“We are currently experiencing the largest and fastest religious shift in US history. It is greater than the First and Second Great Awakening and every revival in our country combined...but in the opposite direction.” This is the conclusion of the largest and most comprehensive study of dechurching in America by sociologists Ryan Burge and Paul Djupe. In The Great DeChurching, pastors Jim Davis and Michael Graham unpack why and how over the past twenty-five years, forty million of those who formerly attended church no longer do so.
Jerusalem, Israel
3:15 am, April 13
I sat up in bed to a wailing sound I had never heard before, but knew immediately: an air raid siren. Our building rattled to the booms of interceptors from Israel’s missile defense system hitting their inbound targets. I pulled back the curtains and watched as sprays of light streaked the sky.
Iran launched 170 drones, 20 cruise missiles, and 120 ballistic missiles at Israel in retaliation for Israel’s purported attack on an Iranian embassy in Syria.
Nothing is more iconic to the Tucson landscape than the saguaro. The emblematic cactus is to the Sonoran Desert what the palm tree is to Miami: hard to imagine without it. Saguaros typically live between one hundred and fifty to one hundred and seventy-five years, not sprouting its trademark arms until around thirty to seventy years of its life and growing to around fifty feet tall.
For those Sonoran Desert natives, we intuitively know where saguaros thrive. They love the rocky (both granite and volcanic) soil at the foothills of the five beautiful mountain ranges that surround Tucson.
I drove a little manual 2005 Scion xB for about eight years. It finally gave out after 230,000 miles. I loved that little car. It was fuel-efficient and required minimal maintenance. But it is undeniably close to the least powerful car on the road. I’m pretty sure that on its specs, next to 0-60mph, it says, “Eventually!”
Unless I was lined up against someone from a nearby retirement community, I was the last car to reach the speed limit coming off a stoplight. Unsurprisingly, more aggressive drivers with more powerful vehicles tended to treat my little Scion like a safety cone on the road, more like an obstacle than a fellow traveler.
In the past post we considered the biblical priority of leading in our homes before stepping into leadership callings outside of our home.
When I was asked to speak to our Mom’s Matter group on leading well in the home I was a bit intimidated. I felt far from equipped to speak as a man to women on the topic of leadership. And so, I did the only thing I could think of: I asked wise, godly women who were also great leaders. Starting with my wife, I began to listen to the advice my female friends offered on leadership in the home and beyond.
Roger Barrier was my childhood pastor. Roger was a faithful expositor of scripture and a gentle shepherd. He had a quick, shy smile and a calm presence. As much as anyone, Roger taught me to love and become a student of the Word. Roger taught me to pray. “Lord, make me a man of God at any and all costs.” I have prayed that prayer countless times in my life. And, just as Roger warned, it has been a costly prayer.
Money is now more important to Americans than patriotism, religion, or kids: Peter Weber begins, “A Wall Street Journal/NORC poll released Monday found that "patriotism, religious faith, having children, and other priorities that helped define the national character for generations" have fallen steadily since 1998 and even 2019, the Journal reports.”
Why do I need close friends? Roger Barrier shares, “Now, let me tell you a tragedy. Many people have no intimate friends. They are the loneliest people in the world. There is no one with whom they can open up. That’s why life is so tough.”
The cost of fear: Karen Wade Hayes tells a simple story about baking a cake and fear. “As humans, we can be so impacted by fear that we hide or shrink back when new opportunities arise.”
Five reasons you did not and cannot reinvent yourself: Lots of truth in this post by Brian Rosner. He says, “Human beings are social animals. A growing body of research—some parts surprising, some parts amusing—indicates the extent to which we are profoundly relational creatures and pushes against any notion that anyone is a self-made self.”
An open letter to teens facing doubts about Christianity: Rebecca McLaughlin’s thoughts are winsome and true, “Sometimes you find yourself wondering what is really true. What if modern science has disproved God? What if Christians really are just bigots for not embracing same-sex marriage? What if all religions are equal paths to truth?”
