Tobin Grant, associate professor of political science at Southern Illinois University, recently wrote an article for Christianity Today about the unique nature of American religiosity. In that piece, he noted that the United States continues to be quite religious while most other developed countries have become increasingly secular. Upon deeper review, ongoing American religiosity is not an aberration but a logical outcome resulting from our unusually high level of economic Read More …
Discipleship
How to Reverse Mainline Decline (or not) (#0510)
Rev. Cameron Trimble is the Executive Director of the Center for Progressive Renewal, which seeks to "renew Progressive Christianity by training new entrepreneurial leaders, supporting the birth of new liberal/progressive congregations, and by renewing and strengthening existing progressive churches." Recently, she spoke in Connecticut to a group of seventy-five United Church of Christ pastors and educators. In her speech, Trimble made the historical observation that Read More …
Bad Example or Good Stewardship? (#0509)
In the October 2011 edition of Christianity Today, Ken Walker wrote about (p.17) a church that now holds a mortgage that is three times greater than the current property value. The congregation stopped paying its monthly mortgage payments in May. So What? If the story stopped there, then it would not be all that newsworthy apart from serving to illustrate the larger trend of churches on a path leading to foreclosure. However, The Church at South Las Vegas stopped paying Read More …
Liberal Protestant Decline – Fact Check (#0506)
Yesterday, I wrote a review of Mark Chaves' new book American Religion: Contemporary Trends (2011). In that post, I included a quote that offers a basic overview of something most people take for granted: the decline of liberal Protestant churches over the last several decades. As a result of this shift, there were twice as many Americans who "claimed affiliation with conservative denominations as with theologically more liberal ones" (p. 87). Chaves goes on to Read More …
Review of American Religion (#0505)
Meet the Author Mark Chaves is professor of sociology, religion and divinity at Duke University. In addition to teaching at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, Chaves directs the National Congregations Study. He is the author of three books: American Religion: Contemporary Trends (2011), Congregations in America (2004), and Ordaining Women: Culture and Conflict in Religious Organizations (Harvard, 1997). While most of his Read More …
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 …
In 5 Words or Less (#0502)
Jonah preached what is arguably the shortest sermon in the Bible (Jonah 3:4): just 8 words in the NRSV: Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown! just 7 words in the Message: In forty days Nineveh will be smashed just 5 words in the original language (Hebrew) So What? One need not be long-winded to be effective. The results of Jonah's five word sermon were nothing short of amazing. In our sound bite culture where big ideas are often conveyed or Read More …
American Congregations Are Weaker (#0501)
Eric Marrapodi, CNN Belief Blog Co-Editor, recently wrote about the experiences of American faith communities during the first decade of the new millennium. His article focuses on The Hartford Institute for Religion Research recently released report titled "A Decade of Change in American Congregations, 2000 – 2010," which was authored by David A. Roozen. Among the findings: Forty-seven percent of congregations that said their worship experience was "innovative Read More …
Should Church Be More Like an Apple Store? (#0494)
Michael Buckingham is the founder of Holy Cow Creative (a church creativity and design studio) and the creative director for the Center for Church Communication and Church Marketing Sucks. A few weeks ago he blogged about the tendency of churches to take ourselves and our rules too seriously, which is in complete contrast to typical Apple store environment. To illustrate the "all are welcomed" approach of Apple stores, he shared a YouTube video of Mark Read More …
De-bunking Fundraising Myths (#0490)
Earlier this year, the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations (UUA) Congregational Stewardship Services blog featured a 12-part series designed to de-bunk myths about giving. Each post explored a single myth. While the whole series is worth reading, I focus today on three: Myth #5 Myth: Because many people are suffering from information overload, they do not want to know how the congregation is using their contributions. Truth: Many Read More …