Barna Studies the Research, Offers a Year-in-Review Perspective

Based on his company’s interviews with thousands of people during the year, researcher George Barna synthesized the findings across numerous studies and summarized four themes that emerged from his research regarding religion in 2009.
Here is the link.

Theme 1: Increasingly, Americans are more interested in faith and spirituality than in Christianity.

Theme 2: Faith in the American context is now individual and customized. Americans are comfortable with an altered spiritual experience as long as they can participate in the shaping of that faith experience.

Theme 3: Biblical literacy is neither a current reality nor a goal in the U.S.

Theme 4: Effective and periodic measurement of spirituality – conducted personally or through a church – is not common at this time and it is not likely to become common in the near future.

We are praying and plan to do several gospel centered projects next semester. In particular we are looking into these:

1. We need to proclaim the good news of the Christ. In addition, we will do apologetic with book clubs. We have to know why Christianity is the answer vs. vague spirituality. Most people are not giving us a chance to talk about Christianity and its good news. We are also hosting a Veritas Forum working together with Evangelical Christian Union at U of I. This is a goo forum where we can invite our non believing friends and ask them to investigate and explore Christian Faith. Jerry Park and Grace Sun will lead this effort.

2. We are praying to build small communities where we share struggle and faith. We believe that healing comes from being in Christ centered community.

3. The Word Club (the Bible reading club) will deal with the Bible illiteracy issue among us. We plan to read the Bible once a year so that we can get a big picture of the story line of the Bible. We are Deeper Roots in Christ. Our roots are going after the streams of the living water, the Bible.

4. It is vital to do annual review of each person and as a community so that we can accept the good news newly and repent our sins. This break is a good time to reflect and meditate and review and plan for the next year.

We can plan but we need God's help on this. We need your prayers and support.