Church v.2020 - Ten Changes: #10 More Collaboration – Less Competition When compared with the American church of 2012, the future church (v.2020) will feature significantly more collaboration and markedly less competition. This will occur in many areas, including: An approach to marketing, church growth, and evangelism shaped by abundance rather than scarcity that encourages all people already on a spiritual or religious path to earnestly and faithfully pursue it. Efforts to Read More …
community service
Interfaith Worship Doubles in a Decade (#0503)
In a recent Religion News Service article, Piet Levy reports that interfaith worship services have doubled in the decade following 09.11.01. Specifically, he writes about a survey conducted by an interfaith team of over 11,000 houses of worship that " found that about 14 percent of U.S. congregations surveyed in 2010 said they have engaged in a joint religious celebration with another faith tradition, up from 6.8 percent in 2000." During the same time frame, numbers for Read More …
Marketing a Mainline Congregation (#0443)
Martin Thielen, Senior Pastor of the 7,600-member Brentwood United Methodist Church, wrote the cover story for the July 26 (2011) edition of the Christian Century about his experience marketing his previous parish. Initially a Southern Baptist, he left that denomination when it took a fundamentalist turn to become a United Methodist pastor. In the article he shares what he learned while Senior Pastor of Lebanon First United Methodist Church in Read More …