Articles for tag: Lifeway Research

Culture & Public Square Technology

News & Updates

Christians Team Up to Help Kenyan Become a Doctor (Plus News Briefs)

Compiled by Jim Nieman and Chris Moon As a boy growing up in Kenya, Daniel Koitatoi wanted to become a physician, but he faced many barriers, including the cost of medical college and his obligation as the eldest son to help his siblings get through school. CMF International shared the story of how several Christians came together to help Daniel achieve his dreams, including missionaries Gary and Judy Woods and Lynn and Dori Cazier, FAME, and First Christian Church of Decatur, Ill. In the process, Daniel transitioned from helping FCC’s medical teams that served in Kenya to taking the lead

February 22, 2020

Tim Cole

Your Digital Screen Door: 6 Common Church Website Mistakes and How to Fix Them

By Tim Cole The Internet is the most disruptive force in church communication since the invention of Gutenberg’s printing press in 1439. Your church’s front door may be located on your property, but in many ways the church’s website serves as the new digital screen door through which your potential guests will decide beforehand if they will venture to and through the physical front door. Recently I consulted with an older church overseas about why they weren’t attracting and keeping enough visitors to spur consistent growth. My onsite visit revealed several potential problems, but one stood out. The urban church

January 8, 2020

Mission & Evangelism

The Power of Invitation

By Kent E. Fillinger Jesus told the parable of a man who planned a great feast and invited many people to attend (see Luke 14:15-24). When preparations were completed, he sent his servant to tell his invited guests, “Come, for everything is now ready.” Surprisingly, the people on the guest list made multiple excuses for why they couldn’t attend. This angered the master, who told his servant to invite the poor, crippled, blind, and lame to come. After they arrived, there still was room. So, the master told the servant to invite anyone he could find to come to the

August 22, 2019

THE BIG CHALLENGE FACING SMALL CHURCHES (1): Small Churches

Why do many small and rural churches struggle to find and retain leaders and even to survive? More importantly, what are some solutions? Christian Standard asked Jerran Jackson to lead and manage a project to study these issues. He teamed with four other seasoned leaders who have expertise in the small church to develop this topic. _ _ _ By Jerran Jackson and Barney Wells Many rural and small-town churches are struggling. LifeWay Research found that 60 percent of Protestant churches are plateaued or declining in attendance. And 46 percent say their giving decreased or stayed the same from 2017

April 25, 2019

Church Leadership

Is Your Church Ready for Generation Z?

By Kent Fillinger It might seem hard to believe, but the millennial generation is approaching middle age! The oldest millennials will turn 38 this year, which means they were entering adulthood before today’s youngest adults were born. Many researchers and demographers are now shifting their attention from millennials to generation Z to learn more about them. Researchers quibble about when the millennial generation ends and generation Z begins—the years range from 1996 to 2002—but a Pew Research Center article from January indicates people in the two age groupings aren’t all that different. Here’s the article’s headline (so judge for yourself):

January 3, 2019

Giving & Fundraising Stewardship & Generosity

Giving Insights for the New Year

By Kent Fillinger Sermon series on giving, stewardship, and generosity are often popular to start a new year. To help church leaders gain a broader perspective on giving, here are some important research results. The State of Charitable Giving According to Giving USA 2018: The Annual Report on Philanthropy for the Year 2017, Charitable giving reached record levels for the fourth consecutive year in 2017. Total giving in the United States rose 5.2 percent, ringing in a new all-time high of $410 billion. Over the course of a decade, charitable giving increased by nearly $100 billion. Studies show the

March 9, 2018

What Are Your Church’s Push and Pull Factors? (Part 2)

By Kent Fillinger Last month we looked at “push” factors that cause a person to leave a church or religion. This month we look at conditions that “pull” someone into one church or faith over another. Common “Pull” Factors A LifeWay Research survey asked about 2,000 “unchurched” Americans (those who have not attended a worship service in the last six months, outside of a holiday or special occasion) what, if any, life experiences would make them more open to consider turning to the church for help. The top three life experiences (as reported in Facts & Trends, Fall 2016)

January 26, 2018

What Are Your Church’s Push and Pull Factors? (Part 1)

By Kent Fillinger My three daughters and I went to New York City for the first time last October. Our visit to Ellis Island was a definite highlight! I was amazed to learn what more than 12 million people encountered at Ellis Island. One part of the Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration had the history of migration and the peopling of America. I found one display titled “Push and Pull Factors.” The sign said, “Historians talk about the ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors that influence migration. ‘Push’ refers to the reasons people leave one place to go to another. ‘Pull’

March 19, 2017

Culture & Public Square Justice

Uphold the Cause

By T.R. Robertson When I identify myself with the outcasts of society that too many condemn or ignore, I am prepared to serve them in a way that pleases God. This past fall, during the heat of the presidential campaign, yet another political link appeared on my Facebook feed. The gist of the headline was that Muslims were threatening to leave the United States in protest. Typical clickbait””it didn”t tempt me to keep reading for the details. But I did notice the comments from people on Facebook, most of whom probably didn”t read beyond the headline either: “Good-bye!” “Thank the

