Church Growth

More millennials attend church weekly now than before the start of the pandemic. According to a Barna Group survey of 13,000 adults, roughly 16 percent of regular churchgoers have not returned to services at all in 2022, but weekly attendance among those born between 1981 and 1996 has risen from 21 percent to 39 percent this year.

The trend can be partly explained by life stage. Across age cohorts, church attendance is highest when people have young children, drops off for “empty nesters,” and then increases again when friends start to pass away. The oldest millennials are 40 and 41

In an article in Vice, Brian Merchant argues that the first structure that humans will probably build on the Moon after they have completed building a base there will be a church. Indeed, Christian missionaries and clergymen have built churches in the harshest of climates, whether they be the tropical jungles of Africa or the sun-drenched deserts of Australia.

When the Ross Sea Party of Shackleton's Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1917 landed in Antarctica, among the men was an Anglican priest named Arnold Spencer-Smith. Spencer-Smith set up a small chapel in a dark room in Scott's Hut at Cape Evans. He built an altar with a cross and candlesticks and an aumbry where he reserved the Blessed Sacrament.

Today, there are eight churches in Antarctica. One is an Eastern Orthodox church built of wood in the Russian style. Another is The Chapel of Our Lady of the Snows which is a Catholic church located in a cave in the ice. It is the most southern place of worship of any religion in the world.

Churches have been erected in Antarctica since the 1950s. Extended stays in the region can be an extremely stressful experience for the researchers who often stay separated from their families for months at a time, which is one of the reasons why churches exist in this remote continent.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Living anywhere in the world (or space) is a stressful experience for believers. We need the church to give support, care, connectivity to others, and to center ourselves in worship of Almighty God, creator of heaven and earth.

LifeWay Research surveyed 2,000 Americans who do not attend church on what would draw them to one. Among the findings:

Method Of Invite

51% a personal invitation from a friend or family member

23% a TV commercial

23% a postcard

21% a church member knocking on the door

18% a Facebook ad

Shark Bay, Australia, should perhaps consider a name change to Seagrass Bay, since the largest resident isn’t a great white predator, but a single seagrass meadow. After discovering that the whole bay’s worth of seagrass spread from one seed and was all part of the same plant, it instantly became the world’s largest plant—as large as 20,000 football fields. At 77 square miles, it’s three-times the size of Manhattan, and could be 4,500 years old to boot.

Jane Edgeloe and colleagues took samples from several stalks from across Shark Bay. They wanted to find out how many individual plants made up the rich meadow, which spreads 110 miles throughout the giant inlet. Edelgoe said, “The answer blew us away—there was just one! That’s it, just one plant has expanded over 112 miles in Shark Bay, making it the largest known plant on Earth.”

Another of the researchers said, “It appears to be really resilient, experiencing a wide range of temperatures and salinities plus extreme high light conditions, which together would typically be highly stressful for most plants.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Compare this to the Kingdom of God (Matt. 13:31-32) and the church (Acts 2:41). Both had very small beginnings but have grown into huge living resilient organisms (1 Cor. 12:12-27).