While reporting relatively low levels of attendance at Mass, almost half of U.S. adults (47%) say they have a personal or family relationship to Catholicism, a new Pew Research Center survey finds.
Researchers for the multiyear Hartford Institute for Religion Research study found that 46% of some 24,000 churchgoers responding to their survey reported active engagement with more than one church.
The National Survey of Religious Leaders report revealed 35% of all clergy in the U.S. serve bivocationally, holding an additional job outside of their congregational ministry.
If your association catches a vision for imagining itself in the lead missional role in the denomination by the year 2033, you will be proactively different.
Despite the unique pressures pastors routinely face, only 1.2% of evangelical and Black Protestant pastors leave the ministry each year, according to a 2025 Lifeway Research study.
Now is the time to give your associational context something to talk about — but not like the song popularized by singer Bonnie Raitt that talks about romantic love.
John McClendon has spent his adult life helping leaders make disciples. He is executive director of the Disciple Leader’s Network, based in Tennessee, though he plans to retire at the end of the year.