Monday's Catch: 'What We Learned from Over 100 Commissioned Research Projects' And More

What We Learned from Over 100 Commissioned Research Projects
One of the greatest lessons we’ve learned is that healthy organizations follow the evidence, even when it challenges long-held assumptions. Sometimes our research confirms what leaders already suspect. Just as often, however, it uncovers opportunities they hadn’t considered or reveals obstacles they didn’t know existed.

What Everyone Gets Wrong About the Unchurched - Webinar
The unchurched population in the United States is undergoing significant changes. In this webinar, we present the top five insights about the unchurched that almost no one knows. Drawing on new research, Thom and Sam reveal what every church leader needs to know about the demographic shifts among those who rarely or never attend religious services. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to learn more about the unchurched population in the United States! Join us for the webinar on Thursday, August 13, at 1:00 PM Eastern. Register now to secure your spot and discover valuable insights that every church leader needs to know.

We look forward to seeing you there!

£650,000 appeal launched to save two crumbling churches
An appeal is seeking to raise £650,000 in order to preserve a pair of abandoned historic churches.

National charity Friends of Friendless Churches (FFC) has worked to save 71 churches over its 70 year history. The group has now turned its attention to St Helen’s, Biscathorpe, in Lincolnshire and St Tyfi’s, Dinefwr, Carmarthenshire.

Also See: Leicester church vows to rebuild after devastating fire

Church of England's reparations plan is 'unpopular, ill-judged and highly political'
Anglican Reader and barrister Charles Wide has said that the Church of England's decision to press ahead with Project Spire is “unpopular, ill-judged, [and] highly political”.

Project Spire is the controversial commitment by the Church Commissioners to set up a £100m “fund for healing, repair, and justice”. The money will go towards projects supporting ethnic minority groups allegedly impacted by the transatlantic slave trade.

Episcopal seminary elects new president after firing leader for 'inappropriate relationship'
An Episcopal Church seminary in Texas has elected a new president after firing its previous leader last year over an “inappropriate relationship” with an employee.

The Board of Trustees of Seminary of the Southwest in Austin elected the Rev. Ruthanna B. Hooke to be their next president and dean. She is slated to take office on New Year’s Day 2027.

Innovative Program Supports Seminarians’ Learning
The Bible and Common Prayer Book Society is launching a new program to provide Bibles, books, authorized liturgies, and study guides at no cost to new seminarians in the ordination process to assist in their theological education.

The books have been distributed recently to students who are beginning coursework at Episcopal seminaries and accredited educational institutions with Anglican studies programs who are sent by their dioceses.

Religion, immigration and abortion could shape key US Senate races, new polling suggests
New polling suggests religion, immigration and abortion could shape key US Senate races in battleground states ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

Research by Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) highlights significant differences in public opinion across Georgia, North Carolina, Texas, Ohio and Michigan.

How the manosphere made Jesus into a MAGA poster boy
Last week, Donald Trump’s defence secretary Pete Hegseth announced that the US military will begin screening all troops for low testosterone levels and offering hormone replacement therapy to those who qualify. On the face of it, it’s a bizarre policy – testosterone levels fluctuate naturally, and the military isn't known for catering to soldiers’ hormonal profiles – but the announcement makes more sense when you consider that Hegseth’s spiritual mentor is Douglas Wilson, the Idaho pastor who preaches that women shouldn’t vote and who champions a militant, aggressive vision of Christian masculinity.

It’s the manosphere entering government through the side door of evangelicalism – and it’s exactly what historian Kristin Kobes Du Mez predicted in her book Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation.

"White evangelical Protestants were the only major religious group in which a majority (60%) agreed that 'society has become too soft and feminine'." This finding mentioned in the previous article reminded me that I had bookmarked this article for future posting. It offers an explanation for why White evangelical Protestants think this way.

Hindu students ask schools to discern the swastika from the Nazi Hakenkreuz
‘I think it’s very important that young people are told that the swastika has a very positive meaning, but it has been taken and used as a racist symbol,’ said Baijayanti Roy of Goethe University Frankfurt. ‘The swastika does not have any negative connotations, whereas the Hakenkreuz stands for evil.’

