Podcast appearances and mentions of jim davis

Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab has been a top audiophile label since its 1977 founding and 2001 reboot after Jim Davis, president of the high-end audio equipment company Music Direct, bought it out of bankruptcy. But the label was hit with controversy almost three years ago with the revelation that it included a digital step in the production chain of albums sourced from original master tapes. Davis issued an apology for “using vague language, allowing false narratives to propagate and for taking for granted” customers' goodwill and trust, and the company settled a class action lawsuit for $25 million. Speaking inside Music Direct's Chicago headquarters, Davis weighs the lawsuit's impact on the company and whether it was more about listening or price speculating. He explains the use of a high-resolution digital step and why it results in superior audio quality. He also discusses the significance of MoFi's new SuperVinyl formulation and Fidelity Record Pressing plant.

Over two hours! Gosh we treat you right. In this episode, we discuss a karate grading, doing your best in difficult circumstances, the most disreputable creature Catherine has ever met, and then have a conversation about cooking pizza that lasts an hour and a half, and explores neurodivergence and the effects of the same in new and unexpected ways. A Smooth Ronald is mentioned, and Garfield is reluctantly discused. Content note - brief moment of physical abuse in childhood at around 1h27. Garfield by Jim Davis for October 08, 1978 https://web.archive.org/web/20210426095128/https://www.gocomics.com/garfield/1978/10/08

Why are so many people leaving the church—and what can we do about it? In this episode of The Group Answers Podcast, hosts Brian Daniel and Haley Malone sit down with Jim Davis, teaching pastor and co-author of The Great De-Churching, to explore one of the most significant movements happening in the church today. Together, they unpack the growing phenomenon of de-churching, where individuals who once regularly attended church have walked away from community life and corporate worship.Jim shares eye-opening insights from his extensive research, including surprising statistics about who is leaving, why they're leaving, and what this trend means for the future of the church. The conversation highlights the critical role of authentic community, the power of education in shaping discipleship, and the need for churches to adapt their approaches to reconnect with those who have drifted away. Whether you're a small group leader, pastor, or disciple-maker, this discussion will equip you with a better understanding of the de-churched and how to engage them with compassion and purpose.If you found this episode helpful, take a moment to rate and review the podcast. Your support helps more leaders discover these important conversations. And don't forget to share this episode with a fellow leader who's passionate about discipleship and reaching the next generation!SHOW LINKS: Together Bible Study The Great De-ChurchingCLICK HERE to read the report from Lifeway Research about the state of groups.

Les Américains quittent l'Église en grand nombre. Ils sont 40 millions à s'être désaffiliés de leur pratique religieuse depuis 25 ans! Mais ils le font pour une variété de raisons. Cet ouvrage est un effort concerté de pasteurs et analystes politiques pour comprendre les différentes facettes de ce bouleversement. Dans ce balado, vous apprendrez, par exemple, que plus un croyant est éduqué, plus il aura tendance à demeurer pratiquant, contrairement à ce qu'on pourrait croire.Nos épisodes de lecture marquante servent à mettre en valeur un livre pertinent, qui n'est souvent pas disponible en français, ou qui mérite d'être revisité.Titre original : The Great Dechurching: Who's Leaving, Why Are They Going, and What Will It Take to Bring Them Back?Soyez au courant de ce qui se passe au Pub Socratique, en vous abonnant à notre infolettre! C'est le moyen qu'on privilégie pour communiquer. Par ici : https://convergencequebec.com/pub-socratique/ (bouton S'abonner)

This week host John Kruse brings you audio recorded at the Washington Sportsmen's Show in Puyallup and the Pacific Northwest Sportsmen's Show in Portland, Oregon. * Jim Davis is a member of the U.S. Saltwater Kayak Fishing Team, competing around the world * Mike Whitlow with Anglers Inn International shares a fishing report from the Amazon River where the Peacock bass bite was hot! * Tim Clark with Red Dog Outfitters wants to take you hunting for deer and turkey in Kansas and Nebraska * Courtney Prete with Her Outdoor Journey puts on outdoor events for women   www.americaoutdoorsradio.com  

Two Catholic priests were attacked this weekend in Mozambique. Matthew Bunson has the latest on this and other Church news and we ask what this nation's history can tell us about its future with Dr Jim Davis.

Two Catholic priests were attacked this weekend in Mozambique. Matthew Bunson has the latest on this and other Church news and we ask what this nation's history can tell us about its future with Dr Jim Davis.

Josh and Mark are returning to the only clandestine government agency currently untouched by the regular government, the SCP Foundation. 

Send us a textChristian belief and thought are shifting away from the center of culture. We see this as more and more people are leaving the church–in fact, according to the book “The Great De-Churching” by Jim Davis and Michael Graham, 40 million people who used to faithfully attend a local church no longer do. Many have left because they believe Christianity has lost intellectual credibility. To them, it's a faith that lacks sound answers to their deepest questions. The most fundamental one is, does God exist? There are three sound arguments for God's existence we get into today. Support the show

In this episode we discuss our Top 5 slide guitar songs with Jim Davis and Jeff Walker

Enjoy an absolute return of a conversation with $uprDee, a professional cartoonist who's wealth of love can be seen throughout his comics, as we talk about how much Rosebuds have grown in the past 4 years, all the incredible client work he's been able to do, being mentored by Jim Davis, and so much more! Dee's Links: Website: https://suprdee2.com/ Read Rosebuds Online: https://comicskingdom.com/rosebuds Twitter: https://x.com/suprdee2 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/suprdee2 Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/suprdee2.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/suprdee2 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/suprdee2 First episode with SuprDee: https://youtu.be/jjFzE6Gz7t0?si=jDUGL0JUTtj6Ev4F Thumbnail by: $uprDee Fan Art Done By: Undead Artisan - https://bsky.app/profile/undeadartisan.bsky.social Check out the MERCH SHOP, now with the NEW OFFICIAL LOGO MERCH: https://post-modern-art-podcast-shop.fourthwall.com/ Join the PostModArtPod Discord server: https://discord.gg/bdg4UFbmm9 Join the PMAP Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/pmap Intro Animated by: https://twitter.com/_fasado Intro Song - "Seductive Treasure" - Color of Illusion Outro Song - "Parts In Motion" - Vera Much Stream her EP "Thank U!": https://open.spotify.com/album/3AO61mm8a81osp9FsPpFgv?si=sZ2Pq_aSTbWLzHLwff2Rig Linktree (To find other platforms, socials, etc.): https://linktr.ee/PostModernArtPodcast For business inquiries, contact postmodernartpodcast@gmail.com Showrunners of the podcast are Nathan Ragland and Maria Moreno Maria's Links: Twitter: https://twitter.com/TipsyJHearts Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tipsyjhearts/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/tipsyjhearts Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/tipsyjhearts Portfolio: https://tipsyjhearts.wixsite.com/portfolio Produced with A1denArtz Aiden's Links: Carrd: https://a1denartz.carrd.co/ Tumblr: https://a1denartz.tumblr.com/ Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/a1denartz.bsky.social Inkblot: https://inkblot.art/profile/a1denartz Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/a1denartz/ Go out there and create something special!

In-between Garfield's own segments was US Acres, a short subject series based on Jim Davis' other, less widespread comic series. The tales of Orson, Roy, Wade, Bo, Lanolin, Booker and Sheldon got pretty popular as part of the show, outlasting the comic they were based on by a good few years, and giving the show's team vehicles for more gags that wouldn't work with Garfield himself. So come down to the farm, y'all!

We're currently living through the largest and fastest religious shift in U.S. history, with 40 million people having left houses of worship, mainly in the last 25 years.In this breakout session from TGCW24, Jim Davis and Michael Graham, authors of The Great Dechurching, unpack four types of people who've left evangelical churches, why they left, and why more than half of them are willing to return.They discuss the following:Why we need data on dechurchingKey findings from The Great Dechurching's studyThe timeline and causes of dechurchingFour profiles of dechurched individualsMyths and misconceptions about dechurchingPractical steps for engaging the dechurched

Arguably the magnum opus of both Jim Davis and Mark Evanier, Garfield and Friends entertained audiences and pushed cartoon writing into some genuinely funny places it hadn't really gone since the heyday of Jay Ward. It's held up remarkably well, and our hosts look at four of their favorite short segments that star the fat cat himself. Tune in for US Acres coverage in two weeks, too!

In this second episode of a two-part series, International Car Wash Association CEO Eric Wulf speaks with Jim Davis, a professor of corporate strategy at Notre Dame and now Utah State University. Together, they offer an exclusive preview of Davis's upcoming study, set to be unveiled at ROADMAP, DESTINATION: PROJECTIONS on December 13. The conversation begins with ICA's interest in The Consolidation Curve, which led to Davis's research on consolidation within the car wash industry, and expanded to explore industry saturation. In this episode, listeners get a sneak peek at Davis's key findings, including the difference between consolidation and saturation, their critical importance for business owners, and their impact on both operators and consumers. Davis delves into how these trends intersect to shape the industry, offering insights valuable for strategic planning and operational decision-making. Beyond the data and formal presentations, Davis highlights the invaluable networking and informal "hallway conversations" that bring this research to life and make it actionable. For Davis, these “confluence of factors” can ignite transformative ideas and strategies for the future. There's no better place to plan for your business's future than at ROADMAP. Secure your seat today! carwashroadmap.com/register 

