Last week I saw a link to Kate Shellnutt's article, "Only 1 in 7 Pastors is Under 40" appear on my social feeds a few times before I clicked through to read it and to learn about the latest research on the topic. The research was conducted by the Barna Group and Pepperdine University. It included 14,000 pastors. Findings include: Average Age of Protestant Senior Pastors 2017: 54 1992: 44 Young Senior Pastors 2017: Only 1 in 7 is under age 40 Getting Personal This topic is of Read More …
Trends
The Least Educated Americans: Christians (#1664)
A few weeks ago the Pew Research Center published a detailed chart showing a nation by nation breakdown of the educational attainment of those identified with select world religions. United States In the United States, the average educational attainment of all adults aged 25 and older was 12.9 years. In rank order by average educational attainment in number of years the report shows: Hindus - 15.7 Jews - 14.7 Muslims - 13.6 Buddhists - 13.4 Read More …
Top 5 Posts of 2016 (#1661)
I appreciate each and every one of my readers. Your activity on my blog indicates that the most read So What Faith posts of the year are (according to the number of page views during this calendar year among all posts made during 2016) are My Transition from Professor to Student Search for a Church: 9 Months and Counting Top 10 Books of 2016 Search for a Church: The Final Four In Politics and Beyond, #LoveUltimatelyWins Previous Lists Check out my top posts of the year for the Read More …
The Fading American Dream (#1659)
Are you living the American Dream? Most people consider several variables when constructing a personal response to whether or not they and their families are living the American Dream. Rather than address all such factors, I invite you to consider the economic component. A couple of years ago I shared information that suggested the economic piece of living the American Dream required an income of at least $130K for a family of four. Yesterday I read a NY Times editorial that Read More …
How Important is Religion in America? (#1658)
Imagine if all American adults were represented by a town comprised of only 100 people. In this small community, what would religion look like? Earlier this month the Pew Research Center published an article by Aleksandra Sandstrom and Becka A. Alper that answered the question by providing infographics built from data about religious beliefs and behaviors based on the 2014 U.S. Religious Landscape Study. For the question, "How important is religion?" the respondents Read More …
Dwindling Membership: The United Church of Christ from 1965-2015 (#1654)
While I consider myself a post-denominational follower of the Way of Jesus, I have spent the most of the last six years involved in the life of congregations affiliated with the United Church of Christ. This Mainline Protestant denomination has experienced a significant decline in membership over the last 50 years from over 2 million members in 1965 to under 1 million members in 2015. The graph at right shows the denomination's total membership by year in blue and the percent Read More …
Clergy = Not Trusted? (#1652)
According to a recent Pew Research Center Report clergy and other religious leaders are not as trusted to act in the best interest of the public as are many other groups. More specifically, the percentage of American adults who say they have either "a great deal" or "a fair amount" of confidence that a group will act in the interest of the public follows: Medical Scientists - 84% Military - 79% Scientists - 76% K-12 Principals and Superintendents - 66% Religious Leaders - Read More …
Church Giving – The 55/45 Rule (#1650)
Leadership Network recently published an insightful article by Chris Willard and Warren Bird focused on giving metrics in the context of congregational ministry. This piece mentions something I think should be called the 55/45 rule. This rule comes from research conducted by David Thoroughman, CEO of the donor analytics firm MortarStone. Thoroughman found that, on average, 99% of a congregation's funding comes from giving units that give $200 or more a year but only Read More …
Religiously Unaffiliated: 25 Years of Growth (#1648)
From 1971 to 1991, the religiously unaffiliated ranged between 5% and 8% of the adult population in America. While data from the General Social Survey shows that the percentage was higher in some years than others, it featured growth and decline in irregular and unpredictable ways within that narrow range. Twenty-five years ago (1991) I had no idea what it meant to be religiously unaffiliated. Terms like "nones" or "religiously unaffiliated" were not in my vocabulary. While my Read More …
Are Clergy Underpaid? (#1643)
New Research In the March 2016 issue of the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Mark Chaves (author of one of my top ten faith enriching books) and Cyrus Schleifer offer the most in-depth quantitative analysis of American clergy compensation compared to American compensation in general and among the college educated workforce. Unique to their work is the inclusion of housing allowances, conversion of income to hourly rates using self-reported working hours, and comparison to two Read More …