Monday, April 13, 2026

Monday's Catch: 'The Silent Shift' And More


The Silent Shift: Why Your Core Members Are Attending Less (and Telling You Nothing)
If you only measure loss by membership rolls, you’ll miss what’s happening in real time.

People are LYING About Church Attendance
For years, surveys have said 22% of Americans attend church every week.

New research from the University of Chicago used anonymous cellphone data from over 2 million Americans to track actual worship attendance.

The real number?

5%.

From first dropping church attendance, then religious identity: How countries lose religion 
Religion decline happens in three stages, according to a paper in Nature Communications academic journal highlighted by the Pew Research Center. Researchers call this trajectory: Participation-Importance-Belonging.

Opinion: Why many religious ‘nones’ are more open than they appear
Research from Sutherland Institute suggests that secularization has produced far more ambivalence than antagonism. Many Americans who claim no religious identity are skeptical of religion in the abstract, yet are noticeably more open to its role in public life when they encounter concrete evidence of what religious institutions actually do. The distance between abstraction and experience turns out to matter a great deal.

Most surveys on religion, including the invaluable work of Pew over the years, are observational. They tell us what Americans believe at a given moment. The Sutherland study asked a different question: What happens when people learn something?

Start Here: Discover the Delight of C. S. Lewis
My goal is to offer a pathway into Lewis for those who aren’t already fans, so they can experience the joy of meeting him for the first time.

Meanwhile, for Lewis aficionados, this article will most likely spark a vigorous debate about why I chose one book over another. Nevertheless, the debate over what’s best is part of the delight of appreciating Lewis.

Seminarian Renews Anglican Witness in the Republic of Georgia
The Republic of Georgia sits at the intersection of Eastern Europe and Western Asia and was one of the first countries in the world to make Christianity a state religion. According to recent data from the Association of Religion Data Archives, around 83 percent of Georgians identify as Orthodox Christians. Georgian tradition holds that the Apostle Andrew first brought the gospel to the nation.

But it was a woman named Nino, believed to be from the Turkish region of Cappadocia, who Christianized the nation during the fourth century.

Need grows for Kentucky church’s food, clothing ministries as living expenses increase
When Calvary Episcopal Church in Louisville, Kentucky, opened its three-day, volunteer-run food pantry in 1982, some 10 people claimed free groceries each day. 
The number of people increased over time until six years ago, when it increased exponentially.

Today, Calvary’s food pantry serves about 140 people – one bag of groceries and one bag of toiletries per person – each Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, and the number of people in need of food assistance keeps growing as inflation increases.

Nearly half of Americans say they have read at least half the Bible, poll finds
Nearly half of Americans have read at least half of the Bible, while only about a quarter qualify as "active" Bible readers, according to a new survey that found that a 2025 uptick in Bible reading has seemingly subsided.

The American Bible Society has released the first installment of the "State of the Bible USA 2026." The chapter, titled “The Bible in America Today,” outlines the frequency and depth of Bible reading among Americans based on responses collected from 2,649 U.S. adults from Jan. 8–27. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.
How many of the people who were surveyed were LYING?
Don’t Just Read the Bible—Study It
Like many of the spiritual disciplines we employ for growth and nourishment, Bible study isn’t explicitly commanded. So why should we study the Bible even when it feels hard?

Many biblical principles point to the value of deeply examining God’s Word. Let’s consider five.

The AI revolution is sorting people into three camps
Three distinct camps are forming around AI: power users, doubters and resisters..

Why it matters: AI isn't just advancing — it's fragmenting how people see the world.

AI is messing with our ability to handle difficult social situations
Artificial intelligence (AI) systems' sycophantic responses could be messing with the way people handle social dilemmas and interpersonal conflicts, a new study suggests.

Scientists found that when AI chatbots were used for advice on interpersonal dilemmas, they tended to affirm a user's perspective more frequently than a human would and even endorsed problematic behaviors.

Keep Kids Off Social Media and AI
The idea is simple. People used to walk on their roofs and so you must build a railing (“parapet”) on it, otherwise you are guilty of “bloodshed.” The same applies for Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, OpenAI, and so on.

Raising Children Who Love the Church
I recently tried to think back to consider some of the principles we found helpful as we raised children who actually wanted to go to church. Because I am a relentless and unashamed gleaner of the wisdom of others, these were all principles we observed or solicited from other families, then applied to our own. I hope you’ll find them helpful as we did.

5 Ways to Help Develop Disciples Who Make Disciples
The Great Commission was given to ordinary people who simply said yes. Here are five ways we can activate our people to make disciples.

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