Click here to view BetterMan: https://betterman.com/  Stay Informed - Get our newsletter: http://eepurl.com/hPViAr   Get The Disciple Makers Podcast Premium Feed: https://disciplemakerspodcast.supercast.com/    This insightful discussion tackles the significant religious shift in North America, highlighting the alarming decline in male church attendance and engagement. With references to Jim Davis's 'The Great Dechurching,' the speaker emphasizes the critical role of men in the church and society. Addressing how societal views have vilified men, the script suggests a shift from shame-based to affirmational methods to encourage men's return to church. It underscores the importance of wisdom, strong familial structures, and the pivotal role fathers play in mending homes, churches, and communities. The discussion also explores practical steps for church leaders and fathers to nurture a spiritually strong and knowledgeable generation. Check out Discipleship.org for resources on disciple-making: https://discipleship.org/resources/  Check out Discipleship.org Audio Books: https://discipleship.org/resources/ebooks/  Key Takeaways 00:00 The Role of Men in the Church 07:25 The Importance of Fathers 18:51 Wisdom and Fatherhood 29:12 Chick-fil-A Obsession 35:44 Challenges of Modern Manhood 37:23 The Role of Fathers in Discipleship 44:58 Effective Communication 49:58 The Power of Asking Questions 53:45 Closing Thoughts and Prayer 54:24 Q&A Session Resources on Manhood  Discipleship in the Modern Church: Empowering Men | Chris Harper How to Disciple Men Q&A | Anthony Walker, Chris Harper & Bobby Harrington How to Disciple Men | Chris Harper Breakout Forum 4: How Discipling Men Changes Everything  (2016 Nat'l Forum) In this episode we dive into the pressing issue of men withdrawing from both the church and society, exploring the deep-rooted cultural and family problems behind this trend. The discussion highlights a troubling fact from Jim Davis's book, "The Great Dechurching": nearly 45 million people in North America have stopped attending church over the past two decades. The episode reveals a significant gender gap in church attendance, with congregations typically being 61% female and 39% male. This disparity reflects a broader societal issue where men are undervalued and underrepresented. The lack of male engagement with faith is seen as a barrier to their spiritual growth and leadership in their families and communities. Oxford researcher Jim McNamara points out that mass media often portrays men negatively, which erodes their self-worth and further decreases their involvement in religious settings. Rather than shaming men into returning to church, the episode advocates for affirming and encouraging them. It stresses the need to educate and mentor men, helping them understand their roles and responsibilities rather than reprimanding them. Kent Evans, founder of Manhood Journey, is introduced as a key advocate for revitalizing the family as the cornerstone of society. His focus is on equipping fathers to raise godly men, which strengthens families and churches. Evans shares personal stories and insights on fatherhood, highlighting the importance of wisdom, communication, and aligning actions with God's teachings. He also addresses common challenges fathers face, such as time management and communication, and offers practical advice on improving these areas. The episode concludes with an interactive segment where Evans discusses wisdom through the book of Proverbs, urging fathers to lead by example and be open to feedback.   In summary, "BetterMan 4" calls for a reevaluation of how the church engages with men, promoting a supportive and empowering approach that encourages men to embrace their roles as leaders in their families and communities. Follow us at Discipleship.org!

Know Your Enemy with Corn Nation's Andy Ketterson on The Jim Davis.

In this episode of Enrich Your Future, Andrew and Larry Swedroe discuss Larry's new book, Enrich Your Future: The Keys to Successful Investing. In this series, they discuss Chapter 08: Be Careful What You Ask For.LEARNING: High growth rates don't always mean high stock returns. “Emerging markets are very much like the rest of the world's capital markets—they do an excellent job of reflecting economic growth prospects into stock prices.”Larry Swedroe In this episode of Enrich Your Future, Andrew and Larry Swedroe discuss Larry's new book, Enrich Your Future: The Keys to Successful Investing. The book is a collection of stories that Larry has developed over 30 years as the head of financial and economic research at Buckingham Wealth Partners to help investors. You can learn more about Larry's Worst Investment Ever story on Ep645: Beware of Idiosyncratic Risks.Larry deeply understands the world of academic research and investing, especially risk. Today, Andrew and Larry discuss Chapter 08: Be Careful What You Ask For.Chapter 08: Be Careful What You Ask ForIn this chapter, Larry cautions people to be careful what they wish for in investing. He emphasizes the daunting challenge of active management, a path many choose in the belief that they can accurately forecast market trends.However, as Larry points out, the reality is far from this ideal. The unpredictability of the market makes it almost impossible to predict with 100% accuracy, a fact that investors should be acutely aware of.High growth rates don't always mean high stock returnsIt's important to note that high growth rates don't always translate into high stock returns, underscoring the unpredictability of market outcomes. According to Larry, for today's investors, the equivalent of the “Midas touch” (the king who turned everything he touched into gold) might be the ability to forecast economic growth rates.If investors could forecast with 100% certainty which countries would have the highest growth rates, they could invest in them and avoid those with low growth rates. This would lead to abnormal profits—or, perhaps not.Nobody can predict with that accuracy. Even if one could make such a prediction, they may still not make the profits they think they will. This is because, as Larry explains, experts have found that there has been a slightly negative correlation between country growth rates and stock returns.A 2006 study on emerging markets by Jim Davis of Dimensional Fund Advisors found that the high-growth countries from 1990 to 2005 returned 16.4%, and the low-growth countries returned the same 16.4%.Such evidence has led Larry to conclude that it doesn't matter if you can even forecast which countries will have high growth rates; the market will make the same forecast and adjust stock prices accordingly.Therefore, to beat the market, you must be able to forecast better than the market already expects, and to do so, you need to gather information at a cost. In other words, you can't just be smarter than the market; you have to be smarter than the market enough to overcome all your expenses of gathering information and trading costs.Larry emphasizes that emerging markets are very much like the rest of the world's capital markets—they do an excellent job of reflecting economic growth...

In week one of our series in Daniel we are introduced to a handful of Jewish teenagers who are forced into exile in Babylon. As we study their lives and the scriptures that formed them, we seek to answer timely questions for God's people in our current cultural moment:How are we to navigate our faith in a culture that is increasingly hostile towards it? What does faithfulness look like amidst mounting pressure to compromise and conform? How do we walk in the way of Jesus in what can feel like a new and foreign land? Special thanks to Jim Davis, Michael Graham, Ryan P. Burge, John Mark Comer, and Tremper Longman III for their contributions to this message. 

In this episode of Casual Chats, Patricia and special guests Chris "RowdyC" Moore of TV Trash and Jim Bevan discuss about the 2024 animated film The Garfield Movie based on the 1978 comic strip series by Jim Davis. Garfield is a fat, lazy cat who loves food (especially lasagna), hates Mondays, and terrorizes his owner Jon and his dog Odie to no end. But one day, Garfield and Odie have been kidnapped to lure Garfield's long lost father Vic for a heist mission over at a dairy farm. When the film premiered in theaters, it made $250 million dollars out of a $60 million dollar budget receiving mixed to negative reviews from critics and viewers. What did they think of the film? Listen and find out. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/old-school-lane/support

Directed by Mark Dindal, The Garfield Movie is the animated adventure comedy film based on the comic strip Garfield created by Jim Davis. Garfield (voiced by Chris Pratt), the world-famous, Monday-hating, lasagne-loving indoor cat, is about to have a wild outdoor adventure! After an unexpected reunion with his long-lost father – scruffy street cat Vic (voiced by Samuel L. Jackson) – Garfield and his canine friend Odie are forced from their perfectly pampered life into joining Vic in a high-stakes heist.

Garfield creator Jim Davis decided to turn his PAWS, Inc. artists loose on multiple interpretations of our favorite orange feline. Behold, a truly absurd collection of tails -- I mean, tales.EXPLICIT CONTENT WARNING: THIS EPISODE CONTAINS DISCUSSION OF AT LEAST ONE ODDLY EXPLICIT TURN OF PHRASE THAT REALLY CONFUSED US.To join us for future bonus recordings, head to patreon.com/overduepod.Follow @overduepod on Instagram and BlueskyOur theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis.Advertise on OverdueSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What's up, dudes? The orange cat is back! Yes, Art Kilmer from A Cozy Christmas is back with me to talk all about Garfield in the sweltering heat. It's another Christmas in July, as Garfield, Odie, and Jon put up some decorations and get in the holiday spirit to cool down. Yes! It's the Garfield and Friends episode “Heatwave Holiday!”Garfield and gang suffer from the hottest July ever. He fills up a kiddie pool, gets his swimsuit on, jumps in, and hits the ground because the water evaporated. Deciding to “think cool,” he uses the fridge and sets the automatic ice maker to the blizzard setting, blanketing the yard with snow. Jon agrees to Garfield's plan, grabs the Christmas decorations, and trims the tree. He even hangs lights on the house!His neighbors across the street and try to outdo Jon with decorations. Soon the entire neighborhood follows suit, and shortly after  the whole town is decked out for Christmas! Eventually Jon and the pets exchange presents, but before they go caroling, an urgent tv bulletin states merely that “it is not Christmas.” A little heartbroken, Jon turns off the tv, and decides to turn in. As Garfield sleeps, he's awoken by the sound of sleighbells. He investigates, runs into Santa leaving presents under the tree, and tells him that it's not Christmas, then heads back to bed realizing that of all people, Santa should know better. Santa flies off laughingGiant dog bone? Check. Dope Christmas light display? Yep. Super duper fridge ice maker? With enough snow to make a snowman! So grab your decorations, trim your tree, and cool down to this episode on Garfield and Friends “Heatwave Holiday!”Give us a buzz! Send a text, dudes!Check us out on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Totally Rad Christmas Mall & Arcade, Teepublic.com, or TotallyRadChristmas.com! Later, dudes!

