Stop expecting guests to figure out what you haven’t clearly communicated or culturally reinforced in the church.
24 Signs of a Truly Healthy Church
Every year, more Protestant churches close their doors than open them. Lifeway Research‘s most recent count found roughly 4,000 closures against only 3,800 new church starts, and the smaller, older congregations are the ones bearing the brunt of it.
Behind every one of those closures is a room full of people who lost their church family.
So whether you’re church shopping, wondering if your own congregation is built to last, or trying to help your church get healthier, here are 24 signs to look for. These aren’t a to-do list. They’re diagnostic markers, the kind of things you can actually observe in a church without ever sitting in a staff meeting. They’re listed in no particular order, though signs 1 and 24 carry the most weight.
The Impending Is Upon Us
Surely every historical moment seems like an inflection point, but some inflections are more inflected than others. In a quiet way, such a case could be made for American Christian denominations and local congregations at present. The old shibboleths fade, but not entirely; of the culture wars many tire, though the issues remain. Meanwhile, the political atmosphere in general is toxic. We age. The struggle with the nationwide pattern of small rural churches can no longer be ignored, not least in the search for pastors, many of whom would be less than full-time. Their buildings often feel like albatrosses. Nationally, the future is threated by high levels of debt, which the tech revolution seems as likely to exacerbate as to solve. This litany of woe is not new, but the proximity of various days of reckoning is.
What Ryan Burge sees in America’s megachurches
Americans are fascinated with megachurches, and that is leading some of the nation’s largest churches to keep getting larger, according to religion researcher Ryan Burge.
Burge, a professor of practice at the Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University, has become one of the most prolific interpreters of religion data with almost daily posts to his Substack, “Graphs About Religion.”
Analysis - Trump cut to food security survey could make measuring US hunger harder
President Donald Trump's cancellation last year of a government food security survey could make it difficult to assess whether his cuts to the food stamp program lead to a rise in U.S. hunger, especially among children.
Trump's tax and spending law signed last July shifted significant Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program spending to states and expanded work requirements, among other changes.
Some controversies arise because someone deliberately sets out to challenge the church. Others because someone whom almost everyone trusts quietly admits that they are no longer certain about a doctrine that everyone assumed was settled.
The controversy surrounding John Stott’s views on hell belongs emphatically to category 2.
Pastors are still struggling but relief remains out of reach for many
More than half of Protestant pastors in the United States say they need help with their physical and mental health, while the burnout-relief measures they believe would work best remain largely out of reach, according to new research from Barna Group.
Pastoral transition is holy work
It is all kinds of work, really. Pastoral transition is spiritual, emotional, organizational, and theological work. On the best days, it is resurrection work. Pastors practice trust in a structure bigger than themselves, alongside congregations that grieve and hope at the same time. It is the kind of work that asks church systems to reveal what they actually value, not only what they say they value. In the United Methodist Church, where appointments are part of our ecclesial life, transition is one of the places where our connectional theology becomes concrete.
5 Ways to Engage Youth This Summer
Many churches assume meaningful youth ministry requires extensive programming and resources. Laura Heikes shows how simple, relational experiences often have the greatest impact. She offers five practical ideas that will help churches of any size engage young people this summer.
Under the Surface: The Mission Trip
Mission trips are often viewed as service projects, but effective ministry leaders understand that mission trips can become powerful opportunities for spiritual formation and theological reflection. Andrew Mochrie explores how youth leaders can help students move beyond simply doing good works to recognizing and participating in the deeper work God is already doing in the world—both during the trip and long after they return home.
Trump's tax and spending law signed last July shifted significant Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program spending to states and expanded work requirements, among other changes.
During the early days of the COVID 19 epidemic, Trump took the view that if cases and hospitalizations went unreported the outbreak would not be as serious as it was as if not reporting the seriousness of the outbreak would magically make it disappear! This kind of thinking on his part helps to explain his nomination of a climate change denier to head a department studying climate change as well as his cancellation of the food insecurity survey.John Stott, Annihilationism, and the Evangelical controversy
Some controversies arise because someone deliberately sets out to challenge the church. Others because someone whom almost everyone trusts quietly admits that they are no longer certain about a doctrine that everyone assumed was settled.
The controversy surrounding John Stott’s views on hell belongs emphatically to category 2.
Pastors are still struggling but relief remains out of reach for many
More than half of Protestant pastors in the United States say they need help with their physical and mental health, while the burnout-relief measures they believe would work best remain largely out of reach, according to new research from Barna Group.
Pastoral transition is holy work
It is all kinds of work, really. Pastoral transition is spiritual, emotional, organizational, and theological work. On the best days, it is resurrection work. Pastors practice trust in a structure bigger than themselves, alongside congregations that grieve and hope at the same time. It is the kind of work that asks church systems to reveal what they actually value, not only what they say they value. In the United Methodist Church, where appointments are part of our ecclesial life, transition is one of the places where our connectional theology becomes concrete.
5 Ways to Engage Youth This Summer
Many churches assume meaningful youth ministry requires extensive programming and resources. Laura Heikes shows how simple, relational experiences often have the greatest impact. She offers five practical ideas that will help churches of any size engage young people this summer.
Under the Surface: The Mission Trip
Mission trips are often viewed as service projects, but effective ministry leaders understand that mission trips can become powerful opportunities for spiritual formation and theological reflection. Andrew Mochrie explores how youth leaders can help students move beyond simply doing good works to recognizing and participating in the deeper work God is already doing in the world—both during the trip and long after they return home.
No comments:
Post a Comment