2020s Foresight: Three Vital Practices for Thriving in a Decade of Accelerating Change

Co-Authored with Tom Sine

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2020s Foresight is designed to give you everything you need to wisely guide your community to anticipate changes coming your way. You and your group don’t need to succumb to fear, or be caught off guard, in fact, y’all already have the skills and people you need to be agents of God’s Shalom in, for, and with your neighborhood.

Given the global climate crises, the COVID-19 pandemic, the BLM revolution, accelerating dependence on new technologies, and the ensuing economic uncertainties – especially for our youth – this book is even more timely than Dwight could have imagined.

While many “future oriented” books survey emerging trends, this one is different.

Integrating Benedictine spirituality, with probability futuring, and Shalomic spirituality it gives you the tools to co-create your new normal as a “Shalomic Design Opportunity.” The book guides you through a three step process of:

ONE – Anticipating

Forecasting probable changes impacting your neighbors & your neighborhood.

TWO – Reflecting

Opening up to listen & discover God’s Shalom for your people within their place.

THREE – Innovating

Experimenting unto a thriving & just future for all within your parish.

You likely hear many people discussing the idea of a “new normal”… part of what a new normal suggests an era of deep change. You might even think of this as a season of cultural liminality. This book is, in part, a guide for engaging this coronavirus as an opportunity for innovation around our most vital core values.

Dwight wrote 2020s Foresight with his friend and mentor, Dr Tom Sine, author of many other books including The Mustard Seed Conspiracy, Mustard Seed versus McWorld, and The New Conspirators. Tom has been helping Dwight read the signs of the times, so as to anticipate coming changes with Shalomic imagination since they first met way back in 1996.

Published by Fortress Press, September 2020.

Reviews +

What others are saying about 2020s Foresight

“You may have thought only hindsight is 2020 but think again. Tom Sine and Dwight Friesen have gifted us with a clearly articulated vision for navigating the “turbulent 20s.” In their new work, 2020s Foresight: Three Vital Practices for Thriving in a Decade of Accelerating Change, your perspective and life practices for dealing with change will increase tremendously. Today, change occurs seemingly, at the speed of light. We must look for a path for God’s people to become more like the sons of Issachar, who “understood their times.” Jam-packed with explicit examples and rich references, this book and the deep wisdom contained therein, is long overdue. The thoughtful questions at the end of each chapter provide excellent group and classroom study. Do yourself and your community some good; study this book well. Sine and Friesen’s timing couldn’t be better!”

RANDY WOODLEY, AUTHOR/EARTH-ACTIVIST/FARMER: ELOHEH INDIGENOUS CENTER FOR EARTH JUSTICE

“As pastor of a congregation of mostly 20 to 40 year-olds, this book serves as both a helpful mirror of the struggles many of our members are living out in real time and a crystal ball of what lies just over the horizon. Leaders of all types will find this text immediately useful with its real-lived examples, animating questions, and respectful listening to our newest generations. In a time of staying six-feet apart, this will help churches stay six-feet ahead instead of six feet under.”

Ivar Hillesland, Pastor of Church of the Apostles, Seattle, WA 

“How do we engage inevitable change as we trust God’s guidance for an uncharted future? How do we become change makers and community weavers, and how do we be the church for the world we all hope for? Tom Sine and Dwight J. Friesen offer time-tested wisdom, grounded stories, and accessible practices to engage these questions wholeheartedly. What an important read for this day and age!”

Christiana Rice, Co-Director of the Parish Collective and Co-Author of, To Alter Your World: Partnering with God to Rebirth our Communities  

“In 2020s Foresight: Three Vital Practices for Thriving in a Decade of Accelerating Change, Tom Sine and Dwight Friesen have given timely and courageous voice to their passion for the church to be a vital change leader in community. Tom has been a partner for years in encouraging scenario forecasting for Christian organizations. Dwight is a passionate advocate for churches engaging their parish. Together they have provided a timely and critical guide for church leaders to lead creatively into responding to the economic impact of Covid-19.”

Andrew Ryskamp, Executive Co-Director (Emeritus), World Renew

“Christian leaders, if you want to dance your way through the 2020’s, my friends and teachers Tom Sine and Dwight Friesen can teach you the steps you need. Intelligent, practical, and highly readable — highly recommended!”

Brian D. McLaren, Author of many books including: Faith After Doubt, A Generous Orthodoxy, & Everything Must Change

“Sine and Friesen’s 2020s Foresight is the book we need exactly when we need it. This book guides churches in practical ways of how to pivot and adjust well to the inevitable, and sometimes overwhelming, changes ahead. It calls the church to be imaginative, creative and reminds us to join waves of collaboration with others on the journey and to be open to God’s innovation in the midst of unknowns. The end result is we will minister with hope, without fear.”