January 14, 2017

Church Leadership

Strategic Solutions for Significant Stages

By Jennifer Johnson Writers of short-think pieces like this one love to quote statistics about the hundreds or even thousands of pastors who are leaving the ministry each month. However, as Ed Stetzer pointed out on his blog last October, those provocative numbers have yet to be backed up with any solid data or reliable sources. In fact, actual recent surveys, like the September 2015 study conducted by LifeWay Research, show that while the demands of pastoring a church can frequently feel “overwhelming” to more than 50 percent of senior pastors, the vast majority (92 percent!) also feel regularly encouraged

August 3, 2016

Care & Counseling Grief & Suffering

Ending the Shame of Mental Illness

By Jim Tune In the early years of our church plant in Toronto, one of our staff members preached a message about mental illness and faith. He made himself vulnerable as he shared about a season of significant depression in his life. The story he told was courageous and honest. I remember it as a defining moment in our new church”s development. Mental illness was, and still is, a topic that rarely is discussed head-on in churches. In sharing his story, our speaker brought mental illness out from behind the curtain of shame and exposed it to a liberating light.

May 7, 2016

Church & Ministry Church Leadership Pastoral Transitions & Succession

Everybody Leaves Sooner or Later

An Interview with Warren Bird,Â coauthor of Next: Pastoral Succession that Works By Kent Fillinger What are the key points from Next? The first is the sobering reminder that we”re all interims. A reality of life is that whatever our role is, someone is going to come after us unless Jesus comes back before then. We try to unfold that in the book. And there”s a theology behind that. Jesus had a succession plan, so shouldn”t you? Moses had a succession plan. And look at how, from Moses to Joshua, it worked so well. But Joshua didn”t have a successor, and

November 19, 2015

Michael C. Mack

How to Respond to the Trend of ‘Churchless Christians’

By Michael C. Mack According to a Barna Group survey, the majority (62 percent) of churchless Americans consider themselves Christians. “Most of the churchless in America””contrary to what one might believe””do not disdain Christianity nor desire to belittle it or tear it down,” says the report. This graph provides a more detailed breakdown: How can churches make sense of these surprising findings, and more importantly, what can churches do in response to them? “I think a dissatisfaction with the institutional church is significantly responsible for the result,” says Mike Shannon, professor at Cincinnati (Ohio) Christian University. In The Rise of

April 1, 2015

Highest Church Attendance Days

LifeWay Research (www.lifewayresearch.com) recently asked 1,000 lead ministers from across the United States what three Sundays have the highest attendance throughout the year. Here are the results.

September 15, 2014

The Church of the Future

By Matt Smay One thing is certain as we contemplate all the changes the church is facing. Tomorrow”s church won”t look like the church we remember from days gone by. I try to keep things as simple as possible. When we overcomplicate things, we extend the time it takes to learn and become proficient at something new. It might explain why I”ve become enamored by one-room churches and schoolhouses that were established in small towns as people moved west across America, in a time when everything seemed so much simpler. (My ancestors helped establish one of those towns: Browns, Illinois.)

August 12, 2013

Church & Ministry Church Leadership

What about the Preacher”s Family?

By Dennis Bratton Fifty percent of preachers” marriages will endÂ in divorce. Eighty percent of preachers believe pastoralÂ ministry has negatively affected their families. Thirty-three percent say being in the ministry is an outrightÂ hazard to their family. Local churches can change this picture. Here are some simple ideas any congregation can follow to make sureÂ their preacher”s family is an example for every family. Preachers live in a continuum of unfinished tasks. At the end of nearly every day, the preacher can think of calls he needs to return, a sermon or lesson he needs to write, someone who requires a personal visit,

November 14, 2011

Church & Ministry Church Leadership Preaching

Talking Church

By Dennis Bratton During a discussion about mentoring, talk turned toward the idea of a coaching cohort. The term coaching struck a cord of familiarity. I”d taken part in peer coaching for years. We didn”t call it that. It was just a group of preachers who got together once a year to talk church, play some golf, and talk church some more. The benefits of those connections were far-reaching in my ministry. I was in a growing church and regularly facing issues and challenges for which I often felt ill equipped. My best source of counsel came consistently from those

September 28, 2010

Christian Churches, Large Churches, Growing Churches

Mark A. Taylor Congratulations to Southeast Christian Church, Louisville, Kentucky, the fifth largest church and the 27th fastest growing church in America. Southeast was one of 17 congregations in the fellowship of Christian churches included in the two lists, published by Outreach magazine in September. The lists were based on self-reported February and March attendance weekend attendance averages in a research project involving more than 8,000 churches, according to Outreach. LifeWay Research conducted the study. Ten of the 100 largest churches in America are among the Christian churches, including two in the top 10. (The numbers here and in the

June 23, 2010