Marvel/Scholastic illustrator Asia Simone (Instagram, Twitter)shares her experience of illustrating a "Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur" book, navigating the world of YA graphic novel publishing, and... surviving Brad's studio! Next, a listener asks... "Should I jump to Cara?"TODAY'S SHOWSpecial guest Asia SimoneShould I jump to Cara?San Diego Comic-Com 2024Breaking the 4th WallEDITOR'S NOTEDuring the show, Brad and Dave insisted that Jim Davis rarely breaks the Fourth Wall in "Garfield." They were demonstrably wrong.SUMMARYIn this conversation, Brad Guigar, Dave Kellett, and Asia Simone discuss various topics related to live streaming, collaboration, and Asia's career as an artist. They also touch on Asia's experience working on a Marvel Scholastic book. The conversation is filled with humorous moments and insights into the creative process. Asia Simone discusses her journey into the comic book industry, including how she got scouted for a job at Marvel and Scholastic. She emphasizes the importance of doing the work you want to do and constantly striving for improvement. Asia also talks about the challenges of meeting deadlines and the importance of craftsmanship. She shares her hopes and fears for the future, including the fear of losing momentum and the hope of networking and exploring new opportunities. Asia advises aspiring artists to start small and not put too much pressure on themselves to create big, epic projects.Next, Dave and Brad express their frustration with Instagram and their skepticism about the long-term success of Cara. They also caution against jumping on every new platform. In an update, they emphasize the importance of considering the cost and profitability of exhibiting at Comic-Con. In this part of the conversation, Dave and Brad discuss the potential drop in attendance at San Diego Comic-Con and the impact it may have on their sales. They also address a question from a Patreon backer about breaking the fourth wall in comics. Dave shares his perspective on breaking the fourth wall, mentioning that he is more willing to do it in his comic strip Sheldon compared to his other comic, Drive. Brad talks about his experience with breaking the fourth wall in his previous comic, Greystone Inn, and why he chooses not to do it in his current comics. They discuss the balance and considerations of using meta humor in comics.TAKEAWAYSIce cream trucks are a rare sight in Los Angeles, leading to envy from Dave towards Brad in Philadelphia.Asia Simone's art style is modern, western, animation-inspired, and often incorporates wacky facial expressions and poses.Asia Simone learned about paneling, bubbling, and story structure while interning with Brad Guigar.When giving a price for artwork, if the client is enthusiastic and quickly accepts, it may be an indication that the price is too low.Asia Simone landed a job with Marvel Scholastic through online postings and was given a test to illustrate a page from a Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur issue.Working on a Marvel Scholastic book required Asia Simone to adhere to a specific style and be on model throughout the project. Do the work you want to do and constantly strive for improvement.Meeting deadlines is important for building relationships in the industry.Start small, and don't put too much pressure on yourself to create big, epic projects.Collaboration and networking are key to success in the industry.Don't settle for 'good enough' - aim for excellence in your work.Stay motivated by constantly exploring new opportunities and projects.Be open to working with others and be willing to learn from them.Don't fear the future of the industry, but instead embrace the challenges and adapt to changes.Maintaining momentum is crucial for continued success.Focus on craftsmanship and delivering high-quality work.Take advantage of social media to promote your work and connect with others in the industry.The success of new social media platforms like Kara is uncertain, and it's important to consider the platform's longevity and reliability before investing time and effort into it.Instagram's performance in terms of promoting Kickstarters and Patreon campaigns has been disappointing for Dave, leading him to delete his posts and consider leaving the platform.Exhibiting at San Diego Comic-Con can be a costly investment, and it's important to have realistic expectations about profitability.It's advisable to start with regional comic conventions before considering exhibiting at larger events like Comic-Con.The absence of a Hollywood presence at Comic-Con in 2020 resulted in a more focused and profitable experience for Dave.It's important to be cautious about the potential degradation of platforms as they grow and attract venture capital.Consider the trade-offs between reliable platforms owned by large companies and newer platforms that may be more community-focused but less stable.Protecting artwork from AI scraping on social media platforms like Kara can be time-consuming and may degrade the quality of the images. The potential drop in attendance at conventions like San Diego Comic-Con can impact sales for independent creators, and it's important to be prepared for the possibility of lower sales.Breaking the fourth wall in comics can be a humorous technique, but it should be used sparingly and in a way that fits the tone and style of the comic.The decision to break the fourth wall depends on the depth and realism of the characters and storylines in the comic. More iconic and simplistic comics may be more suitable for fourth wall breaks.Breaking the fourth wall involves maintaining the suspension of disbelief, not relying on it as a crutch for punchlines, and preserving the integrity of the storytelling.Comic strips, especially those with a joke-a-day format, may be more forgiving of fourth-wall breaks than comics with deeper storylines.ASIA SIMONEAsia Simone can be found on Instagram, Twitter, and her website. You get great rewards when you join the ComicLab Community on Patreon$2 — Early access to episodes$5 — Submit a question for possible use on the show AND get the exclusive ProTips podcast. Plus $2-tier rewards.Brad Guigar is the creator of Evil Inc and the author of The Webcomics Handbook. Dave Kellett is the creator of Sheldon and Drive.

People have been doing the square dance since before the Declaration of Independence. But does that mean it should be THE American folk dance? That question took us on a journey from Appalachian front porches, to dance classes across our nation, to the halls of Congress, and finally a Kansas City convention center. And along the way, we uncovered a secret history of square dancing that made us see how much of our national identity we could stuff into that square, and what it means for a dance to be of the people, by the people, and for the people.Special thanks to Jim Mayo, Claude Fowler, Paul Gifford, Jim Maczko, Jim Davis, Paul Moore, Jack Pladdys, Mary Jane Wegener, Kinsey Brooke and Connie Keener.We have some exciting news! In this “Zoozve” episode, Radiolab named its first-ever quasi-moon, and now it's your turn! Radiolab has teamed up with The International Astronomical Union to launch a global naming contest for one of Earth's quasi-moons. This is your chance to make your mark on the heavens. Submit your name ideas now through September, or vote on your favorites starting in November: https://radiolab.org/moon Our newsletter comes out every Wednesday. It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org.Leadership support for Radiolab's science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Vivek and Pastor Jim Davis investigate the crisis causing Americans to abandon their churches -- dechurching. Our hearts have God-shaped holes. In today's episode, we learn what else Americans are using to try to fill those holes right now and discuss how to restore meaning and purpose to our nation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Briahna Joy Gray booted from her job for crimes against zionistic propaganda.Joe Brandon one million percent shat himself on stage while memorializing D-Day.LGBT-GOP? Delusional or really delusional?Dark Brandon pleases Blue MAGA by doing exactly what Red MAGA wants.Nikki Haley signs munitions ("Finish them!") that will be or already certainly have been dropped on the heads of non-combatants/non-humans in Gaza.The Biden-Harris campaign motto seems a tad ominous and nearly the same as Nikki Haley's aforementioned autograph/wish written on a bomb.Joe Rogan delves into the Black psyche and makes insightful political predictions.Trump gets booed at Libertarian National Convention.Nick Fuentes and his Groyper Army will take their voting block elsewhere, thankyouverymuch, Mr. Trump, sir.Alex Jones loses everything, sorta.Lunatic libetarian anarcho-capitalist president of Argentina, Javier Milei, is a spectacular failure.Jesus Christ is now Mexico's new First Gentleman.Hasbara AI art is going so hard right now and Israel's gonna #takebackthewatermelon. Jim Davis clears up 34 year long confusion about Jon Arbuckle drinking dog semen in a cartoon strip...or does it raise more questions than answers?Commiserate on Discord: discord.gg/aDf4Yv9PrYSupport: patreon / buzzsproutNever Forget: standwithdanielhale.orgGeneral RecommendationsJosh's Recommendation: Godzilla Minus OneTim's Recommendation: Wet Hot American Dragon SummerFurther Reading, Viewing, ListeningFull list of links, sources, etc More From Timothy Robert BuechnerPodcast: Q&T ARETweets: @ROHDUTCHLocationless Locationsheatdeathpod.comEvery show-related link is corralled and available here.Twitter: @heatdeathpodPlease send all Letters of Derision, Indifference, Inquiry, Mild Elation, et cetera to: heatdeathoftheuniversepodcast@gmail.comSupport the Show.

On this week's show, the hosts begin by asking the question: What even is Garfield? Jim Davis' overfed, Monday-hating (even though he's jobless) cultural figure first appeared in comic strips in the late 1970s, and since then, has been surprisingly resilient, most recently conquering the summer box-office with The Garfield Movie. But who is Garfield, and more perhaps more importantly, why is he a thing? To answer these questions, each host watched (or endured) a different Garfield entity, including Garfield: The Movie (2004), Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties (2006), and the latest film starring Chris Pratt as the titular cat. Then, the three discuss suspense and its nature in relation to fiction, inspired by Kathryn Schulz's essay for The New Yorker, “The Secrets of Suspense.” It's a curious, fantastic essay that questions the human impulse to know what happens next. Finally, it's a visit from the Gabfest's oldest and closest Friend of the Pod, June Thomas, who speaks with the panel about her essential new book, A Place of Our Own: Six Spaces That Shaped Queer Women's Culture.  In the exclusive slate Plus segment, the hosts answer a listener question from Evana: “What is a cultural reference that really bugs Steve/Julia/Dana when they see/hear it being misused or misinterpreted?” We're taking submissions for Summer Strut 2024! Send up to three songs that you find particularly strut-worthy to culturefest@slate.com.  Email us at culturefest@slate.com.  Endorsements: Dana: A wonderful documentary on Apple TV+, From Caligari to Hitler: German Cinema in the Age of the Masses.  Julia: Koeze's Cream-Nut All-Natural Peanut Butter (with no added sugar!) Stephen: The musical stylings of Gillian Welch and David Rawlings. Read a profile on the duo: “How Gillian Welch and David Rawlings Held Onto Optimism” by Hanif Abdurraqib for The New York Times. Listen to their songs, “Beautiful Boy” and “Picasso,” and check out the YouTube video, “Getting Started with Licks & Fills in the style of Dave Rawlings.”  Podcast production by Jared Downing. Production assistance by Kat Hong.  Hosts Dana Stephens, Julia Turner, Stephen Metcalf Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alexis Hejna and Zachary Strobel present their The Garfield Movie 2024 Move Review!The Garfield Movie is a 2024 American animated adventure comedy film based on the comic strip Garfield created by Jim Davis. Directed by Mark Dindal from a screenplay by Paul A. Kaplan, Mark Torgove, and David Reynolds, the film stars Chris Pratt as the voice of the titular character, alongside the voices of Samuel L. Jackson, Hannah Waddingham, Ving Rhames, Nicholas Hoult, Cecily Strong, Harvey Guillén, Brett Goldstein, Bowen Yang, and Snoop Dogg. In the film, Garfield is reunited with his long-lost father, a street cat named Vic, being forced into joining him on a high-stakes adventure.The Garfield Movie was released in the United States by Columbia Pictures through Sony Pictures Releasing on May 24, 2024. The film received negative reviews from critics, and it has grossed over $154 million worldwide.Disclaimer: The following may contain offensive language, adult humor, and/or content that some viewers may find offensive – The views and opinions expressed by any one speaker does not explicitly or necessarily reflect or represent those of Mark Radulich or W2M Network.Mark Radulich and his wacky podcast on all the things:https://linktr.ee/markkind76alsoFB Messenger: Mark Radulich LCSWTiktok: @markradulichtwitter: @MarkRadulichInstagram: markkind76

Rebecca McLaughlin is joined by Michael Graham to discuss why Americans have stopped going to church and Questions Covered in This Episode:How did you become a Christian?How did you become interested in “The Great Dechurching”?What is the history of American church attendance?What happened from the height of attendance in the 80s to now?What proportion of Americans who previously went to church have stopped attending church?Why did Americans stop going to church?How would you respond to people who think that fewer people attending church is good for society?Are more educated people less likely to go to church?Guest Bio:Michael Graham is the Program Director at The Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics and is the co-author of “The Great Dechurching.”Resources Mentioned:Galatians“The Great Dechurching” by Jim Davis, Michael Graham, and Ryan BurgeAs In Heaven PodcastTyler J. VanderWeele Follow Us:Instagram | TwitterOur Sister Shows:Knowing Faith | The Family Discipleship Podcast | Starting Place | Tiny TheologiansConfronting Christianity is a podcast of Training the Church. For ad-free episodes and more content check out our Patreon. Produced by⁠⁠⁠⁠ The Good Podcast Co.⁠⁠⁠⁠

Jim Davis' Garfield was once a very funny gag comic strip. It would go on to spawn a great Saturday morning cartoon series, and was an omnipresent marketing machine second only to Charles Schulz's Peanuts at the height of its popularity.

