From this month’s issue of Relevant Magazine: Eighty percent of young, unmarried Christians have had sex. Two-thirds have been sexually active in the last year. Even though, according to a recent Gallup poll, 76 percent of evangelicals believe sex outside of marriage is wrong. I’m not sure where the first statistic comes from. Does that sound right to you? And if so… how does that affect what the church will look like in the next years? Why is the percentage so high?  Is it higher than it was 10 years ago (really)? What must we do to stop the trend? CAN we stop the trend? via Why...

According to the Christian Post, Although a majority of Protestant pastors consider themselves privileged to be in ministry, many also feel then can be prone to discouragement and loneliness, according to a study released by LifeWayResearch earlier this week. More than half (55 percent) of the 1,000 U.S. Protestant pastors surveyed by the faith-based research group said they agreed with the statement, “I find it easy to get discouraged.” The same percentage of pastors also said that being in pastoral ministry makes them feel lonely at times. However, a full 98 percent agree with the...

Margaret Feinberg recently pointed out that Nielsen just came out with a new social media report showing almost 1/4th of Americans’ time on the internet is spent on blogs and social media. Winning by a landslide, Facebook is the leading social website in the US.* More minutes were spent on Facebook, both at work and at home, than 75 times the second leading social network, Blogger: Facebook- 53,457,258 minutes Blogger- 723,793 Tumblr- 623,525 Twitter- 565,156 LinkedIn- 325,679 In terms of Web brands, Facebook had 3 times the minutes spent on it than leading #2 brand, Yahoo. Facebook- 53.5 billion...

Carol Howard Merritt suggests that churches aren’t the most culturally savvy places: I know that some congregations are still fighting about whether they should be singing “contemporary” songs, which were written in the 1980s. Or they’re wrestling over the use of PowerPoint, which can be tiresome for people who have endured two decades of PP board meetings… But there are cultural shifts that congregations and church leaders need to track and respond to sensibly. Here are five of them. 1) Finances. Younger generations are not faring well in this economy. They didn’t do so well when the...

According to Experian Simmons, 98% is one eye-opening statistic for any reader, but that’s how many adults aged eighteen to twenty-four in the United States are reportedly using social media in a typical month. The study, conducted by consumer insight service Experian Simmons, estimates that roughly 129 million people — that’s 41.37% of the total US population of 311.8 million — are using social media to stay in touch with both friends and family. More statistics: 46% of all online adults use social media to communicate with friends, up from 32% in 2009. 27% say they use social media to stay...