Articles for tag: Gallup Poll

May 1, 2023

By Ben Cachiaras When asked about the key to his success, Dick Clark, of American Bandstand fame, replied, “I don’t set trends. I just find out what they are and exploit them.” Worrying about trends can get you into trouble. So can ignoring them. At the least, it seems wise for church leaders to strive to be like the men of Issachar “who understood the times and knew what Israel should do” (1 Chronicles 12:32). In this spirit, I was asked to consider how we might understand and respond to the rising trends noted in “A ‘Postdenominational’ Era: Inside the

January 1, 2023

Billy Strother

Theology & Bible Bible Study

What Is Truth?

A word study traces the Bible’s primary terms for truth—emet in the Old Testament and aletheia in the New—showing truth as lived faithfulness and embodied in Christ, with a call to “don’t adjust it; trust it.”

January 1, 2022

Jerry Harris

Church & Ministry Church Growth

The Invisible Renaissance

What Independent Christian Churches Have to Celebrate . . . and the Challenges Ahead We live in a world of polls describing a hopelessly post-Christian culture in which the church is constantly losing ground. A 2020 Gallup Poll found the number of Americans now affiliated with a church is just 47 percent, a sub-50 percent number for the first time in 80 years. Cary Nieuwhof shared a recent Barna/Stadia Poll that stated 30 percent fewer people in Generation Z (those born 1999 to 2015) attend church than baby boomers (those born 1946 to 1964). Another Barna study informed us that

May 1, 2021

Wes Beavis

Church & Ministry Church Growth

The Power of Human Touch

There's an incredible connection between in-person church attendance and spiritual, mental, and physical health.

July 18, 2010

Christian Standard

Church & Ministry Church Leadership

They Trust Me, They Trust Me Not

By Dave Ping Richard had been on the staff of a rapidly growing church for six months, and things were going great. “Some of the small groups I”d started were thriving and some were just getting off the ground when suddenly we discovered that our perfect church wasn”t as perfect as we thought. Our senior pastor, a dynamic preacher who”d befriended me and mentored me in ministry, was caught having an affair with a female staff member. “Suddenly the church I loved was engulfed in a storm of hurt, betrayal, and distrust. And I was just as grieved and stunned

December 6, 2009

Christian Standard

Culture & Public Square

Has Christianity Declined and Fallen (and Can”t Get Up)?

Â by David A. Fiensy For its Easter edition in 1966, Time magazine”s cover asked, “Is God Dead?”1 We might wonder if similar motivations prompted Newsweek“s attention-grabbing Easter cover this year (April 13). It featured these words forming the shape of a cross: “The Decline and Fall of Christian America.” The occasion for this dire prophecy was the 2009 American Religious Identification Survey that found the number of Americans unaffiliated with any religious group rose from 8 percent to 15 percent since 1990.2 These figures even convinced some Christian leaders the sky was falling. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the