We are called to be those marked by encouragement. So, why is encouragement so hard for us? Why do we withhold praise? For some of us, we withhold encouragement because we just get busy. I like to write encouragement notes to volunteers and co-workers at New Life, but it’s surprising how quickly the weeks (and sometimes months!) go by between when I write them.
Some of us withhold encouragement because we are too focused on ourselves. It requires a humble heart focused on others and not ourselves to offer encouragement. To the extent that we are self-focused, we will never be able to be strong encouragers.
1. Little Known Facts About the Last Supper: Today we celebrate Maundy Thursday, the day before Jesus was crucified and Jesus celebrated the Last Supper with his disciples and washed their feet. Julia Blum considers some surprising truths about that night. She shares, “A man carrying a water jar could only have been an Essene. From Jesus’ words, his disciples understood they had to enter Jerusalem through the Essene’s gate. Since Essenes used a different calendar, their guest rooms were still available. That’s why the Teacher knew that a room would be available for the Last Supper.”
2. Why Were there Three Crosses? Andree Seu Peterson reflects, “This eternally ordained encounter of three men on crosses on a skull-shaped hill in Jerusalem, was it not for a testimony—for the sakes of all the men and women who will ever live, who have wrecked their lives beyond all human help? Eleventh-hour rescues, these, who when all hope was lost, yet asked of Christ, and were received, just for the asking.”
3. COVID-19 and the Top 15 Causes of Death in the US: Sobering infographic that captures the spread of COVID-19 in the US.
4. What Everyone’s Getting Wrong About the Toilet Paper Shortage: Will Oremus says there is a different explanation than hoarding for the toilet paper shortage. “Story after story explains the toilet paper outages as a sort of fluke of consumer irrationality. Unlike hand sanitizer, N95 masks, or hospital ventilators, they note, toilet paper serves no special function in a pandemic. Toilet paper manufacturers are cranking out the same supply as always. And it’s not like people are using the bathroom more often, right?”
5. My Journey Through Doubt: On Easter we celebrate a man coming back to life. We shouldn’t pretend Christianity is easy to believe. My childhood pastor, Roger Barrier reflects on his journey through doubt. He concludes, “I wish I just believed and never entertained misgivings. I wish I were more like my wife, Julie. Unfortunately, I traveled a different path; but, fortunately with similar results. My protracted, intense struggles produced a strong faith. Simple, unwavering childlike faith is lovely to behold. But, so is complex, hard-earned, mature faith that takes years to formulate and resolve.”
She started her statement casually, “I’m sure you’ve heard this a million times before, but…” and then it came, one of the most encouraging things I had heard in weeks. She shared a thoughtful praise about how our Senior Pastor Greg and I complement each other as preachers. And no, I had never heard the encouragement quite that way before!
If I ask you to think of the most encouraging thing that was shared with you in your high school years you can probably think of that encouragement pretty quickly. Think about the impact that encouragement had on you. Think about how it shaped your life path. Pretty remarkable, right?
For me the encouragement that stands out to me was given to me as an eighteen year old by my Senior Pastor, Roger Barrier. He invited me to dinner and as we scooped spicy Albondigas into our mouths and chomped on Carne Asada burritos he shared that he believed that God would call me to be a senior pastor one day.
1. According to Research People With "Too Many Interests" Are More Likely to Be Successful: This is really interesting and runs against the prevailing wisdom, "The warning against being a generalist has persisted for hundreds of years in dozens of languages. 'Equipped with knives all over, yet none is sharp,' warn people in China. In Estonia, it goes, 'Nine trades, the tenth one — hunger.' If being a generalist is an ineffective career path, why do 10+ academic studies find a correlation between the number of interests/competencies someone develops and their creative impact?"
