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The Pew Center on the States reports 1 in every 99.1 American adults were held in U.S. prisons or jails at the beginning of 2008 (full report). In other words, over 1% of the United States mission field lies in the hands of prison ministries.

With 1% of Americans behind bars, perhaps there needs to be a bigger emphasis on prison ministry. Chuck Colson’s Prison Fellowship Ministries and Catherine Rohr’s Prison Entrepreneurship Program are excellent examples of what is possible.

Whether or not your church feels called to have a prison ministry, you should be thinking about how this statistic affects your congregation now and in the future. It is likely there are members of your church who have friends and family in prison. They are probably affected by it, particularly in the case of a child with an imprisoned parent. With such a high rate of imprisoned Americans, how will your community’s culture be affected in the future as some of these inmates get the opportunity to reenter society? Some communities will be more affected than others.

According to the research:

• 1 in 54 men ages 18 or older are incarcerated
  >> 1 in 106 white men
  >> 1 in 36 Hispanic men
  >> 1 in 15 black men
• 1 in 265 women ages 35-39 are incarcerated
  >> 1 in 355 white women
  >> 1 in 297 Hispanic women
  >> 1 in 100 black women

For Discussion:
- What can a church do to minister to those affected by this trend?
- How can a church help reverse this trend?

[via The New York Times]

Yesterday, The Pew Forum published the findings from their U.S. Religious Landscape Survey. After interviewing over 35,000 Americans ages 18+, researchers discovered that a startling 28% of American adults have left the faith in which they were raised in favor of another religion - or no religion at all. Key findings from the study include:

U.S. Religious Traditions

• Christian = 78.4%
  >> Protestant = 51.3%
  >> Catholic = 23.9%
  >> Mormon = 1.7%
  >> Jehovah’s Witness = 0.7%
• Other Religions = 4.7%
  >> Jewish = 1.7%
  >> Buddhist = 0.7%
  >> Muslim = 0.6%
  >> Hindu = 0.4%
  
• Unaffiliated = 16.1%
  >> Atheist = 1.6%
  >> Agnostic = 2.4%

Growth Rates
factors adults entering and leaving each group

• +700%= Agnostic
• +220% = Atheist
• +75.0% = Buddhist
• +33.3% = Muslim
• +16.7% = Jehovah’s Witness
• 0.0% = Hindu
• -4.8% = Protestant
• -5.6% = Mormon
• -10.5% = Jewish
• -23.9% = Catholic

Interesting Trends

• Men are significantly more likely than women to claim no religious affiliation. Nearly one-in-five men say they have no formal religious affiliation, compared with roughly 13% of women.
• Among people who are married, nearly four-in-ten (37%) are married to a spouse with a different religious affiliation. (This figure includes Protestants who are married to another Protestant from a different denominational family, such as a Baptist who is married to a Methodist.) Hindus and Mormons are the most likely to be married (78% and 71%, respectively) and to be married to someone of the same religion (90% and 83%, respectively).
• Jehovah’s Witnesses have the lowest retention rate of any religious tradition. Only 37% of all those who say they were raised as Jehovah’s Witnesses still identify themselves as Jehovah’s Witnesses. [Note: They still have an overall +16.7% growth rate because of new converts.]

It is sobering to see Protestantism dwindling at a rate of -4.8% while Agnostics, Atheists, Buddhists, and Muslims grow at incredibly strong rates. I cannot help but introspect what role I might play in the blame. Have I been maximizing my ministry potential? Is there anything more I can be doing to make a greater difference for God’s kingdom? These are questions that I believe we all must ask. When faced with such grim statistics, I believe it is our responsibility to reevaluate our lives, our actions, and our ministries.

It reminds me of the parable of the lost sheep (Matthew 18:12-14 Amplified):

What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray and gets lost, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountain and go in search of the one that is lost? And if it should be that he finds it, truly I say to you, he rejoices more over it than over the ninety-nine that did not get lost. Just so it is not the will of My Father Who is in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost and perish.

For Discussion:
- What do you think are the causes of America’s religion shift?
- What do you think is the church’s responsibility about it?

Over the past several years, UCLA researchers have been studying the spirituality of college students. What is intriguing is undergraduates tend to become more spiritual but less religious between their freshman and junior year. The Pew Forum recently shared the following findings from the study:

Religious Attendance

• 43.7% of freshmen frequently attend religious services.
  25.4% of juniors frequently attend religious services.
• 20.2% of freshmen never attend religious services.
  37.5% of juniors never attend religious services.