Today, we have Michael Graham on The Way Home Podcast! Michael is the program director for the Gospel Coallition's Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics and a writer and producer for their As In Heaven podcast.  Today on the Way Home Podcast, we discuss a book co-authored by Michael and Jim Davis, The Great Dechurching: Who's […] The post The Way Home Podcast: Michael Graham on the Great Dechurching appeared first on Daniel Darling.

This week, Pastor Josh and Laura are joined by a special guest to discuss the book, The Great Dechurching by Jim Davis and Michael Graham.

We can't go back to the church environments we grew up with, we can only go forward. So what would a healthy modern reformation and a Great Rechurching look like? Rather than wallowing in pessimism and longing to return to the church of yesteryear, Michael Horton, Bob Hiller, Justin Holcomb, and Walter Strickland discuss how the church today can reform and be marked by orthodoxy, love, and resilient joy. CHECK OUT THIS MONTH'S OFFERS: The Great Dechurching: Who's Leaving, Why Are They Going, and What Will It Take to Bring Them Back? by Jim Davis and Michael Graham, with Ryan P. Burge. Become a Partner to support the work of White Horse Inn as we apply the riches of the Reformation to the modern church. Subscribe to Modern Reformation magazine. Our March/April issue is “The Head & the Heart,” where we feature essays, poems, and articles about how the Bible does not separate the “rational” mind and the “emotive” heart; rather, “In the Bible, the intellect, will, and emotions are all capacities that belong to the whole, integrated person.” For more information, visit us at whitehorseinn.org or email us at info@whitehorseinn.org Featuring: Michael Horton, Bob Hiller, Walter Strickland, and Justin Holcomb

If you go to church, do you know why you attend? Do you know why your friends and family have casually just stopped going to church? How can we talk about the necessity of the church in a way that is beautiful and life-giving, but goes beyond personal preference? In this episode, Michael Horton, Justin Holcomb, Walter Strickland, and Bob Hiller answer these questions and more as they discuss how Christians can reach out to their dechurched friends, family, and neighbors. “When asked how willing they would be to go back to church, 51 percent said they are either somewhat willing or very willing—51 percent! Unsurprisingly, the reasons they would come back also represent a longing to belong. These dechurched evangelicals said they would come back if they made new friends (28%), if they move and want to make new friends (18%), if they became lonely and want to make new friends (20%), if their children want to go (16%), if their spouse wants to go (18%), if a friend invites them (17%), if there is a good pastor (18%), if they find a good community (17%), if they miss their church community (20%), or if they just find a church they like (14%). This group's high orthodoxy scores also inform other reasons they would come back: if they feel the distance from God (20%) or if God tells them to go back in some significant way (18%). The main takeaway here is that many dechurched evangelicals simply need a friend to invite them to church.” - The Great Dechurching: Who's Leaving, Why Are They Going, and What Will It Take to Bring Them Back? by Jim Davis and Michael Graham, with Ryan P. Burge, p. 28. CHECK OUT THIS MONTH'S OFFERS: The Great Dechurching: Who's Leaving, Why Are They Going, and What Will It Take to Bring Them Back? by Jim Davis and Michael Graham, with Ryan P. Burge. Become a Partner to support the work of White Horse Inn as we apply the riches of the Reformation to the modern church. Subscribe to Modern Reformation magazine. Our March/April issue is “The Head & the Heart,” where we feature essays, poems, and articles about how the Bible does not separate the “rational” mind and the “emotive” heart; rather, “In the Bible, the intellect, will, and emotions are all capacities that belong to the whole, integrated person.” For more information, visit us at whitehorseinn.org or email us at info@whitehorseinn.org Featuring: Michael Horton, Bob Hiller, Walter Strickland, and Justin Holcomb

What happened in American culture and in the church from the 1970s-1990s? What were the conversations and big concerns of that time when White Horse Inn recorded its first episodes? In answering some of these questions, churches can get their bearings as to what trends have impacted those who no longer sit in their pews and what to do about it. “The early 1990s was an inflection point for American religion. Between the early 1970s and 1990s, the share of Americans who had no religious affiliation had only risen two points. But from that point forward, the nones would grow by a percentage point or two nearly every year through the following three decades.” - Ryan Burge, “‘OK Millennial': Don't Blame the Boomers for Decline of Religious America” Michael Horton, Bob Hiller, Walter Strickland, and Justin Holcomb discuss how modern historical events and trends have impacted church attendance today and how to respond. CHECK OUT THIS MONTH'S OFFERS: The Great Dechurching: Who's Leaving, Why Are They Going, and What Will It Take to Bring Them Back? by Jim Davis and Michael Graham, with Ryan P. Burge. Become a Partner to support the work of White Horse Inn as we apply the riches of the Reformation to the modern church. Subscribe to Modern Reformation magazine. Our March/April issue is “The Head & the Heart,” where we feature essays, poems, and articles about how the Bible does not separate the “rational” mind and the “emotive” heart; rather, “In the Bible, the intellect, will, and emotions are all capacities that belong to the whole, integrated person.” For more information, visit us at whitehorseinn.org or email us at info@whitehorseinn.org Featuring: Michael Horton, Bob Hiller, Walter Strickland, and Justin Holcomb

I recently read a book that I absolutely could not put down. I've literally told almost everyone I know to go buy it and read it for themselves. That book is called The Great Dechurching"The current Great Dechurching ​is ​larger ​than ​the ​First ​Great ​Awakening, ​Second ​Great ​Awakening, ​and ​all ​the ​Billy ​Graham ​Crusades ​combined, ​just ​going ​the ​opposite ​direction.”Today, I have the honor of talking with one of the co-authors of this book, Jim Davis.Jim is the teaching pastor at a church in Orlando, Florida where he  had a hunch they were experiencing a large and fast religious shift for the worse but had no data to prove it. So, with the help of two sociologists, they commissioned the largest and most comprehensive study of dechurching (somebody ​who ​used ​to ​go ​to ​church ​at ​least ​monthly ​and ​now ​goes ​less ​than ​one ​time ​a ​year) in America. What they learned was fascinating.In this conversation, Jim and I talk about the different groups of people leaving the Church, why they are leaving and what we, as believers, can do about it. Grab a copy of Jim's incredible book The Great Dechurching here.Thanks to our amazing partners on this episode: Simple & Vern EideSimple provides an easy, secure way to make giving super user-friendly. If you are a church or lead a faith based nonprofit, you have to look into working with Simple. You won't regret it! For more info, check out their brand new website simpledonation.comVern Eide Motorcars is a growing employee-owned company that offers sales, service, and financing of automotive, motorcycle, and power sports lines, including Acura, Ford, Chevy, GMC, Honda, Hyundai and Mitsubishi brands. Whether you live locally or across the country, visit verneide.comSubscribe to The Conversation on YouTube: youtube.com/@adamaweber Sign up for The Crew: adamweber.com/thecrew

This week we have an in depth conversation with Pro Player and Content Creator Jim Davis! We discuss the art of content creation and getting better at Magic, and the work life balance between the two. Casual Magic is brought to you by Archidekt and Quiver! Support me directly at Patreon.com/shivamb.

Justin Holcomb interviews Jim Davis and Michael Graham, authors of The Great Dechurching, to discuss why forty million Americans have stopped attending church in the past 25 years. Many attribute church decline to encroaching secular trends, abuse in the church, or spiritual deconstruction. While all of these trends have spiked in recent years, Davis and Graham, with the help of Ryan Burge, reveal that these factors are not the primary causes for the erosion of church attendance and share what the church can do to turn back those estranged from her. CHECK OUT THIS MONTH'S OFFERS: The Great Dechurching: Who's Leaving, Why Are They Going, and What Will It Take to Bring Them Back? by Jim Davis and Michael Graham, with Ryan P. Burge. Become a Partner to support the work of White Horse Inn as we apply the riches of the Reformation to the modern church. Subscribe to Modern Reformation magazine. Our March/April issue is “The Head & the Heart,” where we feature essays, poems, and articles about how the Bible does not separate the “rational” mind and the “emotive” heart; rather, “In the Bible, the intellect, will, and emotions are all capacities that belong to the whole, integrated person.” For more information, visit us at whitehorseinn.org or email us at info@whitehorseinn.org Featuring: Justin Holcomb, Michael Graham and Jim Davis

