Chris Forbes and Matt Tullos talk with Dennis Draeger, Foresight Director at Shaping Tomorrow, and Chris Turner, Director of Communications for the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board, about artificial intelligence, sentience, and the growing role AI plays in human life. The conversation explores whether AI is truly intelligent or simply performing intelligence through predictive language and immersive design. Topics include anthropomorphism, digital immersion, simulated relationships, corporate governance systems, pastoral concerns, wisdom, and embodied human connection. The discussion also examines how people increasingly seek advice, meaning, and emotional support from chatbots, while raising questions about authenticity, discernment, technological theater, and what happens when humans begin trusting simulated wisdom more than real relationships.

© 2026 Forbes Nonprofit Strategies. All rights reserved. Signal Café is a podcast of Forbes Nonprofit Strategies, and Incite Futures Labs is a foresight training offering. Music generated using Suno AI, lyrics adapted and produced for Signal Café

Chris Forbes and Matt Tullos talk with Rick Presley about recognizing overlooked environmental signals and why they matter for ministry and the future. They explore how bias, political framing, and cultural assumptions can limit awareness, often filtering out important signals. Subtle changes such as fewer insects, declining songbird populations, groundwater contamination concerns, land-use changes, and rising insurance pressures can reveal deeper environmental shifts that are easy to overlook. The conversation connects these weak signals to broader system dynamics, helping leaders better understand change, anticipate emerging challenges, and respond with greater awareness and faithful stewardship.

© 2026 Forbes Nonprofit Strategies. All rights reserved. Signal Café is a podcast of Forbes Nonprofit Strategies, and Incite Futures Labs is a foresight training offering. Music generated using Suno AI, lyrics adapted and produced for Signal Café

In this episode of The Signal Cafe, Chris Forbes, Matt Tullos, and Mike Mirabella explore how digital environments and AI are shaping identity, relationships, and formation. They describe a “crossfade” era where physical and digital realities blend, forming “virtual natives” who experience technology as fully integrated into life. AI is emerging as a relational influence, not just a tool. While digital fluency is rising, critical thinking may be declining. The conversation highlights growing identity fragmentation, dependence on technology, and early signs of pushback toward embodied connection, emphasizing the church’s role in deeper human formation. Form more information about Mike Mirabella see his website

In this episode of Signal Café, we step inside a local Edmond, Oklahoma community group that spent nine weeks using Incite Futures Labs tools to ask a pressing question: What will shape lifelong learning and leadership formation in the church through 2040? Through horizon scanning, signal clustering, and driver mapping, the group explored rapid AI expansion, demographic growth along Route 66, institutional distrust, economic instability, and shifting spiritual landscapes. The conversation wrestles with intergenerational discipleship, technology’s influence on theology and education, and how embodied local churches can remain resilient in a fragmented digital culture. Featuring Chris Forbes, co-host Matt Tullos, and guests Jeff and Isaac Jordan.

In this episode of the Signal Café, Chris Forbes and Matt Tullos reflect on how leaders navigate uncertainty when signals are noisy and direction feels unclear. Using weather forecasts, seasons, and biblical language of time, they explore the difference between reacting to events and discerning the moment leaders are actually in. The conversation touches on anxiety, institutional distrust, information overload, and why confusion often increases during periods of transition. Rather than offering predictions, the episode focuses on learning how to notice patterns, recognize opportunity, and respond faithfully to change. It invites listeners to think less about controlling the future and more about understanding the season they are being called to steward.

Keep exploring the signals, trends, and drivers shaping the future. Take the next step by engaging your ministry team in a conversation about what this future could mean for your context through Incite Futures Labs from Forbes Nonprofit Strategies. We help leaders anticipate change, navigate complexity, and build their preferred future. Let’s collaborate!

In this episode, we identify metamodernism as an emerging cultural signal with significant implications for the future of ministry. Younger generations are holding doubt and hope together, showing renewed openness to spiritual questions while rejecting institutional distrust, performance, and transactional religious messaging. This shift points toward a future where credibility rests on formational apologetics, embodied community, and relational integrity rather than polished arguments or platform-driven ministry. By paying attention now, we can prepare for a ministry landscape shaped by authenticity, humility, and table-centered discipleship.

If this conversation helped you see metamodernism as a meaningful signal of cultural change, consider how these patterns may shape the future of formation, discipleship, and evangelism in your context. The emerging generations are asking deeper questions, seeking authenticity, and watching for communities whose lives match their words. Our task is to recognize these shifts early and respond with wisdom, presence, and hope.

To learn more about the formational apologetics work mentioned in this episode or to connect with our guest, you can reach Mary Jo Sharp at MJSharp@searchnational.org

Keep exploring the signals, trends, and drivers shaping the future. Take the next step by engaging your ministry team in a conversation about what this future could mean for your context through Incite Futures Labs from Forbes Nonprofit Strategies. We help leaders anticipate change, navigate complexity, and build their preferred future. Let’s collaborate!

In this Signal Cafe episode, Chris Forbes and Matt Tullos talk with Shaping Tomorrow's Foresight director Dennis Draeger about the craft of horizon scanning and why ministry leaders must learn to identify early signals of change. They explore emerging shifts in culture, politics, generations, digital fatigue, ancient faith, and global South renewal, showing how careful observation reveals patterns beneath the noise. Dennis highlights the value of history, bias awareness, and thoughtful domain maps for interpreting what comes next. The conversation equips ministry leaders to see weak signals more clearly and shepherd their people with wisdom in a fast-changing world.

"The sons of Issachar understood the times and knew what Israel should do" (1 Chronicles 12:32). That same wisdom is needed today as ministry leaders face a changing world.

The Future Commission 2050 Project (FC50) cohort, comprising Matt Tullos, John Kyle, Rusty Gunn, and Doug Rogers, explores how foresight transitions from workshops into everyday ministry practices. They share how the Incite Futures Labs experience helped incite conversation and thinking, prompting them to recognize signals of change already shaping their current leadership and the context of future ministry.

Together, they explore seven drivers of change already shaping the future: economic instability, demographic shift, educational revolution, technological evolution, spiritual malaise, radical individualism, and institutional distrust. Each guest shares how these forces are emerging in their own contexts and what faithful leadership requires when the future feels uncertain.

It’s a grounded conversation about building foresight into everyday ministry, leading with clarity, and discerning what God is doing in the times we’re living in.

You can download the report and book from their project The Next Era of the Cooperative Program and The Future Commission 2050 Executive Summary for free during October at ForbesStrategies.com/book

Keep exploring the signals, trends, and drivers shaping the future. Take the next step by engaging your ministry team in a conversation about what this future could mean for your context through Incite Futures Labs from Forbes Nonprofit Strategies. We help leaders anticipate change, navigate complexity, and explore faithful possibilities together. Let’s collaborate!