Is the church nearly dead? Dr. Denison reviews ‘The Myth of the Dying Church’

Every day brings more evidence that the church in America and the Western world is on a path to imminent demise: 

  • Millennials are leaving by the droves. 
  • The number of Americans with no religious commitment is skyrocketing. 
  • Churches are dying all around us. 
  • The future of America looks far more secular than spiritual. 

Every statement I just made is false. 

Glenn Stanton is director of Global Family Formation Studies at Focus on the Family. He served the George W. Bush administration for many years as a consultant on increasing fatherhood involvement. He is the author of nine books and one of the most insightful commentators on American culture today. 

In his new book, The Myth of the Dying Church: How Christianity Is Actually Thriving in America and the World, Stanton explores the best sociological research available today on the subject of religious commitment in America and beyond. What he discovers runs directly counter to the cultural narrative that insists that Christianity is in steep decline. 

To the contrary, he finds remarkable good news for the gospel in our day. And he offers very practical advice for parents who want to help the next generation stay faithful to Christ. 

Here are Stanton’s conclusions: 

  • Church attendance is at an all-time high, both in raw numbers and as a percentage of the population.
  • “The percentage of young adults regularly attending evangelical and nondenominational churches has roughly doubled between 1972 and today.”
  • The “Nones” (those who say they have no religious affiliation) are not new unbelievers but people who were never committed to the faith and now feel free to tell pollsters so.
  • “The number of Christians in the world today is larger than it has ever been in the history of the world.”

Why religion matters 

In the foreword, Baylor scholar Byron Johnson states: “There is indeed a dramatic decline among some American churches, but this severe decline can be found in a distinct…

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‘The man who shot me saved my life’: Making this unusual day our best day

Image: Wesley Hamilton at iamwesleyhamilton.com

We are in the midst of Palindrome Week. A palindrome is “a word, phrase, or sequence that reads the same backward as forward.” Examples include “Mom,” “Dad,” and “Tell a ballet.”

Today is 9/13/19. Read backward, it’s still 9/13/19. The same was true Tuesday (9/10/19), Wednesday (9/11/19), and Thursday (9/12/19). The trend will continue until next Thursday (9/19/19). 

Another ten-day palindrome week begins on 1/20/21. We’ll have more ten-day series in 2023, 2024, 2025, and so on through 2029. Not to mention thirty-eight “full palindrome days” scattered throughout the twenty-first century (9/10/2019 and 1/20/2021, for example). 

Why is today so spooky? 

Today is unusual for another reason as well: we will see a “harvest micromoon” tonight. It is a “harvest moon” because, as the Farmer’s Almanac explains, such a full moon allows farmers to “work late into the night by this Moon’s light.” 

It is also a “micromoon” because the moon is at its furthest distance from Earth. It will appear 14 percent smaller to us than when it’s at its closest (a “supermoon” such as we had last year). 

And, of course, it’s a full moon on Friday the 13th. This last happened nationwide in 2000 and won’t happen again for the entire country until 2049. 

Superstition regarding the number thirteen may have arisen in the Middle Ages, based on the fact that there were thirteen people present at Jesus’ Last Supper, which was held on the thirteenth day of Nisan on the Jewish calendar. Friday is associated with Jesus’ death, of course, but early tradition also identified it as the day Eve gave Adam the forbidden fruit and the day Cain killed his brother, Abel. 

And so, a full moon (even if it’s a bit smaller than usual) on Friday the 13th is drawing considerable attention today. 

Why do we name planets? 

Why do we assign numbers to days (and…

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Pope Francis to visit Thailand and Japan in November

The Vatican confirmed the trip to Asia from November 19-26.

Francis will be in Thailand on November 20-23 before heading to Japan.

 

There has not been a papal visit to Thailand since the late Pope John Paul II arrived in 1984.

Francis’s Japanese visit will include Tokyo as well as Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which were hit by US atomic bombs at the end of the Second World War.

Stay up to date with the latest news stories from a Christian perspective. Sign up to our daily newsletter and receive more stories like this straight to your inbox every morning.

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How Churches Should Respond to Seven Major Changes

Podcast Episode #571

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We recently highlights seven changes are facing today. In this episode, we discuss how to combat these changes.

