The most common reason people check out your church is someone invited them. The most common reason people leave your church is they don’t feel connected. But what are the most common reasons people return to your church after their first visit or two?
Why Some Members Who Did Not Return after COVID Are Now Returning
Though it’s not yet a huge number, Thom looks at the reasons some dechurched members are returning.
Despite knowing what you ought to think and feel toward people who leave your church, you are likely tempted toward some unhelpful responses.
Two Key Ways to Make Your Church Younger
One of the most common questions we get from members of Church Answers is: How do I get younger people in my church? Thom looks at two ways that have been successful.
More than a billion people struggle with loneliness globally: Gallup
More than a billion people — or close to a quarter of the world's population — are struggling with loneliness, a new survey from Gallup and Meta shows. Younger adults are more likely to suffer from the condition, which health experts warn can have the same effect on health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
Zoom Conversations vs In-Person: Brain Activity Tells a Different Tale
A new study reveals a significant disparity in neural activity during face-to-face conversations compared to Zoom interactions. Using advanced neuroimaging, researchers observed suppressed neural signals during online exchanges. In contrast, in-person discussions presented heightened brain activity, with more coordinated neural responses between participants, emphasizing the richness of live social interactions. The research suggests online faces, with present technology, don’t engage our social neural circuits as effectively.
This is significant research as it shows that digital contact is not a substitute for direct contact. It enables people to communicate but they do not receive the full benefits of direct contact.Who Is the Holy Spirit?
Why Has the Emphasis on Spiritual Gifts Waned in Most Churches?
For three decades, spiritual gifts were a common subject of conversation and discipleship in many churches. Thom looks at why this emphasis has waned.
Why Worship Shouldn't Feel Like Family
Public, corporate worship is outwardly directed, first toward God and then to the world outside our doors: a world broken, hurting, and desperately in need of healing. It is a world that needs Christ, and public worship is one primary way we offer Christ today. The needs of the individual member matter, but they do not take precedence over the mission and the purpose of the church.
Thom Rainer recommends doing away with the greeting time altogether. It can be a very stressfu time for first time guests.10 Important Times to Pray with Your Child
It is so important to pray for your child. Pray for your child when he or she is sick. Pray for your child when he or she is facing a hard situation. Pray for your child when he or she is faced with temptation. This is so, so important. Yes, we should pray FOR our children, but we should also pray WITH our children. Here are 10 crucial times you should pray WITH your child.
The Fallacy of One-Size-Fits-All Discipleship
You can mass produce many things—cars, furniture, plastic bottles, etc.—but you can’t mass produce disciples. One-size-fits-all simply doesn’t work when you’re trying to help people become more like Jesus.
Don’t Let Holistic Mission Eclipse Evangelism
Evangelism and social action are made to be more or less equal partners, although a certain priority is reserved for evangelism.
As Trump Campaign Continues To Ramp up, So Does God-Talk
As former president Donald Trump’s re-election campaign continues to ramp up, so has the spiritual language that surrounds it—both from the lips of Trump himself as well as from evangelical leaders who continue to preach that he is divinely anointed.
One of the things that makes a demagogue a demagogue is their ability to size up an audience and tell that audience what it wants to hear, exploiting various issues for their own purposes in ways that appeal to the desires and prejudices of the audience and stokes its fears. Among the dynamics which enable a demagogue to influence an audience is that the audience will project positive qualities upon the demagogue which may be lacking in the demagogue's character while at the same time ignoring or minimizing the negative qualities of his character and explaining away his negative behavior, which his critics draw to its attention.
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