Religion News Service contributor Nicole Neroulias, recently wrote an article that begins with these words: A recent study reports that white Americans without college degrees are dropping out of church faster than their more highly educated counterparts . . . The study, by University of Virginia sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox, found that since the 1970s, white Americans with no more than a high school diploma have been leaving the pews twice as fast as other 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 …
Should Military Chaplains Share a Single Religious Insignia? (#0493)
Lauren Markoe's story, "Chaplains Push for Uniform Religious Badges, for Religion News Service considers the issue of visual identification of military chaplains. This matter is receiving considerable attention as the number of religions represented with one or more chaplains continues to expand, since each currently is represented by a unique symbol. This diversity makes it difficult for others to immediately identify chaplains. For example, when "the sole, Read More …
How Important is Religion? (#0492)
Bradley Wright is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Connecticut. His two most recent books are Christians are Hate-Filled Hypocrites . . . and Other Lies You’ve Been Told: A Sociologist Shatters Myths From the Secular and Christian Media (included in my Top 10 Books of 2010) and Upside: Surprising Good News About the State of Our World (read my review here). Recently he blogged about an important question: "Is religion Read More …
Reasons to Keep Blogging (#0491)
Brooklyn Lindsey is a pastor who currently oversees the middle school ministry at Highland Park Church in Lakeland, Florida and has recently written two books: Opposite Day: Upside-Down Questions to Keep Students Talking and Listening (2009) and Confessions of a Not-So-Supermodel: Faith, Friends and Festival Queens (2008). In light of her own slower pace as a blogger, she reflected on reasons bloggers should continue to write and publish their thoughts: 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 …
America’s Largest Churches (#0489)
Writing for USA Today, Cathy Lynn Grossman shares the largest churches in America according to Outreach Magazine's latest survey: Lakewood Church in Houston, TX, led by Joel Osteen, average weekly worship attendance: 43,500 North Point Community Church in Alpharetta, GA, led by Andy Stanley, average weekly worship attendance: 27,429 Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, IL, led by Bill Hybels, average weekly worship attendance: 24,377 Read More …
Spiritual or Religious or Both (#0488)
Bruce Reyes Chow is a consultant who served as founding pastor of Mission Bay Community Church, until May of this year, and was the former moderator of the General Assembly of the 2.3 million member PCUSA. He recently blogged about the importance of being both spiritual and religious. In the post, he notes that the number of people who think of themselves as spiritual but not religious continues to grow as has been captured by research, including that done by Read More …
Two Years of Tweeting (#0487)
Today is my (@sowhatfaith) Twitterversary. I have now been tweeting for two years. I took some time to compare my first year on Twitter to my second. That analysis yielded the following data: As my comfort level grew, so did the frequency of my tweeting: average daily tweet count was 2.6 in year one compared to 6.8 in year two (an increase of roughly 150%) As I better understood the role and value of Twitter, I moved away from posting my tweets on my Facebook wall. Read More …
Jesus as Facebook’s Most Liked? (#0486)
Jennifer Preston's recent New York Times article explores how a Facebook page about Jesus became the most popular page of all: For the last three months, more people have “Liked,” commented and shared content on the Jesus Daily than on any other Facebook page, including Justin Bieber’s page, according to a weekly analysis by AllFacebook.com, an industry blog. The Jesus Daily is the creation of the 41 year old medical researcher Dr. Aaron Tabor. Tabor writes most of Read More …