Some highlights from today’s episode include:

  • Cultural Christianity is all but gone in America.
  • Multi-service became multi-venue which became multi-site.
  • Work habits are changing. Churches need to consider responding to those changes with alternate worship times.
  • Denominational health reflects the health of member churches.

The seven changes we discuss are:

  1. The Death of Cultural Christianity.
  2. The Multi Movement.
  3. The Shift in Work Habits.
  4. The Decline of Denominations.
  5. The Move to Different Staffing Models.
  6. The Huge Revitalization and Replanting Movement.
  7. The Closure of 8,000 to 10,000 Churches a Year.

Resources mentioned in today’s podcast:


Episode Sponsors

The mission at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary is to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ by equipping students to serve the church and fulfill the Great Commission. The school offers more than 40 different degree programs, including the new Master of Arts in Church Revitalization in partnership with Church Answers and the Revitalization Network. This 37-hour degree is designed to help students move established churches from flatlining to flourishing.

Learn about this program and more by visiting sebts.edu. Where are you going? Southeastern will help you get there.


Vanderbloemen has 12 Vanderbloemen…

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Salvation Army’s Strawberry Field’s gates open to the public

From Saturday, visitors will have the chance to walk through the gardens of the Strawberry Field home in Woolton, Liverpool, where Lennon would play as a boy.

The musician used to climb over the wall to gain entry to the Beaconsfield Road home, which he later immortalised in song, but the Salvation Army is now opening the site’s famous red gates to the public as a tourist attraction and youth training centre.

 

Lennon’s sister, Julia Baird, 72, who is also honorary president of the Strawberry Field project, told the PA news agency that the grounds of the home had been a “sanctuary” for the musician as a youngster.

She said: “I suppose as children we all have somewhere that’s a bit ours, a bit special.

“It might be a little hidey-hole under the stairs or it might be up an oak tree but it’s somewhere we take ourselves off and that’s a special place.

“It seems from the song that this was John’s special place.”

The home was made famous by The Beatles song in 1967 and around 60,000 tourists pose for photos outside its distinctive gates every year.

Peter Byrne/PA Wire

 

Replica gates are now in place but the original structures will be on display for visitors in the grounds.

The newly-built centre will include a cafe and exhibition on Lennon’s early life, but will also provide training for 18 to 25-year-olds with mild to moderate learning…

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Two High School Football Players Give Their Clothes to Classmate Bullied for His Wardrobe

Two High School Football Players Give Their Clothes to Classmate Bullied for His Wardrobe



Two football players at a prep school in Tennessee donated clothes to a freshman student who was being bullied for wearing the same clothes over and over.


According to Faithwire, Kristopher Graham and Antwan Garrett, football players at MLK College Preparatory High School in Memphis, noticed that freshman Michael Todd was being bulled.


Graham and Garrett went home to their own closets and found shirts, pants, socks and shoes to give to Todd. They brought the clothes to Todd at school.


“He wasn’t smiling or anything, and I was like ‘I think this is going to make you smile.’ We’re in the same third period and I apologize for laughing at you, and I want to give you something to make it up,” Graham said.


“When I saw people laughing at him, and bullying him, I felt like I needed to do something,” he added.


Todd told CBS News reporters that he’s been bullied all his life— mostly for his clothes. Before Garrett and Graham gave him the clothes, he said he was bullied every day for three weeks after schools started.


“I really don’t have clothes at home. My mom can’t buy clothes for me because I’m growing too fast,” Todd shared before noting that he was “shocked” by the gift from the football players.


“I was very happy, I was shocked completely,” Todd added.


“You guys are the best guys in my entire…

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Click here to read the rest of the story from our content source/partners – Christian Headlines.

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Eight Women Hospitalized in Nine Months from Planned Parenthood Flagship Facility

Eight Women Hospitalized in Nine Months from Planned Parenthood Flagship Facility



In the past eight months, nine women have been wheeled out on gurneys from the Margaret Sanger Planned Parenthood abortion facility and sent to a hospital, according to Lifesite News.


In the most recent incident, a woman was wheeled out partially covered with a sheet. The ambulance pulled out with lights only and turned on its sirens a block away, according to witnesses.


Another one of the patients was “distraught and in visible pain.” Pro-life activists who station themselves outside of the facility have been recording the hospital visits. Operation Rescue, a national pro-life organization, predicts that the Margaret Sanger Planned Parenthood is on track to have at least 24 medical emergencies this year, triple the highest documented in a single year.


