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Groundbreaking research based on a national database of over 200,000 churches shows that the overall United States population is growing faster than the church. The director of the American Church Research Project, Dave Olson, has worked to analyze church attendance, showing that it is virtually unchanged from fifteen years ago while our population has grown by fifty-two million people.What does this mean for you, your church, and the future of Christianity in North America? The American Church in Crisis offers unprecedented access to data that helps you understand the state of the church today. “We live in a world that is post-Christian, postmodern, and multiethnic, whether we realize it or not,” says the author. This book not only gives a realistic picture that confirms hunches and explodes myths, but it provides insight into how the church must change to reach a new and changed world with the hope of the gospel.Readers will find a richly textured mosaic with optimistic and challenging stories. Charts, diagrams, and worksheets provide church leaders and motivated church members with a stimulating read that will provoke much discussion. Questions for discussion accompany the chapters.
Since 1947, the Supreme Court has promised government neutrality toward religion, but in a nation whose motto is "In God We Trust" and which pledges allegiance to "One Nation under God," the public square is anything but neutral -- a paradox not lost on a rapidly secularizing America and a point of contention among those who identify all expressions of religion by government as threats to a free society. Yeshiva student turned secularist, Bruce Ledewitz seeks common ground for believers and nonbelievers regarding the law of church and state. He argues that allowing government to promote higher law values through the use of religious imagery would resolve the current impasse in the interpretation of the Establishment Clause. It would offer secularism an escape from its current tendency toward relativism in its dismissal of all that religion represents and encourage a deepening of the expression of meaning in the public square without compromising secular conceptions of government.
In this national bestseller, the most influential layman in the United States reports that the Roman Catholic Church in America must either profoundly reform or lapse into permanent irrelevance.
In 2006, few Americans were expecting the economy to collapse. Today the American church is in a similar position, on the precipice of a great spiritual recession. While we focus on a few large churches and dynamic leaders that are successful, the church's overall membership is shrinking. Young Christians are fleeing. Our donations are drying up. Political fervor is dividing us. Even as these crises eat at the church internally, our once friendly host culture is quickly turning hostile and antagonistic. How can we avoid a devastating collapse? In The Great Evangelical Recession, award-winning journalist and pastor John Dickerson identifies six factors that are radically eroding the American church and offers biblical solutions to prepare evangelicals for spiritual success, even in the face of alarming trends. This book is a heartfelt plea and call to the American church combining quality research, genuine hope, and practical application with the purpose of igniting the church toward a better future.
At a time when already overworked clergy are being called upon by budget cutting politicians to do more for the poor, the sick, and the elderly, American churches are suffering persistent financial shortfalls. Why are American's churches in financial distress? Robert Wuthnow, a leading commentator on religious life in America, asserts that the steady drop in donations, volunteering, and personal involvement is a direct result of a spiritual crisis - a crisis caused in large part by the clergy's failure to address the vital relationships between faith and money, work, stewardship, giving, and economic justice. In The Crisis in the Churches, Wuthnow offers a searching study of this financial crisis and of the spiritual malaise that has silently grown worse during the past decade. To do this, he lets the churches speak for themselves, quoting extensively from interviews with clergy and laity in sixty Protestant and Catholic congregations throughout the U.S., and drawing from the texts of over 200 sermons, from church financial records, and a national survey. What emerges is that parishioners often feel the church does not care about what they do from Monday to Friday, offers no guidance in their most pressing day-to-day concerns, yet always seems to be asking for more money. Although the situation is critical, Wuthnow finds much cause for hope. He points to ideas and programs that some churches have enacted to challenge their members to think differently about work and money and giving. Parishioners sometimes respond positively when clergy speak boldly and concretely about matters of faith and finance, and some churches have formed small groups whose members meet regularly to discussissues of spirituality, work, personal finances, and stewardship.
In Apostles of Reason, Molly Worthen offers a sweeping history of modern American evangelicalism, arguing that the faith has been shaped not by shared beliefs but by battles over the relationship between faith and reason.
Knowing the signs of the times, and how then to live as people of faith, has never been more pressing for the church. Though many of the signs are disturbing, we ignore them at our great peril. Combining the very best attributes of a biblical prophet and a modern-day reporter, James Emery White offers a look at twenty-five realities facing the church--in the areas of belief, culture, marriage and family, media and technology, and mission--and how they affect us as individuals and as a body of believers. Functioning as both a telescope and a microscope, this hard-hitting examination of the future of the church looks into the vastness of the world and into the minute recesses of our hearts. White calls on thoughtful readers to sharpen their spiritual drive and determination in order to meet the challenges of our day--and the future. He calls us to look beyond the daily conflicts in order to see the much larger war in which we are engaged, so that we might play our vital role in preserving and growing Christ's church in the coming age.
We are in trouble. Church attendance has dropped, spiritual life in our services has ebbed and we face a serious lack of people preparing for the ministry. Perhaps most alarming is that we have failed to reach or keep our youth. The Sunday school rooms and youth groups of many churches have no real hope or strategy in place to bring them in. Beyond this, dozens of churches close each week never to reopen, while just a few new ones are started. Without some real changes in these areas we will lose our Christian influence in this nation almost entirely in the very near future.Certianly God has not planned for the failure of His church.
Where does your church turn during crisis? How can you prevent it in the first place? Crisis happens. The question is, what will you do when it comes? Churches in Crisis gives wisdom and instruction to church members, pastors, and lay leaders. It includes suggestions for avoiding common issues in the life of the church, like financial issues, personal disagreements, and doctrinal disputes. It also gives instruction for what to do when those situations occur. Here is wisdom for how to avoid serious divisions and misunderstanding, draw your people together, and get a church back on track. It will help you during a crisis at your church—to know what to do and where to turn for help.