Many students of congregational life focus their attention on religious gatherings in the city. It’s where the action is! Where there are exciting challenges and new opportunities. Where your innovations will get noticed and rewarded. But what about the thousands of gatherings in tiny places that we imagine are doomed to nothing but decline? Pastor…
“Church should not be another place of struggle. Like school can be a struggle, or going to the store can be a struggle, or getting along with your family can be a struggle, but church should not be a place where you struggle. I think the vast majority of people whose kids are on spectrum…
Question: What do we know about congregational size? In the United States, most congregations are smaller than 100 people, but most people attend congregations that are large. This points to the fact that many people attend “megachurches,” or churches larger than 2,000 people (see the earlier post on why someone would attend a megachurch by…
The 2015 report from the National Congregations Study allows interested students of congregational life to learn a great deal about what is typical and what is not. Begun in 1998, this is the third wave of the survey, so it not only documents where we are today, but also allows us to see how things…
The latest Pew Religious Landscape Survey is full of interesting insights into changes occurring in American religion. As I look at these survey results, here are a few of the things I’ve noted. On most measures of religiosity (prayer, attendance, belief, etc.), those who are in the “affiliated” camp are just as observant and believing…