“The Margaret Sanger Planned Parenthood is a very dangerous place for women and their unborn babies. This abortion facility cranks out botched abortions at a very troubling rate,” said Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue. “A full investigation into patient care and safety practices should be conducted, but given it is New York, any investigation there is likely to be done with a blindfold when it comes to Planned Parenthood.”


Operation Rescue, a nonprofit committed to recording abortion abuses, has kept track of these incidents in order to publicize the brutality of abortion not only for…

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Click here to read the rest of the story from our content source/partners – Christian Headlines.

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British Schoolchildren Are Taught There Are 100-Plus Genders in New Video Series

British Schoolchildren Are Taught There Are 100-Plus Genders in New Video Series



A new BBC video resource produced for schools and geared toward British children ages 9-12 teaches that there are more than 100 gender identities and that people who are critical of transgender ideology “just don’t know any better yet.”


The nine-video “Big Talk” series shows children ages 9-12 asking adults about a range of topics, including puberty, sex, different-looking families and gender. 


The English-based Christian Institute was among the first groups to report on the series. 


Asked what the different gender identities are, a teacher in the “Identity” video says, “So we know we’ve got male and female, but there are over 100, if not more, gender identities now.”


She adds, “You’ve got some people who might call themselves genderqueer, who are just like ‘I don’t really want to be anything in particular, I’m just going to be me.’”


An accompanying teacher’s guide includes suggested questions to ask children. Among them:


“What’s the difference between sex and gender?” 


“What are the different gender identities?” 


“What do you think transgender means?” 


“When do people feel like they want to change gender?”


“What does stereotypes mean?”


The teacher’s guide also suggests a “descriptive writing” project for students in which they will imagine what it would feel like…

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Democratic Presidential Candidate Tulsi Gabbard Says She Supports Abortion Limitations

Democratic Presidential Candidate Tulsi Gabbard Says She Supports Abortion Limitations



Democrat Tulsi Gabbard, the Hawaii Congresswoman running for president, said in an online interview Sunday she supports limits on abortion in the third trimester, a dramatic departure from her opponents who advocate unlimited access.


In an hour-plus Rubin Report interview streamed on YouTube Gabbard described herself as having a “libertarian” approach to abortion, adding the government shouldn’t be mandating women’s choices.


“I think that there should be some restrictions though,” she said.


Host Dave Rubin then asked if she had a “cutoff point.”


“I think the third trimester,” she answered.“Unless a woman’s life or severe health consequences is at risk, then there shouldn’t be an abortion in the third trimester.”


Gabbard’s admission comes at a time when other 2020 hopefuls are pushing for unregulated access to abortion.


As Christian Headlinesreported last week, candidate Pete Buttigieg made national news when he claimed on a radio talk show that life begins at a baby’s first breath and that the Bible supports abortion up until the moment of birth.


“There’s a lot of parts of the Bible that talk about how life begins with breath,” Buttigieg told the hosts of Power 105.1 FM’s Breakfast Club show. “And so even that is something that we can interpret differently.”


Also last week, candidate Bernie…

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Vows to Annex Parts of the West Bank if He Wins Election

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Vows to Annex Parts of the West Bank if He Wins Election



Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to annex part of the West Bank if he is named victorious in next week’s election.


In a controversial move, Netanyahu said he would enforce Israeli sovereignty over the region if he is successful in forming the next government. “If I receive from you, citizens of Israel, a clear mandate to do so… today I announce my intention to apply with the formation of the next government Israeli sovereignty over the Jordan Valley and northern Dead Sea,” he said, according to the BBC.


Israel’s long-standing leader, who had ruled unanimously for over a decade, went on to note that this area of the West Bank was the “one place where we can apply Israeli sovereignty immediately after the election.”


The Prime Minister, using geographical terms taken from the Bible, declared that this was a “historic opportunity, a one-time opportunity, to extend Israeli sovereignty on our settlements in Judea and Samaria, and also on other important regions for our security, for our heritage, and for our future,” according to TIME magazine.


Palestinian leaders have responded with frustration, noting that Netanyahu’s intentions completely decimate any potential peace deal and are a violation of international law. “Israel’s unprecedented culture of impunity, enabled by international inaction, is the…

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Click here to read the rest of the story from our content source/partners – Christian Headlines.

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