Archives

  • Church Attendance Is Declining. Many Pastors Don’t Know the Key Reason Why

    This one data point might be the most important information on the church and faith I have heard this year. We at Church Answers have done a pretty good job of explaining the “what” of attendance decline: the frequency of church attendance has declined, and people have simply left the church altogether. What we have […]

  • What to Consider If You’re Planning on Leaving Your Church

    You’ve been with your church for a while now. Something is now urging you to leave the church. We will not get into evaluating your reasons. Let’s just say you have made the decision, or you are close to making that decision. Let’s assume you are not moving to another location. You are leaving your […]

  • For Churches with Attendance Under 250, the Five Major Developments

    The news is astounding. Churches with fewer than 250 in average worship attendance account for 92 percent of all churches in the United States. At Church Answers, we call these congregations “standard churches” because they represent all but 8 percent of churches. It is incumbent upon us, therefore, to discern what important trends and developments […]

  • Five (Seemingly) Well-Intending Sentences That Are Hurting the Church

    Have you ever received a backhanded compliment? Just beneath the veneer of a compliment lies a stinging insult. It may not register at first, but then you feel the pain. “Congratulations, I didn’t expect you to get the job!” “You are so independent; it’s no surprise you haven’t found anyone yet.” “You really look nice […]

  • Ten Reasons Pastors Are Glad They Quit the World of Ministry

    Last week we looked at some regrets pastors articulated about leaving their churches during “the Great Resignation.”  In this article, we look at the other side of the coin. These pastors are glad they left pastoral ministry. Anecdotally, these comments were far more numerous than the comments of regret. In this post, we specifically focus […]

  • Seven Characteristics of Highly Evangelistic Christians

    For over twenty years I have been researching and studying churches, primarily those in North America. I had the joy of serving as senior pastor in four churches where God blessed with evangelistic growth. I have written over twenty books about the church in America. I am not giving you my credentials to impress you, […]

  • Rapid change is coming: here’s how your church can deal with it

    Though it is cliché, change is the constant in our culture. Even before COVID, the world was changing steadily and constantly. When the pandemic came, change was accelerated, and the challenges were exacerbated. In earlier years I was an advocate of “eating the elephant” change, that is making incremental, “one bite a time” changes. I […]

  • 7 Implications for Churches if Covid becomes a permanent reality

    Do you remember the first time your church responded to COVID? For most of us, it was early in 2020. Hundreds of thousands of churches closed their doors and stopped having in-person worship services. Many of us thought it was a short-term problem, that in three or four months, we would be back to normal. […]

  • 5 Observations on the Surprising Attendance Decline of Streaming Worship Services

    Over nine out of ten church leaders describe their church’s decline in attendance in streaming worship services as “major.” Many of them say the decline is at least 90 percent from its peak during the pandemic. While we certainly anticipated that many church members would return to in-person worship attendance after the quarantine, we were […]

  • The Nine Realities Churches Will Face in 2022

    Presuming we get on the other side of COVID by the end of this year, the picture for churches in America is mostly clear. Of course, none of us can know the future with certainty, and another COVID spike could change the conversation dramatically. Still, we see nine realities your church will face in 2022. […]

  • Seven Questions We Did Not Hear from Pastors Five Years Ago

    It is cliché to say the landscape of church ministry has changed in the past five years, but it is most definitely true. While COVID is often the explanation for these changes, the reality is that they would have taken place anyway. COVID simply accelerated and exacerbated the changes. We at Church Answers see those […]

  • The Things Churches Changed During Covid That They Are Keeping after Covid

    For many churches, the quarantine was a time for introspection and evaluation. We often refer to it as “the blank slate.” We know that most churches stopped meeting in person during the quarantine. We also know that churches had to pivot and make several changes. But the question we sought to answer was: What is […]