Tom Sine has served as a futures innovation consultant for various denominations and organizations and Dwight J. Friesen is associate professor of practical theology at the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology. They spoke with Sojourners associate editor Da’Shawn Mosley about their book 2020s Foresight.
Sojourners: What motivated you to write this book?
Tom Sine: Essentially, a desire to write a more compelling book on the changes we’re facing in this pandemic and recession. Churches rarely do forecasting. As a consequence, they’re not ready for the next crunch. They care about their people, but they’re not thinking, “What’s going to happen to them as the recession gets worse?”
Dwight J. Friesen: Our book intends to say, “Listen, we don’t have to be passive bystanders to whatever the new normal’s going to be.” We can be proactive.
How?
Sine: Church leaders seldom look over the fence into other churches or denominations. Can we create service projects, find nonprofits to partner with, so if people can’t find jobs—postponing starting families and buying a house, and getting behind economically—they can get involved in the town, working for serious changemaking, starting neighborhood gardens, social enterprise ventures, and more?
Friesen: It’s “We’ve got some resources. What are we being invited to do in the neighborhood?”
2020 has made community care so complicated.
Friesen: The daily news has been devastating. Unless we look honestly at the future in a way that gives us an imagination for what is possible, we’re going to recoil and double down on old systems. I long for a new normal, but it’s not just going to happen. This is our moment to act. A relational God is inviting us to participate in faithful presence in the ecosystem of reality, to listen and look at what kind of future we want.
Da’Shawn Mosley (dashawn-mosley.com) is a former Sojourners associate editor and lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
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