Explore the intersection of LGBTQ rights, domestic terrorism, and community resilience in North Carolina through the lens of Drag Operatics as a form of empowerment and solidarity. On December 3, 2022, an attack on two electrical substations in Moore County, North Carolina left 45,000 households and businesses without power for up to five days. It was the biggest domestic terrorist attack on the electricity grid in U.S. history, but one year later, no arrests have been made and authorities have named no suspects other than to say that whoever did this “knew what they were doing.” In this installment of The Laura Flanders Show's investigation into the local roots of the January 6 insurrection in one state, North Carolina, Laura speaks with the North Carolinians who were at a drag show in Moore County when the lights went out. “Downtown Divas” had been harassed for months by anti-LGBTQ leaders — did the sabotage attack have anything to do with that harassment or the drag performance scheduled that night? As legislators and local leaders continue to roll back LGBTQ rights, they remain largely silent about the real threats facing North Carolinians and the nation from domestic terrorists with their sights set on U.S. power grids. Why? This episode also looks at how the LGBTQ community in North Carolina is standing up to hate and creating safety — with Drag operatics — for all.“When the lights went out, it didn't matter who was Black, who was Latino, who was Asian, who was a person of color, didn't matter if you were Catholic, if you were Baptist, if you were Christian. We were all in the same space, all in the same boat, which was that we didn't have any power.” - Naomi Dix“[After the attack] I remember thinking, I have to start speaking more . . . I have to start sticking up for myself and the trans community more, because that's what prevents things like this.” - Alex Lafferty“We aren't the villains in this situation. We have a right to exist and be performing and what I love about drag is the joy that we bring not only to LGBT people, but the whole community.” - Tori Grace Nichols“We are talking about a great harm that happened here in North Carolina, but this is a national problem and not a new one . . . This is a domestic terrorist threat that people really need to be paying attention to.” - Serena Sebring“. . . That show and that incident brought out two different sets of people. It brought out the lovers and it brought out the haters . . . Those haters have found a way to attack our youth through the school board and our communities.” - Erica StreetGuests:• Naomi Dix: Drag Artist, Activist & Member of Durham NC BIPOC Operated House of Coxx; Co-Chair, Pride: Durham, NC• Alex Lafferty: Daughter of Erica Street, High School Student & Youth Activist• Tori Grace Nichols: Drag Artist & Cultural Organizer• Serena Sebring: Executive Director, Blueprint North Carolina• Erica Street: Mother of Alex Lafferty; Co-founder, PFLAG Southern Pines SPECIAL INVITE:  Tuesday, April 9, at 7pm Eastern join us for our Season Premiere Watch Party for our first episode as Laura Flanders & Friends featuring Angela Davis;  then join Laura afterwards to discuss the interview and share your thoughts.  Subscribe to our newsletter for all the details at LauraFlanders.orgApril 2024 The Laura Flanders Show is rebranding as ‘Laura Flanders & Friends':  This change marks a new era for the award-winning host, Laura Flanders.  The upcoming season will introduce a collaborative hosting format, featuring a diverse array of co-hosts from different backgrounds and different regions of the country. Expect new faces, unique perspectives, and impactful conversations that will leave viewers feeling inspired. CREDITS:Executive Producer: Laura FlandersField Producer: Brian PalmerSupervising Producer: Sabrina ArtelConsulting Producer: Rory O'ConnorDevelopment Director: Sarah MillerSenior Video Editor: David NeumannCreative Designer & Video Editor: Nat NeedhamAudio Director: Jeannie HopperCommunications Director: Janet HernandezLF Show Fellow: Maryia Kanavalenka Our thanks to Jim Davis and Kym RegisterSpecial thanks:  We deeply appreciate the Blueprint North Carolina staff whose collaborations have been key to the success of this award-winning and ground-breaking set of episodes.Blueprint North Carolina StaffMab Segrest, Anti-Racist Research Program DirectorSerena Sebring, Executive DirectorChristina Davis McCoy, Organizing CoordinatorHeather Ahn-Redding, Anti-Racist Research AssociateD Juan Owens, Executive Security LeadTori Grace Nichols, Research & Media InternJazmynne Cruz, Research Intern Music Spotlight:  “No One Else Has Your Magic” by Muva of Earth from her album Align with Nature's Intelligence released on Brownswood Records.  Additional music by Podington Bear “Hearts Aflutter,” “Mont Blanc,” “Beachhead,” “Tender and Curious The Laura Flanders Show Crew: Laura Flanders, Sabrina Artel, David Neuman, Nat Needham, Rory O'Conner, Janet Hernandez, Sarah Miller and Jeannie Hopper FOLLOW The Laura Flanders ShowTwitter: twitter.com/thelfshowTikTok: tiktok.com/@thelfshowFacebook: facebook.com/theLFshowInstagram: instagram.com/thelfshowYouTube: youtube.com/@thelfshow ACCESSIBILITY - The broadcast edition of this episode is available with closed captioned by clicking here for our YouTube Channel

Today's Mystery: Steve goes to Germany to find a displaced person who may be able to identify a nazi war criminal.Original Radio Broadcast Date: March 4, 1953Originated in HollywoodStars: Brian Donlevy as Steve Mitchell, Herb Butterfield as the Commissioner, Henry Roland, Jim Davis, Paul Frees, Paul FreesSupport the show monthly at patreon.greatdetectives.netWelcome to our latest Patreon supporter, MarkPatreon Supporter of the Day: Donna-Patreon Supporter since March 2023Support the show on a one-time basis at http://support.greatdetectives.net.Mail a donation to: Adam Graham, PO Box 15913, Boise, Idaho 83715Take the listener survey…http://survey.greatdetectives.netGive us a call 208-991-4783Follow us on Instagram at http://instagram.com/greatdetectivesBecome one of our friends on Facebook.Follow us on Twitter@radiodetectivesJoin us again tomorrow for another detective drama from the Golden Age of Radio.

The stats reveal trouble in evangelicalism, Bible reading is down, church attendance is down, and the none's are rising. What's going on? In The Great Dechurching, authors Michael Graham, Jim Davis, and Ryan P. Burge have done the work and come back with the stats. It's both better and worse than we could imagine. 40 million people have stopped going to church in the last 25 years and that's just the tip of the iceberg. However, amid such depressing news, there is hope. Because many of them are willing and ready to come back! Listen as Travis and Michael Graham discuss the book, the stats, and what we can do to help connect people to Jesus and His church. Referenced in this episode is Dechurching.com, The Keller Center.Sign up for the Apollos Watered newsletter.Help water-thirsty souls by partnering with Apollos Watered! #thegreatdechurching #Christianity #church #churchinnorthamerica #reformation #rechurching #Jesus #Christ #brideofchrist #hope #christisking #MichaelGraham #theKellerCenter #apolloswatered #wateringfaith #travismichaelfleming #evangelicalism #Christian #goodnews #churchattendance #americanevangelicalism

