Reading Time: 5 minutes Hi and welcome back! Recently, Gallup released a new survey they did. In it, they asked Americans about their religious affiliations. And oh dear, Gallup got back some bad news for Christians! For the first time ever, fewer than 50% of Americans claimed membership in any churches! Today, let me show you this survey — […]
Revitalization
Posted inReligion
Where Thom Rainer’s ‘Tipping Point’ Changed (and Why)
Reading Time: 7 minutes In his 2018 blog post, he warned his readers that American churches were cruising toward a ‘tipping point.’ Today, let me show you what Thom Rainer meant by that — and how his song-and-dance patter has changed since then.
Posted inReligion
Autopsy: Thom Rainer’s 12-Step Church Revitalization Plan
Reading Time: 7 minutes Hi and welcome back! Yesterday, I showed you a 2014 book by Thom Rainer, Autopsy of a Deceased Church: 12 Ways to Keep Yours Alive. As the title indicates, the book describes how evangelical churches wither away and die — and how to prevent that from happening to the reader’s own church. However, evangelical churches can’t […]
Posted inReligion
Thom Rainer’s ‘Autopsy’ Needs Churches to Totally Change Now Please
Reading Time: 6 minutes In essence, ‘Autopsy’ demands that evangelical churches become something besides what they are and always have been: gratification stations for the self-declared chosen elite ambassadors of King American-Jesus Superman.
Posted inGaming
That Time Someone Tried to Revitalize an Online Game I Staffed
Reading Time: 9 minutes Revitalization efforts tend to fail because once a group is solidly entrenched in a particular way of behaving and thinking together, it’s almost impossible to create lasting change in its members. Long ago, I learned that lesson in spades on an online game. So today, let me recount for you that time someone tried — and failed — to revitalize a game we played.
Posted inReligion
Church Consultants: How (Not) to Fix Dying Churches
Reading Time: 7 minutes Hi and welcome back! Yesterday, we touched on the topic of church consultants. For the past 15 years or so that Christianity has been in decline in America, this field has exploded — in supply at least, though not really in demand. Pastors hire these consultants to rescue their dying churches. Today, let me show you […]
Posted inReligion
The Power Struggles in TRUE CHRISTIAN™ Churches (Explain a Lot)
Reading Time: 11 minutes If you ever found yourself teetering on the fence about this religion, then this post is for you–because that problem and Thom Rainer’s solutions to it represent exactly why many thousands of people every day reject it, and also why they should.
Posted inReligion
The Problems and Pitfalls of Church Revitalization
Reading Time: 8 minutes This type of business, church revitalization, might well be one of post-Christian America’s most lucrative cottage industries. Today, I’ll show you what revitalization is–and why it’ll fail just like everything else Christians do to try to regain their onetime cultural dominance.
Posted inReligion
Thom Rainer: His new gig (won’t help his religion)
Reading Time: 8 minutes Thom Rainer just retired from LifeWay. Immediately afterward, he plunged full-time into his new old hustle. That hustle will benefit exactly one person: himself. I’ll show you what he’s up to and why it won’t help Christianity at all–and why he probably won’t care either way.
Posted inReligion
The Trainwreck Continues: Christian Responses to That 6,000-10,000 Closings Figure
Reading Time: 8 minutes We’ve been talking lately about the rash of church closures in America. A figure of 6,000-10,000 closings a year began circulating online recently, and it’s got a lot of Christians in a tizzy! Well, today let’s see what their big grand plan is to reverse that trend. (Spoiler: What they’re suggesting won’t help, and I’ll show you why, too!)