Some people were surprised — and worried — to learn from an April poll that sermons are a much stronger draw to church attendance than music. And it was worse than that for music lovers. The Gallup survey presented a list of…
How to keep youth engaged with church and faith? Pay them.
Frustration transformed into innovation for a Washington State youth minister tired of losing young people to other activities and smartphones. His solution: pay them. It all started for Matt Overton with a growing trend of absenteeism in his youth group…
White Christian America declining, but still packs punch
Conservative evangelicals have lost their cultural and political clout as their numbers and vitality wane, author Robert Jones argues in his book The End of White Christian America. The book was published in the summer of 2016 — just a few…
More projects, less meetings, a better draw for churches
Closing churches and the rise of the religiously unaffiliated seems like pretty strong evidence that Christianity is going through some pretty dark times. But Kennon Callahan doesn’t buy into that conclusion. “This is a new time,” said Callahan, author of…
The ranks of ex-pastors grow as some join ‘nones’ and ‘dones’
Between the notoriously long hours, the unrealistic expectations and the severe stress on health and family, church ministry often becomes too much for many — in fact most — ministers to handle. For some it results in being fired, quitting or…
‘Secret church shopper’ reports quality of welcome determines if guests will visit a second time
Greg Atkinson is one of those guests who give churches the chills. Whenever he visits a congregation for the first time, he loiters around the parking lots and restrooms, sizes up ushers and security and lurks around the nursery and…
Want to change your congregation? Find a crisis
Five years ago I spent two weeks in the hospital. I did not enjoy it. It was for a reason that had been creeping up on me for about a month. I had been to my doctor—a general practitioner–twice during…
You can’t cover up and soar with faith
My wife and I got married on an important day in American political infamy. June 17, 1972. Oh, you do not know what this celebrates? Perhaps it is because the event — the Watergate break-in — is not nearly as…