Millennials are more optimistic than they have any right to be. Does this signal hope for the dying church? Millennials are the “in” generation. Love us or hate us, every day stories scroll across my newsfeed filled with statistics and…
In organized Christianity, some people are gone and others are done
Do we need another category to describe people who are either no longer related to organized Christianity or never were? Probably.
Let’s bring back blue laws to increase church attendance?
Should we bring back Blue Laws to increase our Sunday worship attendance? No, but the thought of it does raise some interesting questions. What were Blue Laws? Actually there are still some around so “was” is not in every place…
10 reasons even committed church attenders are attending church less often
It comes up in a surprising number of conversations these days. And no one’s quite sure how to respond to it. The issue? Even committed church attenders are attending church less often. Sure, the trend has been happening for years…
RIP, average attendance
Average worship attendance was once such an important number. With it, I could predict the size of the church staff, the informal patterns of decision-making, most of the stresses on the pastor’s time, the leadership required for small groups, and…
One millennial’s response to the recent Pew Research findings
My name is Seth Vopat, I am a husband and father of two boys, who happens to work in ministry as well. At age 33, I belong to the millennial generation which continues to make headline news. I continue to…
Are some churches too cool?
Want millennials back in the pews? Stop trying to make church ‘cool.’
Rachel Held Evans is a blogger and the author of “Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church.” Bass reverberates through the auditorium floor as a heavily bearded worship leader pauses to invite the congregation, bathed in the light…
A growing church is a dying church
Whenever a congregation goes looking for a new pastor, the first question on their minds when the committee interviews a new candidate is: Will this pastor grow our church? I’m going to go ahead and answer that question right now:…