Jamie D. Aten, Ph.D., Founder & Executive Director, Humanitarian Disaster Institute and Author of A Walking Disaster 

“If there is one thing we know for sure, it’s that tomorrow will not look like today. We are living in a period of incredible change and this book will help you and your church prepare for that. In 2020s Foresight, get ready to have your imagination stretched and your vision enlarged.”

Dr. Ruth Valerio, Global Advocacy & Influencing Director, Tearfund UK  

“Tom and Dwight have penned a future facing book that is a neat blend of reflecting on the changes going on around us, practical wisdom on how to think about and respond to those mixed with imagination about what the possibilities and opportunities might be as communities of disciples seek to move from anxiety to innovation. It is interspersed with inspiring examples, questions for discussion and even a whole group outline in the middle. This is exactly the sort of conversation the church needs to be having right now and I especially like that its focus is dreaming of a better world rather than simply being focused on the church’s internal agenda. It both stares down reality and is hopeful at the same time.”

Jonny Baker, Director of Mission Education, Church Mission Society  

“2020s Foresight has arrived just in the nick of time. It begins with a question that made me laugh out loud, “Have you ever been blindsided by change?” The new decade has begun with a period of such unprecedented turbulence. Never in recent memory have we more needed the skills Tom Sine and Dwight Friesen write about here. In a time of continuous, accelerated change, this book is timely, practical, and inspiring.”

Michael Frost, Morling College, Sydney, and author of many books including, The Shaping of Things to Come: Innovation & Mission for the 21st Century 

“I’ve been listening, learning, and conspiring with Tom and Dwight for a couple of decades now.  I read everything they write.  And this book is a lovely theological cocktail of the best of both.  It’s been said that the ancient prophets were not fortune-tellers but truth-tellers. They were not just trying to predict the future… but they were trying to change the future, by naming the present. In that Spirit, Sine and Friesen invite us to reimagine the world, and to begin building the kind of future that God wants for us and for the world. Dig in… and join the revolution.”

Shane Claiborne, Author of The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical, local parish practitioner, & Co-founder of Red Letter Christians  

“In these past ‘golden years’ of financial growth, innovation has been a luxury, something we got to play with, kick around, dabble in. With the monumental changes in, not just the church, but now all of life, innovation is now required, it is now imperative, a necessity. In 2020s Foresight: Three Vital Practices for Thriving in a Decade of Accelerating Change, Sine and Friesen do their usual magnificent job in putting this in perspective and showing us how to turn innovation into a “practice.” There may be no more important one for the life and health of our communion going forward.”

The Rt. Rev. Gregory H. Rickel, VIII Bishop of Olympia & Chief Steward 

“In the church and society we face unprecedented challenges. We could bury our heads in the sand or scream “the sky is falling.” Or we could follow the lead of Sine and Friesen, who invite us to face uncertain times with courage and creativity. With relentless optimism, this book sounds the alarm and casts a vision for practical action. Let’s reimagine a better future together.”

Lisa & Mark Scandrette, co-authors of Belonging & Becoming, and FREE: Spending Your Time & Money on What Matters Most

“2020s Foresight is what you get when you bring a pastor and a futurist together—namely, a theologically-informed, highly-practical book that helps the church prepare for a believable vision of the future. And by ‘prepare,’ I do not simply mean to ‘survive’, but to thrive in its mission in the world. Using the metaphor of a dance between anticipation, reflection, and innovation, Sine and Friesen lead the people of the Jesus Way to meet the challenges of our ever-changing world with prophetic grace.”

Al Tizon, Ph.D., Affiliate Associate Professor of Missional & Global Leadership, North Park Theological Seminary, and Executive Minister of Serve Globally Evangelical Covenant Church  

“In a time of disorienting, rapid change and unprecedented world-wide events, the Church needs trusted guides and teachers.  In 2020s Foresight: Three Vital Practices for Thriving in a Decade of Accelerating Change, Tom Sine and Dwight Friesen demonstrate that they are just the guides and teachers we need.  Offering a combination of reflective wisdom, hopeful anticipation, and humble experimentation they not only help us see the future, but teach us how to participate with God in creating it. Chock full of examples that challenge and inspire, now more than ever, we need books like this to give us the wisdom and courage we need for facing what feels like a daunting future. I highly recommend it and will be re-reading it myself often.”

Tod Bolsinger, Fuller Seminary, Author of Canoeing the Mountains: Leading in Uncharted Territory
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