Monday's Catch: 'REM was right. We are "losing our religion."' And More

REM was right. We are "losing our religion."
In the immortal words of the rock group, REM: “That’s me in the corner. That’s me in the spotlight, losing my religion.” Well, not me personally. But, America in general, and many Jews in particular.

Related Articles: A Third of Americans Trust the Church and Americans Grow Less Religious.

Is the Bible Belt Disappearing?
The “Bible Belt” is that mythical part of the United States with the highest per capita church attendees. Thom and Jess look at the major shifts in the region and predict whether there will still be a Bible Belt in ten years.

Four Indications That the COVID Reset Is Over
The adverse effects of COVID on the world in general and the church in particular are without precedent. However, there are indications we have now reached a new normal. Thom and Jess review four of those indications.

A Gamechanger to Get Visitors to Your Churches: An Interview with Marc Estes
Thom and Sam welcome Marc Estes, co-founder of VisitorReach. Marc has a passion for equipping leaders, strengthening churches, and empowering outreach through kingdom innovation. They talk about new trends and opportunities to get people to visit churches in a post-pandemic world.

Thomas Herbert O’Driscoll (1928-2024)
The Rev. Canon Dr. Thomas Herbert O’Driscoll, a son of Cork, Ireland, and revered preacher and composer who served most of his years in North America, died July 25 at 95. O’Driscoll was a master of narrative preaching, or panoramic preaching, which seeks to relate the gospel to contemporary cultural challenges. In 1997 he wrote The Word Today: Reflections on the Readings of the Revised Common Lectionary (Anglican Book Centre), which covered the RCL’s three years of readings.

Church of the Nazarene expels LGBTQ-affirming theologian
The church court stripped the Rev. Thomas Jay Oord, of Nampa, Idaho, of his preaching credentials and expelled him from membership in the 2.5 million-member global denomination.

4 Simple Ways Churches Can Engage in Prison Ministry
It’s clear Christians should engage in prison ministry, yet the thought can be overwhelming. Here are four ways your church can minister.

6 Major Mistakes Connected to Leadership Strategy 

Mistakes connected to strategy affect your energy, resources, timing, morale and your overall ability to make progress toward the vision. Every church has a tendency to become more complicated as it grows larger and becomes older. If you want to test this principle, compare any new church plant to a long-established and larger church.

Related Article: 7 Practical Questions to Create Your Best Strategy

Inhabiting the Church’s Praise
With few exceptions, most worshipers in the later 20th century saw changes in their worship services — at least in the music. Others have seen more radical change, formal liturgies set aside, and informal structures set in place. For many in younger generations, the current forms are all they have ever known.In A History of Contemporary Praise and Worship, Lester Ruth and Lim Swee Hong explore how these changes came to pass. The authors posit two major streams in the development of modern worship. Their book’s title is a clever combination of these two themes. The phrases “Praise and Worship” and “Contemporary Worship” have a great deal of explanatory power for understanding large swathes of the modern church.

Quality Christian Music: 15 Artists to Watch
Every summer, I compile a list of quality Christian artists who I think should be on your radar (and playlists) if they aren’t already. (See my lists from 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023.) I try to pick artists who are both musically interesting and unambiguously Christian, in authentic yet noncheesy ways.

I am always on the lookout for music of recent composition that can be integrated into liturgical forms of worship. I was impressed by the songs of St. Augustine's Music, Melborne. I have not had an opportunity to hear the songs of the other artists in this list.

Professional Development Is Too Important To Avoid or Postpone
What are your thoughts about professional development in youth ministry? Read on to discover insider insights about the vital topics of training and growth for youth leaders.

Eight Key Decisions You Must Make About Groups in Your Church
Sunday school...is one form of groups.There are many other types of groups in churches. When we work with churches, we encourage the leaders to emphasize moving their members to groups. Why is that emphasis so important?

The church is which I am presently involved is Sunday-school-based. Its Sunday school classes are large, last an hour, and socializing takes up at least half of the Sunday school hour. The classes are informational, not transformational. Sunday school attendance is the metric that receives the most attention, not how much participation is impacting the spiritual life of the participants.  There is a shortage of Sunday school teachers. There is also no clear discipleship process to help people move through the different stages of their faith journey.

What Really Motivates a Church to Do More Outreach
Motivation is what prompts someone to act or behave in a certain way. A church must have the right motivation to do outreach. On this week's episode, Thom and Sam talk about the outreach motivators that have staying power in churches.