2. How to Move from Bitterness to Forgiveness: Roger Barrier responds to an important question that plagues so many. He begins his post with this advice, "Don’t minimize the hurts in your life. Mourn your hurts. Express them to a trusted friend or spouse and allow you to be comforted. Jesus died for those hurts. Talk honestly about them. Who has hurt you the most? With whom have you not reconciled? Who does the Holy Spirit bring to your mind when you think hurtful thoughts? Jesus said, "Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted."
3. What Does it Mean to Be Baptized in the Spirit? Clear and helpful post by Adriel Sanchez. He reflects, "Understandably, people typically focus on the miraculous signs that accompanied the Baptism of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2. In doing so they often miss the big picture the Bible gives us with regard to this significant event in the history of salvation. The Baptism of the Holy Spirit is not primarily about speaking in tongues but about the beginning of a new creation, the advancement of a new temple, the giving of a new law, and the commissioning of a new group of prophets."
4. How History's Revivals Teach us How to Pray: This is inspiring. Davis Thomas reflects on a very different sort of prayer than most of us are accustomed to, "I was confronted with how the Bible appears utterly unfamiliar with casual prayer, prayer of the mouth and not the heart. Travailing prayer—the kind of burdened, focused pressing my friends in the Hebrides described—seemed closer to the heart of prayer in Scripture. A stream of this manner of praying flows from the early church all the way through the Reformation."
5. The Best Weapon is an Open Door: Rosaria Butterfield on just how significant hospitality is. She concludes, "Perhaps our everyday lives would reveal that the hand of God reaches into the hardest situations imaginable and that nothing is impossible with God. Hospitality is the ground zero of the Christian life."
Happy Easter, friends!
This week's list is Holy-week-centric with a few other fun nuggets. Enjoy!
1. How Much is Your Vocation Trusted? Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra reports on the recent Gallup report. Pastors, in particular, took a big hit: "Less than half of the country—just two out of every five Americans—believe clergy are honest and have high ethical standards... That level of trust has dropped steadily since 2009, down from a high of 67 percent in 1985, the pollster reported." Unsurprisingly lobbyists, car salesman, and members of congress filled out the bottom of the polls with nurses, military, and teachers on top. Did where you vocation land surprise you?
2. What was Crucifixion Like? Got Questions answers, "Crucifixion was invented and used by other people groups, but it was “perfected” by the Romans as the ultimate execution by torture... Crucifixion was meant to inflict the maximum amount of shame and torture upon the victim."
3. Why the Donkey was the Supporting Actor for the Triumphal Entry: My childhood pastor, Roger Barrier, with a wonderful reflection on how “God never miss[es] an opportunity to use powerful symbols throughout scripture. Jesus’ famous ride on this lowly animal reveals much about Christ’s character and purpose.”
4. Modern Parenting and the Winter Olympics: Exit "helicopter parenting," enter "curling parenting." I love this clever little reflection by Stephen McAlpine, "Helicopters hover serenely over the landscape, seeing all with a birds-eye view that takes the frantic out of it. It’s big picture stuff. Curling on the other hand? It’s all micro-management and frantic scrubbing of anything that might cause just that one little bump in order to arrive at the goal."
5. How Early Christian Worship Managed to Offend Everyone: Starting with the Romans, Michael Kruger explains why this was the case, "A fundamental aspect of early Christian worship was its exclusivity. Only Jesus was to be worshiped. Whatever other religious loyalties one possessed before coming to Christ, they had to be abandoned and full devotion given to Jesus the King. One might think the Roman state wouldn’t care about such things. Wasn’t religion a private matter? Not at all. To be a good citizen, your duty was to pay homage to the Roman gods who kept the empire prosperous and flourishing."
6. 10 Levels of Light Pollution: Cool two and a half minute video that shows that different levels of light pollution across the globe.
Sign up to get The Bee Hive delivered to your inbox and receive a free 50 Books That Changed My Life (and Might Change Yours, Too) download!