Guest Bios Show Transcript America is experiencing the largest and fastest religious shift in its history—greater than the First and the Second Great Awakening and every revival in the U.S. combined. But instead of a massive shift into the church, what we're seeing is a mass exodus. In this edition of The Roys Report, you'll hear from Michael Graham, co-author of The Great DeChurching: Who's Leaving, Why Are They Going, and What Will It Take to Bring Them Back. Based on the most comprehensive study of people leaving the church in America, the book gives keen insights into this phenomenon. You'll learn why people are leaving the church, which demographic groups are leaving in the greatest numbers, and what can be done to stop the bleed. And the results may surprise followers of this podcast. Though much of our reporting focuses on corruption and abuse in the church, these issues were not the greatest factors people cited for leaving. The reasons cited were much more mundane than you might think. We are living in a unique moment—what research says is the greatest “dechurching” in nearly 250 years of this nation. This exodus doesn't just affect society or public expressions of faith; it impacts family relationships and how people relate to each other. Tune in for a highly informative conversation that examines the state of the church and why restoring her matters. Guests Michael Graham Michael Graham is program director for The Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics. He is also the executive producer and writer of As In Heaven and co-author of The Great Dechurching. He received his MDiv at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando. He is a member at Orlando Grace Church. He is married to Sara, and they have two kids Show Transcript SPEAKERSMICHAEL GRAHAM, Julie Roys Julie Roys  00:04America is experiencing the largest and fastest religious shift in its history greater than the first and the second Great Awakening and every revival in the US combined. But instead of a massive shift into the church, what we’re seeing is a mass exodus, and the greatest de churching in nearly 250 years. Welcome to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys, and on this podcast you’ll hear from Michael Grant, co- author of the new book The Great Dechurching. Based on the most comprehensive study of people leaving the church in America, the book gives keen insights into this phenomenon. You’ll learn why people are leaving the church, which demographics are leaving in the greatest numbers, and what can be done to stop the bleed. And the results may surprise followers of this podcast. Though much of our reporting focuses on corruption and abuse in the church, these issues were not the greatest factors people cited for leaving. The reasons were much more mundane than you might think. And we’ll dig into those in just a minute.   Julie Roys  01:05 But first, I’d like to thank the sponsors of this podcast, Judson University, and Marquardt of Barrington. If you’re looking for a top-ranked Christian University, providing a caring community and an excellent college experience, Judson University is for you. Judson is located on 90 acres, just 40 miles west of Chicago in Elgin, Illinois. The school offers more than 60 majors, great leadership opportunities and strong financial aid. Plus, you can take classes online as well as in person. Judson University is shaping lives that shaped the world. For more information, just go to JUDSONU.EDU. Also, if you’re looking for a quality new or used car, I highly recommend my friends at Marquardt of Barrington. Marquardt is a Buick GMC dealership where you can expect honesty, integrity, and transparency. That’s because the owners there Dan and Kurt Marquardt are men of integrity. To check them out just go to BUYACAR123.COM.   Julie Roys  02:09 Well, again, joining me is Michael Grant, Program Director at the Keller Center for Cultural apologetics. He’s also the executive producer and writer for the As In Heaven podcast. And he’s also a member at Orlando Grace Church where Jim Davis, who’s the co-author for his latest book, The Great Dechurching. He is also a teaching pastor. So, Michael, welcome. It’s a pleasure to have you join me.   MICHAEL GRAHAM  02:31 So good to be here with you, Julie.   Julie Roys  02:32 So, Michael, your book is based on an extensive study that sought to prove or disprove this thesis that America’s in the middle of the largest and greatest religious shift in its history. And what you discovered is pretty sobering. Would you tell me about that?   MICHAEL GRAHAM  02:47 Yeah. So, I mean, the Cliff’s Notes version is that 40 million adult Americans have left houses of worship, across all religious traditions. And by and large, almost all of that has occurred in the last 30 years. So, from the moment of Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit to today, 40 million people have gone from, you know, the various pews of all religious traditions. Now, most of those are out of what you’d call Christian traditions, about 15 million of that out of evangelical traditions, and then about another 20 million out of Roman Catholic and mainline traditions, the other traditions are a lot smaller. So, we weren’t really sure what we would be looking at in terms of why there were two prevailing storylines, depending on what your kind of media diet looked like. If your media diet looked a little bit left leaning, then the story was basically that people had been leaving houses of worship primarily because of mistakes made by those institutions themselves. So, this would be things like racism, misogyny, abuse, political syncretism, clergy scandal. If your media diet leaned a little bit to the right, the prevailing story was basically a story of secularism, or sexual revolution, progressivism, people are leaving houses of worship, because they’re no longer worshipping the Triune God, they’re worshipping some other, you know, forms of non-Christian things. The reality is that you can find several million people who would fit both that first story or that second story. However, most of the people might have elements of either of those two stories in there, but most of them left for really, really boring reasons. So, the challenge is like not necessarily saying that story A or story B is wrong. There’s actually a story C that is not as interesting. That’s also there and is kind of  the water that we’re all kind of in is the number one reason why people you know, left houses of worship, and stop going on at least a monthly basis. So that’s how we defined the charging somebody who used to go to church, or house of worship at least monthly, consistently, and now less than once per year. So even if you go to church on Christmas Eve, or Christmas, or Easter or Christmas and Easter, we still counted you in our study as being churched. So, if you think the 40 million number sounds scary, you know, if you take all the Christmas and Easter people out.   Julie Roys  05:32 That is like a really, really low bar.   MICHAEL GRAHAM  05:35 There’s many, many more people. But basically, the number one reason I moved, right after that is, attendance was inconvenient. After that is some kind of marriage, divorce, new child, or some other significant family change. After you kind of get past some of those reasons, you start to get into some of the reasons where people experience some more pain or some more friction, either at the individual level, or at the institutional level. But it really kind of looks like of the 40 million people who left, 30 million left, what we called casually, and about 10 million left as casualties. And so, 10 million people is a lot of people, okay, I don’t want to downplay at all the people who have significant church hurt at the individual, institutional or both levels. But there’s also just kind of 30 million people where it just kind of looks like, okay, well, just the inertia of American life and their rhythms and habits just kind of had them floating on.   MICHAEL GRAHAM  06:45 Now, the interesting thing about really, across the board, both the people who left casually and unintentionally, as well as the people who left as casualties and left highly intentionally, most of them are willing to return today to a house of worship of some sort. Some of them were willing to go back to exactly what they left and some of them are not willing to go back to exactly what they left, but willing to go to something that we would all consider as being part of the historic Christian tradition.   Julie Roys  07:18 Yeah, I was surprised when I read it, how many people just dropped out because well, even COVID. Like, they just got out of the habit. And I guess we’re seeing that. I mean, I know that’s a phenomenon. But it’s stunning in some ways that something that you would expect to be so central to a person’s life, that they would give it up just because it’s inconvenient, or they get out of the habit of going. And yet, maybe that speaks to where the spiritual state before that happened. But that was surprising, I thought finding of the study.   Julie Roys  07:48 I thought too just thinking through what’s at stake, which you do kind of in that first section relationally, what’s happening, you know, between parents and their kids, and you had this one line which struck me because I’m over 50. And it says, anecdotally, we know, of almost no parents over the age of 50, who don’t have at least one child who is dechurched. And I’ve got three kids. I guess I read that, and I just was very grateful, because none of my kids are dechurched. But I mean, certainly, wow, we felt like we have been in a war for their soul at different times within their lives. And just, by the grace of God, I think, have seen them embrace faith. But there are a lot of things in here that remind me of the situation that we’re in. I mean, this between parents and their children. And of course, I have so many friends, I mean, that are just beautiful parents and probably did a 10 times better job than I did. And they’re dealing with just such heartache over their kids leaving their faith leaving the church. But even you know, it’s culturally how fractured we are mentally. I mean, talk about some of these impacts on who we are as communities and as Americans that are really going to be impacted as we see this begin to play out.   MICHAEL GRAHAM  09:15 Let’s start at the purely secular level. Why would I care about this if even I was an atheist or agnostic or a nothing in particular? The first thing I would say is you should care about this phenomenon, because it’s going to at least sociologically reorder many aspects of American culture and society. How many different trends can you think about that impact one in six adult Americans? There aren’t many. And so, the implications of this will have implications in terms of politics and political voting groups. It will have an impact on the social safety net in our country. There are certain studies that have shown that as much as 40% of  America’s social safety net, the social safety net being the kinds of things that are there for people, when they’re, at their hardest or most challenging moments, that 40% of the social safety net in this country is basically coming from religious nonprofits. And so, when you see one in six adult Americans, you know, opt out of those kinds of ties, thicker ties, and local ties to local religious institutions, that’s going to have an impact for sure, on the social safety net. And I don’t think that that’s in the interest of either common good or human flourishing.   MICHAEL GRAHAM  10:41 We estimate in the book that that’s probably about $25 billion that just exited out of the religious nonprofit world. I mean, you’re talking about $1.4 trillion dollars, in terms of the total income of the people who have disconnected from local churches. A lot of implications for institutions, certainly, you’re going to see churches and houses of worship that are going to struggle, perhaps even close. You’ll have others where the trend of decline will continue. And that will put additional strain on those institutions. There will probably be consolidation that takes place that’s there. But if you’re listening to this, and maybe you yourself are dechurched, is it’s like, what, I miss you, okay? Because I go to church, and if you’re not there, I’m worse off because of your absence. At the local church level, it’s like, well, dechurching is impoverishing our churches, because you have all these people who are amazing image bearers, and then who liked I want to know, and love and experience. And I think about like the 59 one another's in the New Testament. At least over half of those require, we have to be embodied in order to even get to do those things. And so, I’m just worse off when there’s people who aren’t there anymore, and they’re missed. And so, and then zooming all the way down to, like, the familial level, there’s tremendous pain and hurt there. We’re not talking about just a number on a spreadsheet, you’re talking about real people’s lives, and real things in their story, and real pains, and real hard sometimes. Sometimes for very good reasons people disconnect themselves from these things. Anybody familiar with you and your ministry,  knows these stories, and they know them well.. And so, I think on that front, there’s just tremendous things at stake. What’s the Thanksgiving or the Christmas dinner table look like? And what pieces of sadness are there?, or these places where people land different from their family members in terms of how they process really big conversations. Those can be really hard and lonely and isolating things when you find yourself in a very different place.   MICHAEL GRAHAM  13:25 But you know, one of the things that we advocate in the book is a posture of quiet, calm curiosity for everybody. You can only find yourself in that, in that place of being quiet, calm, and curious with other people, when you have a sense of security in yourself. And I think that security is best found when we’re confident in our identity as image bearers made in the image of God, redeemed by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and confident of our future, our eschatological future in the kingdom of God. And so, when we have that, that gives us the freedom to not feel like we need to be defensive, we can just listen to other people and hear what they have to say and believe people when they’re telling us about the wins and losses, particularly the wins and losses and their experiences with people who claim Christ or institutions that claim to be Christian. And so, I think there’s a lot of implications for these things. There’s just a lot that’s at stake. I think that there’s much work to be done, both on the individual front, and there’s a lot of work to be done on the institutional front.   Julie Roys  14:43 How we lead as institutions, I think, is probably an area that energizes me because I have found so much dysfunction within those institutions. And I did like that you said, we don’t have to go back to the church we left and I’m in a house church now, I love it. And I find myself questioning a lot of the stuff that I just took on face value. I was having discussion recently, I’m like, I don’t know, like preaching is that really the best way for us to study the Bible? We get together and we open the Bible, and we study it together. And I found that incredibly rich, richer than a lot of times when I have somebody giving me basically a lecture for 30 or 40 minutes on their opinion of what it says. And I find it just much richer to go right in and dig in ourselves. So, I find myself at least among the people that I’m in contact with, are all asking these questions. What is it really have to offer look like? I am just in contact with so many people where it hasn’t felt safe. And so, I just have such a degree of empathy for those who have trouble and I say, even my own children, I watched them try to find a church. And it is unbelievably hard, unbelievably, and that just breaks my heart because I feel like so many of the vibrant churches that I knew when I was their age, don’t exist anymore, or they’ve been just the ministries that I think of that were so vibrant on campuses, and so forth just aren’t there. And so, we do have an unbelievable amount of work to do. And I thought it was interesting, you also found, like, when we’re talking about leaving the church, like, who’s dechurching?, this isn’t any particular group. This like everybody across the board, right?   MICHAEL GRAHAM  16:27 It’s unilateral across the board,. In certain places, it’s maybe a little bit more prominent or pronounced than others. And the timing of which various different groupings may have kind of floated on looks different. But by and large, yeah  there’s no group that’s immune.   Julie Roys  16:48 Well, let’s dig into some of the groups because that’s what I do find really fascinating, but also, I think, really educational, because if we’re going to be relating to these folks in hopefully a winsome way, it’s helpful to know who they are. And I think there are some misconceptions of who they are. So, you basically found there’s five groups of dechurched individuals, cultural Christians, dechurched mainstream evangelicalism, exvangelicals, dechurched, BIPOC. So Black, Indigenous and People of Color, and dechurched mainline Protestants. Let’s dig into each one of those groups. Let’s start with the cultural Christians who, I’m guessing these are the people that grew up went to church on Christmas and Easter, and maybe a few times in between, but basically a little bit of church background, but not really a saving faith, probably.   MICHAEL GRAHAM  17:46 Yeah, so every one of those groups we mentioned had one thing in common, they all went to a house of worship, at least consistently on a monthly basis, but now less than once per year. So, the culture in terms of size, the 15 million people who left evangelical traditions, and that’s the first four profiles that you just read off: cultural Christians, dechurched mainstream evangelicals, exvangelical, and then the BIPOC dechurched. The cultural Christians are about eight of those 15 million people. And then the next three groups are between two and two and a half million each. So, the cultural Christians, they look like people who are upwardly mobile, who did not have a deep understanding of the gospel, or the Bible, and the inertia of just their rhythms and habits basically has them out of the habit of going to church anymore. They’ve been gone from church for about 12 years now. They’re in their early 40s, on average. They’re overwhelmingly white, 98% white, and they’re doing well from an education and income standpoint. Interestingly enough, about half of them are willing to return to an evangelical church today. The top reasons why they left attendance was inconvenient, their friends weren’t worshiping at church anymore, they moved. More casual reasons than casualty and painful and the reasons why they said that they wouldn’t be willing to return were largely things that were relational in nature; new friends, lonely and want to make new friends, they miss church, a friend invites them, a spouse wants to go, they move and want to make new friends in a good community. So those were the reasons why about 4 million of them were willing to return to an evangelical church right now.   Julie Roys  19:36 Throughout these profiles, you often talk about their relationship to their parents, because again, they were brought up a certain way and obviously they’re doing life differently now than their parents did. And there were a couple things with their parents, one turned off by their parents commitment to culture wars and refusal to listen. And then the second  one, they’re not seeing the fruit of the Spirit in their parents. It’s tough to hear that. I think it’s a reminder that you know, as parents wow, I mean, what a responsibility. I’m curious if those relationships, and I don’t know how much you dug into it, but do they just remain fractured?   MICHAEL GRAHAM  20:21 We don’t know yet. The hard scientist in me would say we need to ask the same people the same question years later. And to drill down to get at the heart of those things. Probably in the three-to-five-year timeframe, we want to ask a lot of the same questions and see what looks similar, see what looks different. The stuff with the parents is really hard. And  it’s challenging, and it’s sad. I don’t know if it’s necessarily surprising. Obviously, for most of us, that’s one of the most formative relationships, if not the most formative relationship, at least in certain times of our life. And so, I think, also the last decade, in American public life, and I think particularly with the advent of social media, and the ways in which social media, you know, you have the like button, I think that was introduced, I want to say in 2009. Every platform has their dopamine-inducing reward structure for creating content that some people find interesting. The challenging thing about all of that is now, when you have a reward mechanism built into social platforms, people are more self-revelatory than what they would have been before. And so, I think, in terms of public communication and discourse, there is the freedom for people to communicate more about their perspectives than probably what there was before this dynamic of American public life existed. And so, I don’t think that’s necessarily all good or all bad. It’s just, there are implications that are downstream from that. And now, it’s where everybody is at, is far more clear than what it was 10 plus years ago. And there’s going to be implications from that, particularly as people have divergent perspectives, and sometimes strongly divergent perspectives. And again, all of these things are algorithmically incentivized. And in some ways, the stronger you feel about those things, sometimes that reward mechanism rewards you even further. And so, I think over time, there aren’t many impulses that are there baked into these things that create people finding as much common ground. And oftentimes, our digital interactions become power over persuasion.   