginations to pioneer a preferred future. To fail to do so risks being colonized by imaginations incongruent with our vision and values today. As activist and futurist adriene maree brown notes in her article titled "Murmurations: Stewarding the Future," in YES! Magazine, "we are living in a world imagined by ancestors...who didn’t believe in an abundant earth and our collective power to steward it. It is time for us to imagine beyond the current oppressive construct." Imagination may be the key to our reinvention.

Most planning work takes into account past and present data. Using forecasting and foresight tools, you will try to envision the world that is emerging before you. These are best guesses if we are lucky.

A Futures Lab is an exploratory space for imagining different futures by surfacing the assumptions we hold in the present. It’s a process helpful in breaking through blindspots and a poverty of imagination so that together, we architect a preferred future rather than be colonized by one.

    • What might be your probable future should you continue on a predictable course?

    • What is a desirable future?

    • What is the difference you hope you will be making in the world in 2070?

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CONTACT ME TODAY ABOUT A FUTURES LAB