Rabbi Marc Gellman writes a column for Newsweek. On 3 January he wrote an article titled, “The five most important religious trends of 2005, and my hopes for 2006.”

Here’s my summary of those five trends:

1. Pathetic prayer: churches are more concerned with activities that draw membership than activities that fuel prayerful living.
2. Falling membership in black churches: correlating with rising economic conditions for the population.
3. The energising of the evangelicals: their voice and energy in society is way over-represented, not only by their power but by their charity, and fervent critique of contemporary culture.
4. Biblical illiteracy: churches are playing down the importance of teaching Bible to their members.
5. Revolutionaries: more people are seeking faith outside the box.

His hope for 2006 was fairly platitudinous, not much beyond a “God bless us everyone” statement. My gut tells me these trends have been around since at least the 1990s, and will continue and strengthen in 2006.

Here are my predictions for the rest of the decade:

1. Your praying is pathetic? Download some better ones! iTunes and Bigpond will have mp3 files ready for purchase for communities that need a quick thought for inspiration.
2. Revolutionaries establish, and counter-revolutionaries form. The emerging church will slowly turn from a movement to a brand name, owned by certain communities, and people will start looking for new language to describe their outside-the-box faith.
3. Falling concern over membership in mainstream churches. Denominations with rapidly declining membership will realise they still hold power in land and other assets and continue to live out their call by giving it away.
4. The energising of the mythical church. While so few attend church, the romantic notion of small communities of faith living among vast urban populations remain and everyone keeps an eye open out for them. They exist mainly on the internet, which serves only to feed the myth than to make reality.
5. Saturation of Biblical imagery. Following the success of Mel Gibson’s The Passion, so many Biblical stories will appear as film, mini-series or long-running series that everyone will claim to know the Bible without having to read it. Or alternatively, more positively, the shows will tempt people to explore the Bible further. Generation Y will also be so fully ticked of with Christo-Psychology that the demise of Oprah and Dr Phil will give way for more media attention to story-tellers, once they receive more market-share of resources.