This is how the church will keep the next generation in our community: by providing them space to lead us, and join them in the revolution of peace they are working so hard to usher in to our world.
How our church doubled our Wednesday night attendance in one week
If Sunday and midweek attendance patterns are not going back to the 1950s, then every church should consider creative ways to engage people in the culture as it exists, not the culture in which our grandparents lived.
Congregations should keep eye on the (golf) ball for survival clues, church coach says
It’s become pretty common for churches struggling with declining memberships and tithing to study congregations that are doing well. But maybe they should focus on the game of golf, which has seen massive course closure rates since the economy tanked…
Where do Southern Baptists go when they leave? The answer in one chart
Most of the decline in the Southern Baptist Convention is coming because SBC churches are not holding onto those who were raised in their congregations.
Women are leaving church, and the reason seems clear
The years that women’s church attendance began to decline are the very years when religious leaders in the Catholic Church and the evangelical movement fused religion with the culture wars.
It’s the Church’s birthday, not its funeral
I’m not going to tell you my age but not because I’m embarrassed by the number. I’m not that old yet. I’m only partly kidding. No matter what I have collected — a couple of degrees, student loans, a marriage…
Comparing faith decline in U.S. with Europe, Japan misleading, says professor
Christians anxious about the troubles of the American church often look to Europe’s beautiful-but-empty cathedrals as signs of things to come. But a scholar who studies the connection between fertility, immigration rates and religion said American Christianity is at nowhere near the same place as its European counterpart.
When all seems lost, apply the 20-year test
There is a school of thought running rampant in congregations these days that sounds something like this: “This is the worst Pastor/Group/Recession/President/Situation/Era/Event that we have ever known! We must get rid of him/her/it/them immediately or we are doomed.” As a…
What is slowing down the decline of many denominations?
As a group, established denominations are in decline for various reasons. Typically this happens when the collection of congregations in a denomination do not innovate the style of their ministry to present the substance of the gospel in a manner…