Almost everywhere I preach I’m asked the same question – do I think the church will survive.

That is a loaded question that needs to be looked at from a lot of different angles. What is church? Are we talking something like Jesus’ early followers or are we talking about modern institutions? Are we talking about a lifestyle or are we talking about a faith statement? Does denominational affiliation come into the question? Orthodox traditions date themselves back 2000 years while most Pentecostal and Non-denominational groups only 100. Is that what we think about when we use the word ‘church’?

Regardless, my answer is always the same: Our institutions? Probably not, at least not as they are now or as they used to be in the heyday following World War II.

But our faith? The lifestyle of Jesus followers? The drive for Christ-demonstrated equity and justice? Absolutely. That will go on.

There is both an inherent arrogance and a significant lack of social historical knowledge behind the question of whether the church will survive. For over two millennia people who call themselves Christian, or who have at least tried to live their lives as Jesus asked us to do, have faced hardships. Many times throughout history the church has not been the most popular place in the culture. We have experienced doubts and departures before. We are not unique in watching church buildings become empty.

Every 500 years the church goes through a crisis and emerges as something new. We are living in that time of transition.

And yet Christianity is strong. It might not call itself that, but it can be seen in society’s demanding equal rights for minorities and abused people. We can see the call of Jesus in our social disgust at the high food costs and the inability of people to find affordable homes. We hear it in the stories of indigenous peoples who are finally getting a platform to speak from their culture. We witness it in younger generations who are using social media to connect and create social change. We find it in the anger that is leading people to organize and strike for better pay in an economy that only rewards the rich. We feel it in the desperation of people who don’t have universal health care and those who fear their universal health care will be taken away.

The followers of Jesus are everywhere.

But they are probably not sitting inside a building.