Warren Bird, Research Director for Leadership Network and co-author of 24 books on various aspects of church health and innovation, recently explored just how many Americans are actually unchurched. He concludes that more than 1 in 3 adults are unchurched (have not attended church in the last year), which is a number of people that would be the size of the tenth largest country in the world. So What? Bird communicates several data points visually using an infograhic, Read More …
Religious Taxes (#0871)
A week ago today, Germany’s top administrative court sided with Roman Catholic bishops by upholding the longstanding practice of allowing the Catholic Church to deny full access to the church to German believers who refused to pay a special church tax. Under the current system registered Catholics, Protestants and Jews pay a monthly tax to the government, and the government distributes those funds to the appropriate religious communities. With this system, the tax provides the most Read More …
Election Night Worship? (#0870)
A grassroots movement hopes that Christian churches will leverage the election night as a way to show their oneness in Christ by celebrating Communion / Eucharist / Lord's Supper in their respective gathering places that evening. More specifically, Election Day Communion is a time for Christians to come together in our respective churches, regardless of party, political affiliation, or denomination. Let’s all share this sacred act of communion together, reaffirming our Read More …
Review of Embracing Obscurity (#0869)
Meet the Author After posting nearly 200 book reviews on sowhatfaith using the same basic format, I find myself writing the first introduction to an author that lacks biographical data. The anonymous author of the book chose not to reveal her/his identity because he/she felt it was inconsistent with the book's basic message. While never sharing that identifying information, the author did weave personal stories into most chapters. Book Basics Many today define success in terms of Read More …
Choosing Larger Congregations (#0868)
More and more Christians are choosing to worship in larger congregations. Thom Rainer, president and CEO of LifeWay Christian Resources, recently shared seven trends relating to American megachurches. His list (for another trend originating from the same data Rainer relies upon, consider reading my recent post) begins with a trend that has an impact that reaches far beyond megachurches (typically defined as congregations that average 2,000+ in weekend worship attendance): Further Read More …
Top 200 Church Blogs (#0867)
Kent Schaffer founded Church Relevance to "help ministries become more effective and efficient." Earlier this month, Church Relevance published its annual list of the top 200 church blogs, including an explanation of how it determined the rankings. So What? While certainly not a comprehensive this list, it provides a wealth of possibility for the would be reader. I plan to visit each of the blogs listed at least once over the next few weeks, and look forward to being introduced Read More …
The Adolescent Brain (#0866)
The video below is a must watch TED Talk for anyone who cares about, works/serves with, and/or is raising adolescents. TED offers the following introduction: Why do teenagers seem so much more impulsive, so much less self-aware than grown-ups? Cognitive neuroscientist Sarah-Jayne Blakemore compares the prefrontal cortex in adolescents to that of adults, to show us how typically "teenage" behavior is caused by the growing and developing brain. So What? Blakemore provides many Read More …
Measuring the Web’s Impact (#0865)
Earlier this week I happened upon Megan Garber's piece for the Atlantic offering a high level summary of the first ever Web Index provided by the World Wide Web Foundation. The foundation was founded by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who "invented the World Wide Web in 1989 while working as a software engineer at CERN." The Index itself draws on an incredible wealth of data covering 61 countries worldwide and utilizing 85 underlying indicators across seven components and three Read More …
Not Revolutionary Enough (#0864)
Evan Woodson, a senior at Oklahoma State University, recently wrote an editorial for his university's student newspaper about how his college experiences have helped him come to recognize that the common suburban understanding of Christianity isn't as revolutionary as it should be. While his whole story is well worth the read, Woodson's questions are ones that must be answered by each person who seeks to follow the way of Jesus: How did we get to a point where everyone we sit by at Read More …
Opinions on Educational Technology (#0863)
The Leading Education by Advancing Digital (LEAD) Commission, a non-governmental organization exploring the opportunity to use technology to improve education in the United States, recently released the results of a poll on the opinions of teachers and parents about educational technology in K-12 education. Findings include: 96% of teachers and 92% of parents believe that schools’ integration of technology in teaching and learning is important to the education of American students Read More …