MICHAEL GRAHAM  22:56 And so those are challenging dynamics. And what do you do if your parents are behaving poorly on the internet, and are getting cheered on from those things? You can flip that script in the other way, as well. So those things are going to have implications at the dinner table. And I’m sure that many people have experienced some challenges during looking back at their Thanksgiving and their Christmas. And I think that some of these things are just downstream from these particular dynamics of how technology has inserted itself into our lives and revealed things about people that we loved that have maybe changed our perspectives about how we view them and have altered maybe the amount of relational intimacy that we feel comfortable with. Those are hard and sad things.   Julie Roys  23:44 And one thing I found really interesting about this group, I mean, obviously, there’s the family fracture, well, that’s going to leave you more lonely, maybe depressed. But then there’s the relational fracture, like most of us, I mean, I know for me, my closest friends are my church friends, right? And without that community people are, and you even found, like more depressed, higher anxiety, I mean, all those things. And so, the reverse then, is that, and we often think, how do we invite people back to the church?, and I thought it was insightful that you’re like, these people need a dinner-table invite. In other words, they’re looking for a relationship, right? That’s most likely what’s going to bring them back to the church.   MICHAEL GRAHAM  24:26 What we talked about in the book is there’s three levels of relationship that different broadly speaking profiles probably need. The second profile that you’ve mentioned, the dechurched mainstream evangelicals, these folks left on average about three or four years ago. They’re about the same age as that first group, early 40s. But this group is whereas the cultural Christians only 1% of them said that Jesus is the Son of God, 98% of this second group said Jesus is the Son of God.. These people have a very deep understanding of the Gospel, the Bible, and the kinds of things that you want to see from Nicene-creed level of Christianity. And 100% of that group are willing to return to an evangelical church today.   MICHAEL GRAHAM  25:08 And so, the three levels of kind of relational need that’s there, that group really they just need a nudge. A nudge is something like a text, a phone call a water cooler moment, talking out on the porch, or in the cul de sac, hey, I got this really cool thing going on at church, or I’m speaking up this thing, or I think you’d really like our pastor, would you be willing to come to church with me? Let’s go grab lunch after at such and such place, that’s a nudge. I think when there is more pain, or church hurt, or these different kinds of things. And this should be obvious, when you think about it, it’s just people need the kind of intimacy that occurs around breaking bread together in a home at the dinner table. Literally, or figuratively and metaphorically, I think that when people need to be able to have an avenue, when there’s either interpersonal or institutional or both friction, then they need to be able to have a place that is where they can experience somebody who’s going to be willing to quietly, calmly and with curiosity, engage them in their story in a way that they would want to be treated. So, we have a third category of people who are just, they’re probably just never going to return to a house of worship.   Julie Roys  26:26 The exvangelicals. No?   MICHAEL GRAHAM  26:28 The exvangelicals are done with the evangelical expression of the faith. Okay. 79% of them were willing to return to some form of Christian tradition. That was something that was very surprising.   Julie Roys  26:44 So just 100%, they will not go back to the church they came from, which may be a good thing, in a lot of ways.   MICHAEL GRAHAM  26:51 Well, I mean, certainly there are many different institutions I could think of where it  would be very unhealthy to return to. So, and that’s the good news about all of this stuff, you don’t have to return to what you left if there was something unhealthy. I always think about these things in terms of truth, goodness, and beauty. Well, what’s a healthy church? Where you can see the truth of the gospel, the goodness of the gospel, and the beauty of the gospel, all in the same place.   Julie Roys  27:21 The exvangelicals, I just want to camp there just a little bit, because these are folks that I mean, honestly, I have a lot of empathy for  and understanding. I mean, they’ve been through some things that were pretty toxic in the church. In fact, you found they scored 74% higher on experiencing a lack of love from their congregation than the other four groups combined. And that’s heartbreaking, like the place where you should most experience love, they experience a complete lack of love. And I’d be curious how many of them come from a fundamentalist background as well because I mean, there just seems to be a correlation there between just a rigid adherence to rules and so forth, and even the culture wars and all of that, and just a lack of caring for the soul and caring for the human being, whether they agree with you or not. But these folks, where they look for answers; talk about that a little bit.   MICHAEL GRAHAM  28:26 We ended up calling this group exvangelicals because none of them are willing to return to an evangelical church. But what was really surprising was that 79% of them said that Jesus is the Son of God, and they had the second highest view of the Bible, as well as Nicene Creed-level Christianity. And so that would be things like the Trinity, the seamlessness of Jesus, these kinds of things. But what was interesting is this group was overwhelmingly female, two thirds female. And they were middle aged, average age 53. And they left a little bit after 9/11, on average, in terms of the bell curve. And what does seem to be occurring there is they had the lowest income and the lowest education of any of the groups, and their relationship towards institutions in general, was very strained. And so that was really interesting to see. It’s not just that the church isn’t working for this particular group, particularly the evangelical church. But American institutions in general aren’t working well for this group. Much lower rates of marriage, much higher rates of divorce, the rates of depression, anxiety, loneliness, and suicidal thoughts were also elevated across the board, but particularly suicidal thoughts were very bad. I think I made a note of this in the book, describe how you’re doing with respect to suicidal thoughts. And we’re basically 100 is I have no suicidal thoughts; everything is rainbows and Skittles. And where zero is deeply, deeply struggling with suicidal thoughts, the average score among this group of people, the exvangelical group, was 16. I just started crying, these are real people. And there’s several thousand people that we surveyed here. Are some of these people no longer with us?, is some of these people? So, I don’t know, given the number of people we surveyed probably. So,  I’m looking at that., and it just can’t not impact you at a deep level, when you have any measure of empathy to think, oh, my gosh, these are image bearers. And this is a group of people that are clearly there’s a lot of pain that’s here. And there’s a lot of things that just aren’t working. And I don’t know how many institutions there are, depending on where you’re located, and how many options you have. I think many people might have to go a long distance to find a place where they’d find a church that would have that kind of empathy and understanding, given whatever is there in the story.   Julie Roys  31:07 Well, it becomes almost cyclical, because if you’re divorced, I mean, I hear this from so many of my divorced friends, that you go into a church and you feel judged right away, or you feel like you don’t fit in, and so it can become very self-perpetuating, makes it very hard to go to any place. So, wow, let’s move to the dechurched/BIPOC because this one was surprising to me, too. I was not expecting the profile that you found of this group. So, describe the black indigenous persons of color who have dropped out of their church. What kind of person are we talking about here?   MICHAEL GRAHAM  31:43 Yeah, so this group was fascinating too. Over two thirds of this group was male. Yeah. And the average age there was early 50s. And this group on average left in the late 1990s. Okay. Now, something that’s really fascinating, when the machine learning algorithm that we used to sort the dataset into these different profiles, we didn’t let it see ethnicity or race in the dataset, and sort based on that. Now, what’s interesting, though, is that you have profiles like cultural Christians that are 98% white, and you have profiles like this one that are 0% white. And note, so while race is a biological fiction, it is a sociological reality. And so, you can see that race and ethnicity has a significant impact in terms of the ways that you’re experiencing America and American institutions, and it has an influence on those things. So that was interesting. Another thing that was interesting was that this group, and you’re talking two to two and a half million people, had the highest income and the highest education of any of the different groups. Now, bear in mind, this is a group of people who aren’t white, who probably largely willfully chose to connect themselves to evangelical institutions, which we all know trend from a sociological and demographic standpoint, most evangelical churches trend in the Anglo direction of things. And so, it wouldn’t be wise to take the particular perspectives of this particular group and assume that everybody who’s BIPOC in America would share the same perspectives: very high incomes, very high education, head and shoulders above any of the other groups. And the cultural Christians are the next to that. And the BIPOC groups just stands head and shoulders above them.   Julie Roys  33:39 So, this is a group that generally, I mean, those that have dropped out, at least the profile you gave was of somebody who’s BIPOC that lives in a pretty white space. And so, I mean, I’m looking at that thinking, Is it easier to disconnect from that church community? Because the black church is such a cohesive community that, I mean, almost, it’s so strong in the community. I think it is even stronger than most white churches. Is it easier to disconnect from church once you kind of moved out of that space? And then you’re in really, almost an alien space in some ways.   MICHAEL GRAHAM  34:26 Yeah. In terms of black Protestantism, the black churches in American US history, have played more of a role in the local community life than say their predominantly Anglo counterparts. And I think a lot of that has to do with the amount of pressure that was placed on those communities over time. The BIPOC group was 76% African American and 13% Latino. So, when you combine the predominantly male with predominantly African American means over half of this group was extremely upwardly mobile black men. So, you’re talking to at least a million black men of the 15 million people who left evangelical churches. The most pain in church hurt comes from the exvangelical group and the BIPOC group. By far, the exvangelical group, they’re all the church casualties. The BIPOC group is a mixture of casual and casualty. The dechurched, mainstream evangelicals are all casual. And then most of the cultural Christians you’d characterize as casual.   Julie Roys  35:35 The last group we don’t have much time to spend on because I do want to talk a little bit about some of the messages and the things that we need to say to all five of these groups. But the dechurched, mainline Protestants and Catholics, not a lot of surprises there I thought. That they’re really concerned about the church doing some good when maybe the church they grew up in and I know the profile, you get profiles for all these different groups, but the profile was a man who grew up Catholic and the clergy sex scandal just rocked his world because it impacted his brother. And those people are kind of done with church if it doesn’t make a difference in a positive way for the community, right?   MICHAEL GRAHAM  36:16 Yeah. And in the dechurching that occurred among mainline and Roman Catholic occurred earlier than the dechurching that we’re seeing among evangelicals. Dechurching among mainline Protestants is more starting in the mid-80s. and extending into the late 90s. And then you can kind of shift that up about five years, for those who are leaving Roman Catholicism from the early 90s to like early aughts. And then you know, dechurching among evangelicals kind of looks like the Apple stock chart, just a little bit later, going hockey stick.   Julie Roys  36:54 Yeah. Well, the last segment of your book does talk about those who had dechurched from evangelical churches, how we might be able to bring them back. And, you know, I really appreciated that you talked about not just beliefs, because that’s what we hear so much about. In fact, when you were talking in the beginning you’re saying, you know, we think of people who don’t believe in the Bible anymore, don’t believe in God. And that’s not what we’re finding, by and large with a lot of these groups. But where we’re not looking is the sense of belonging and the behavior. So, would you talk just a little bit about that? and why this is important?   MICHAEL GRAHAM  37:30 Yeah. In sociology of religion, Jim and I learned from our conversations with Ryan, that they have these three categories of belief, behavior and belonging. I think in the 20th century, most of the ways in which we communicated the gospel to people was belief centric. And when you look at like, apologetic literature from that century, most of it is focusing on, oh, the claims of the Bible, or the claims of Jesus, or the Gospels are true. And it’s okay, that’s good. But I think the kinds of questions that we’ve seen more frequently, in the last decade or two, have been questions about whether is Jesus good? Or Is he beautiful? And what does that mean for me in terms of how I relate to other people and to community? And so those are more of belonging-type questions than truth questions. And so, I think that it is important for us that we be building healthier institutions. And like I said before, we want to have churches that emphasize the truth of the gospel, the goodness of the gospel, and the beauty of the gospel. Is the Jesus way a path towards to human flourishing to me?, will I find people who treat me with the fruit of the Spirit, with love, joy, patience, peace,  all of these kinds of things? The good news about all of that is those are things that are within our control. We can walk and keep in step with the Spirit. And we can bring the kinds of change needed at the institutional level, to try to really bring our churches in line and instep with the Holy Spirit and inline and in step with what God has revealed in his word. And as we do those things, we can be building beautiful places for people. Will those things ever be perfect or whatever? No. But I think that impulse to be always reforming. It needs to be there. And we need to be willing to have hard conversations with ourselves calmly. But we need to be willing to hold up mirrors to ourselves and ask ourselves, How can we do better?   Julie Roys  39:48 A question that you asked in the book that I think is powerful, is does your church operate more like an event or a family? And I have found it just in so many churches, it is an event where you can come, and you can go, and nobody even knows you. And it’s no wonder if that’s what people think of the church that they’re leaving. So, if there’s not that family component, yeah, they’re just not going to stay. I think it was interesting, too, that you found that online church is basically a back door. Like people might go there for a while. But if they’re not connecting relationally, which how can you, you're a virtual church?, they ended up leaving, and I thought, on the behavior side, where you talked about that the church talk about hypocrisy, if they don’t see our beliefs and our actions lining up, they’re not going to stay. And so, we can only touch the surface, really, in a podcast, but the book, I would just highly, highly recommend. There’s so many good things in there, I think, instructive for us, and how we can do better how we can reach out, but how we need to be something different, I think, before we can even invite people to what we have, because if we’re not really functioning healthy as a church, then we can’t invite people to it. But before you go, I just want to give you an opportunity to any last thoughts that you’d like to say, to those, and especially those right now who are listening, who, they’re still dechurched, they’ve had it.   MICHAEL GRAHAM  41:21 What I want to say is that, regardless of how people, humans, and human institutions have hurt and harmed or failed you, I have never been hurt or harmed by Jesus. And I continue to fall more in love with just the goodness of his gospel. And look, I’ve been before, in my current role I’ve been a pastor for some 15 years. And I should probably be dechurched based on the things that I’ve seen over the years. There’s nothing that’s in the book, aside from the parental pain, I don’t have that there. But pretty much any other category that you can talk about, I’ve seen it, and I should be at risk. But I just know at the end of the day, if anybody else had the words of life, I would go and I would go there, but nobody else has the words of life but Christ, and he has died for his church. Is she a mess? Yeah. Is some of her parts way more messed up than others? Yes. Some to a fatal extent? Yes. Should there be some institutions that don’t exist? Yes. However, and sometimes for certain people, it’s going to be more proximate than others. But there are still good places where you can find that, where the body of Christ functions like a family. So, I’d encourage you to go back to God’s Word and look at all those one another's that are there in the text and find a place where you see those one another’s embodied, and where you can see that the truth, goodness, and beauty of the gospel all in one place. There’s just such tremendous hope in Jesus. It is the treasure in a field that is worth selling, metaphorically speaking, all that you have to go and pursue. Only Christ as the words of life. And only in Him can we find redemption, and the hope of a future where re-creation is happening, and redemption is happening as far as the curse is found.   Julie Roys  43:46 So good. And I think what we’re finding is that people are open to Jesus. It’s just the church. So, I do pray. I know for me; I feel just extraordinarily grateful that I found a body of believers and it’s been a lifeline for me. So, I just pray for that for other people. But I thank you, Michael, for helping us understand these different groups of people and also understanding what maybe we’re doing wrong that we can fix. Appreciate that, love your book. So, thank you again, so much for taking the time.   MICHAEL GRAHAM  44:17 Thank you, Julie. Appreciate it.   Julie Roys  44:19 And thanks so much for listening to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And just a quick reminder, if you’d like a copy of Michael’s book, The Great Dechurching, we’d be happy to send you one for gift of $30 or more to The Roys Report this month. Again, we don’t have any large donors or advertising we simply have you the people who care about reporting the truth and restoring the church. So, if you’d like to support our work and get The Great Dechurching, just go to JULIEROYS.COM/DONATE. Also, just a quick reminder to subscribe to The Roys Report on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts or Spotify. That way you’ll never miss an episode. And while you’re at it, I’d really appreciate it if you’d help us spread the word about the podcast by leaving a review. And then please share the podcast on social media so more people can hear about this great content. Again, thanks for joining me today. Hope you are blessed and encouraged.   Read more

