Why Traditional Prophecy Seminars Don’t Work (& What to Do Instead)
I was going to start this article with research data on the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of SDA prophecy seminars, but honestly I can’t be bothered digging all that info up.
Because the truth is, if you still need a mountain of proof to know something isn’t working… then you might just not be my target audience.
For those of us who have had our eyes open for a little bit — we already know. We’ve seen it. We’ve participated in it. And we’ve already read the studies and charts. Enough to know that the traditional prophecy seminar, by and large, simply doesn’t work at reaching secular seekers.
Please don’t misunderstand me. I did NOT say prophecy seminars don’t work. They do! With the proper groundwork, advertising, and structure you can still pack a house and get a few baptisms. Any evangelist on the front line of the work knows that this approach still works to some degree.
My point isn’t that they don’t work. My point is they don’t work for emerging secular seekers. That’s the difference.
So if reaching secular young people isn’t on your radar, then this article isn’t for you. But if it is, I want to share with you the number one reason why prophecy seminars don’t work… and what to do instead.
The #1 Reason
I’m going to keep this short and sweet. The number one reason these seminars don’t work for emerging secular generations is because traditional prophecy seminars aim to answer a series of questions. The difficulty is, the questions they aim to answer are NOT questions young, secular seekers are asking.
I’ve been doing post-church secular mission work for over a decade. Can I be straight? I have never met a secular person who wondered why there are so many denominations or why Christians go to church on Sunday and not Saturday. Likewise, I’ve never met a secular person who has any interest in Luther, Wittenberg, Pope’s or the Protestant Reformation. In fact, I’ve never even met a secular person who was worried if they were going to heaven or if they had done enough to be saved. In all my years of secular mission work, these concerns have simply never been anywhere on their radar.
Of course, I’m not saying these topics don’t matter. They certainly do. But what I am saying is, they don’t matter to most secular seekers. Why? Because these are religious topics of concern to religious audiences who have religious anxieties. Secular seekers rarely share those anxieties for one obvious reason: they have other anxieties.
What to Do Instead
So then, if secular seekers don’t share the anxieties that religious people have… how can we possibly make the visions of Daniel and Revelation meaningful for them?
The solution is simple: Present the visions with a fresh angle that speaks directly to their questions, their concerns, and their anxieties… not ours.
Honestly you guys… that’s kind of it. There’s nothing else to say. This stuff isn’t complicated. Speaking truth in a way that is relevant to the lived anxieities of your audience isn’t some wild revelation. It’s common sense. It’s what we should be doing, but aren’t. And it blows my mind that something so simple could be so controversial.
What anxieties do secular people have?
It’s not possible to make a single list of secular anxieties because secular culture is fragmented, diverse, and multi-storied. The anxieties in one generation of secular seekers are different to the anxieties in another generation. Same with geographic location, demographic make up, and economic class. Secular culture does not have a golden thread that unites all its adherents. It is devoid of any unifying center.
Which means there is no silver bullet or magic blueprint that will work everywhere. To speak into their anxieties, you have to get to know the secular people in your neighborhood and city. This is the only way.
That said, here are the some broad anxieties I have found in my own local context:
Mental Health and Loneliness (Social media has fueled a loneliness epidemic but younger generations are more open about emotions and mental health conversations than were older ones.)
Social, Ecological and Humanitarian Justice (Younger generations are passionate about a world of equality, non-violence, and justice.)
Economic Hardship & Unpredictable Markets (Mounting debt, an innaccessible housing market, the AI revolution… younger generations are wondering what they should do with their lives and battling a meaning crisis.)
These are general, broad themed anxieties. And they don’t always apply. For example, I have found that 1 and 2 are true mostly of left leaning secular seekers. Right leaning ones don’t share these anxieties. And in many cases, there is a gender divide with those leaning left being increasingly female while those who lean right are increasingly male. There are also big differences between urban youth, suburban youth, and rural/ country youth. And the list goes on.
But for the sake of a brief article here is my point.
If I share prohecy with people who live within anxieties 1-3 by answering questions about denominations, pope’s, and timelines… they ain’t sticking around. These religious anxieties are too foreign, too bizzare, too irrelevant to merit what little leftover energy they have. Waldensians? Sunday laws? What on earth is this cult sounding nonsense? …But if I can find a way to faithfully contextualize the message of Daniel and Revelation to their present, lived anxieties… by sharing how Daniel’s visions wrestle with social injustice, ecological fears, or how they help us find meaning in our modern, meaningless shopping cities… well, now we have a chance. Because I’m answering the questions that keep them up at night, not me. I’m speaking into topics that matter to them, not me. I’m showing them how God speaks into their world, not mine.
Here’s the bottom line: love it or hate it, take it or leave it - If we want to make prophecy relevant in 2025, we must articulate it in such a way that it speaks to the things that matter to the non-religious people around us. If prophecy has nothing to say about racial tension, Christian nationalism, or kids in Palestine… then why would a young person today care? What could these visions possibly have to offer them in the here and now?
But the good news is this - God inspired scripture in such a way that while its core truths never change, how we present those truths can easily change in order to speak to the lived anxieties of diverse audiences.
Jesus did it. The apostle Paul did it. I want to do it too.