If you’re already afraid, just wait until you hear about Manhattan Project 2.0
On May 23, 2025, President Donald Trump signed a series of executive orders to further the Department of Energy’s “Manhattan Project 2.0.” And just like the original, the second iteration of the Manhattan Project has plenty of secrets of its own.

The executive orders came at the behest of tech giants like Amazon, Meta, Google and Microsoft, who want cheap, abundant nuclear power to run their AI data centers. And according to the United Nations, these data centers will have doubled their voracious consumption of electricity and water by 2030.

Is Theology Beer Camp right for you?
Theology Beer Camp began as an experiment in “pub theology.” A few “theology nerds” delving into deep subjects like God, the universe and the meaning of life over a few brews.

The Episcopal campus minister for my local university frequented a popular college student watering place to conduct this type of ministry. Recalling my own college beer drinking days, I must wonder how much college students remember of these conversations after downing two or more quart jugs of beer. Alcohol not only affects people's memories, it also loosens their inhibitions. This may result in ministers who undertakes this kind of ministry finding themselvesss in compromising positions. In the hook-up culture bars are one of the places to go to meet casual sexual partners of the opposite or one's own sex.

A cheap knockoff of paganism
A PCUSA study on pastoral monogamy has all the markings of the denomination’s long slide into irrelevance.

Have We Accidentally Drifted Toward Therapeutic Christianity?
As another ministry year begins, I know many of us are doing what we always do this time of year. Calendars are filling up, Bible studies are being selected, retreats are being planned, and leadership teams are gathering around conference tables, dreaming about what God might do in the months ahead. I genuinely love this season because I believe planning matters. Every event we host, every study we teach, every conversation we have, and every volunteer we equip is another opportunity to help women know Jesus more deeply. But before we finalize another calendar or order another workbook, I think there is a more important question we need to ask ourselves.

Have we accidentally drifted toward therapeutic Christianity?

How to Lead When Your Family Is in Crisis
Ministry doesn’t slow down; other problems don’t become less. So how to you continue to lead your church when your family is in crisis?

Colorado cathedral’s ‘wilderness’ services embrace tradition, modernism through seasonal worship
St. John’s Cathedral in Denver, Colorado, aims to serve its 2,000+-member congregation by offering various ministries and programs throughout the year.

For parishioners who want a worship environment that’s in between “high church” traditions and “low church” modernity, or who prefer to sleep in on Sunday mornings, the Episcopal cathedral offers “The Wilderness,” an evening Eucharist that since its founding in the early 2000s has based worship on season-specific prayers and blends old and new liturgy.

The service’s name comes from the cathedral’s original name, St. John’s Church in the Wilderness. When the parish was being established in the 1860s, Colorado was still a territory, and the closest Episcopal church was over 700 miles east in neighboring Kansas. It’s also a reference to Isaiah 40:3: “A voice cries out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.’”

The Preacher’s Progress
It is a solemn task—teaching preaching—and for centuries this training has been part of a formal theological education. Students will receive lectures in homiletics, just as they will receive lectures in dogmatics, church history, Old Testament history, and Greek grammar. Yet historically, instruction in preaching has always been a hands-on endeavour.

Let’s Stop Imaging Jesus
Give me one children’s storybook bible free of images of Jesus, and I’ll commend it to the world. Why? Because it will tell a better story.

Fix your attention span, biblically.
Everywhere we hear that our focus issues are a brain problem.

We’re told our brains have been “rewired,” that it’s all about dopamine regulation, reward loops, and the like. And there is truth to this. Living in a fallen and cursed world, it shouldn’t surprise us that physical limitations plague us even in our ability to focus. And where it makes sense, we should address those physical problems. But my point is that is not the whole story. You are more than a brain.

Often in our naturalistic, medicalized world we can forget that the heart plays a part in our attention too.

How To Show Hospitality When You Live in a Small Home
For obvious reasons, hospitality can be more challenging for those in a small home than for those in a much larger one. It can be a bit more awkward, too...

So here are some tips.