Measures of Spirituality

• 48.7% of freshmen say “attaining inner harmony” is “very important” or “essential.”
  62.7% of juniors say “attaining inner harmony” is “very important” or “essential.”
• 41.8% of freshmen say “integrating spirituality in my life” is “very important” or “essential.”
  50.4% of juniors say “integrating spirituality in my life” is “very important” or “essential.”
• 62.8% of freshmen agree with the statement “most people can grow spiritually without being religious.”
  74.8% of juniors agree with the statement “most people can grow spiritually without being religious.”

Why the rise of spirituality but fall of religiosity?

Researchers believe two factors affecting this trend are:

1. Many of these students are away from home for the first time, and we suspect that, for some students, religious observance before college is influenced by the presence of the family
2. A greater deal of time is invested in studies during college than before college.

So what is the best way to reach these college students? Should a college ministry try to reverse the trend and get undergraduates to start attending a service? Or should a college ministry focus on bringing spirituality to the college campus?

For Discussion:
- What do you think?
- What recent college ministry success stories have you heard?

For the past two Super Bowls, churches cannot host Super Bowl parties that show the game on a screen larger than 55 inches. Unfortunately, some churches found out the hard way.

But times have changed. As of Tuesday this week, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell stated the NFL would not object to “live showings - regardless of screen size - of the Super Bowl.”

So start planning 2009’s Super Bowl church party where you will watch the Cincinnati Bengals make their long-awaited comeback (wishful thinking).

[via The Christian Post]

For almost two years, Church Relevance has maintained a list of the top 75 church websites. Recently, eight new church websites have been added to the list. Technically, Gateway Church (Southlake, TX) was already on the list, but they recently redesigned their website. Here are the eight new church web design inspirations:

#1 - Bethel Temple (Hampton, VA)

#2 - Church of the Resurrection (Leawood, KS)

#3 - Christ Community Church (Omaha, NE)

#4 - Elim International Church (Wellington, New Zealand)

#5 - Gateway Church (Southlake, TX)

#6 - Gateway Fellowship Church (Helotes, TX)

#7 - Northgate Free Methodist Church (Batavia, NY)

#8 - Times Square Church (New York, NY)

For Discussion:
What about you? What are your favorite church web designs? What church websites inspire you?

QUESTION:
What percentage of teens and percentage of adults use meth?
- Jessa :: California

ANSWER:
Last fall, I highlighted research that stated 1 in 33 teens (3%) ages 12-17 have tried meth.

According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, 2 in 33 people (5.77%) ages 12+ in the United States have tried meth at least once. Although almost 6% of this group have tried month, only 1 in 333 (0.3%) are current users.

If you have a question you want Church Relevance to answer, submit it via our Q+A form.

Rick Warren of Saddleback Church (Lake Forest, CA) wrote a two part article on Saddleback Church’s 12 convictions about worship (part 1 & part 2). Here is the list:

1. Only believers can truly worship God.
2. You don’t need a building to worship God.
3. There is no correct style of worship.
   The truth is God loves all kinds of worship styles – as long as we worship him in spirit, in truth, and in an orderly fashion.
   
4. While unbelievers can’t worship, they can watch believers worship.
   Non-Christians can’t worship, but they can see the kind of joy worship brings us.
   
5. Worship is a powerful witness to unbelievers if God’s presence is felt and the message is understandable.
   
6. God expects us to be sensitive to the fears, hang-ups, and the needs of unbelievers when they are present in our worship services.
   Whenever you hear people talk about being sensitive to unbelievers, that is not watering down the gospel. It’s called love. You’re just being nice to them.
   
7. Worship services do not have to be shallow to be evangelistic, and the message does not have to be compromised. It just has to be understandable.
   Remove the unnecessary barriers, so people can hear the often-uncomfortable gospel.
   
8. The needs of believers and unbelievers often overlap.
   For instance, both believers and unbelievers need to know what God is really like.
9. It’s best to specialize your services according to purpose.
   It’s best to design one service to edify believers and another to evangelize non-believers. Most churches try to do both at the same time. But if we send mixed signals, we’re going to get mixed results. You can’t aim at two targets at the same time.
   
10. A service geared toward non-believers is meant to supplement personal evangelism, not replace it.
11. There is no standard way to design an evangelistic worship service.
12. It takes unselfish mature believers to offer an evangelistic worship service. This is the most important of all.
    Paul says it like this: “We would put up with anything in order not to hinder the Good News of Christ in any way” (1 Cor. 9:12b GW).
    

For more thoughts on each of the twelve be sure to read the original article (part 1 & part 2).

A recent study lead by Nicholas Epley of the University of Chicago discovered that people who feel lonely are more likely to believe in the supernatural. Epley states:

We found that inducing people to feel lonely made them more religious essentially.

There are health benefits that come from being connected to other people, and those same benefits seem to come from connection… with religious agents, too.

[via The Christian Post]