In part 2, Sam interviews Jim Davis and Michael Graham. They examine exactly how people are leaving and suggest how to "re-church" those who have exited. The post What Can Church Leaders Do about the Great Dechurching? An Interview with Jim Davis and Michael Graham appeared first on Church Answers.

On episode FOUR-HUNDRED-THIRTY of The Purrrcast, Sara and Steven watch and comment along with episode 6 of Garfield and Friends. The Purrrcast, talking to cat people because we can't talk to their cats.Watch episode 6 of Garfield and Friends: https://youtu.be/I8FymQksMgA?si=CqTNO0E5LKNEtSkmThe Purrrcast is the cat podcast for you and your feline friends. Based in Los Angeles, hosts Sara Iyer and Steven Ray Morris chat with fellow cat enthusiasts about the furry little creatures they love. Not sure how the cats feel about it though.New episodes every Wednesday! Please rate and subscribe in iTunes: https://www.exactlyrightmedia.com/the-purrrcast Email us! thepurrrcast@gmail.comNEW PURRRCAST MERCH: https://www.exactlyrightmedia.com/shopFollow The Purrrcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ThePurrrcaston Instagram: https://instagram.com/thepurrrcast/Please like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ThePurrrcastFollow Sara Iyer on Twitter: https://twitter.com/saraanjuliiyerFollow Sara Iyer on Instagram: https://instagram.com/saraiyer/Check out Sara Iyer on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/saraiyerListen to Sara's Weezer podcast: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/weezer-has-turned-and-left-us-hereListen to Sara's Don Bluth podcast: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-bluth-the-whole-bluth-and-nothing-but-the-bluthFollow Steven Ray Morris on Twitter: https://twitter.com/StevenRayMorrisCheck out Steven's new podcast, See Jurassic Right: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/see-jurassic-right/id1239538917?mt=2Theme song by Anabot (Analise Nelson) and Dax Schaffer:https://thesaxelnaiad.bandcamp.com/Artwork by Jillian Yoffe: flatratstudio.comPart of the Exactly Right podcast networkSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In a wide ranging conversation, founding friend David French takes over the reins for Curtis Chang and discusses the new book, The Great Dechurching: Who's Leaving, Why Are They Going, and What Will It Take to Bring Them Back? by Jim Davis, Michael Graham, and Ryan Burge. David and coauthor Graham discuss all the reasons for “the great dechurching”  with a particular emphasis on the more surprising results, as well as the difficulty reversing the decline in church attendance.   We want to hear your “Campfire Stories” about living out your good faith! Share your stories with us today.     The Great Dechurching: Who's Leaving, Why Are They Going, and What Will It Take to Bring Them Back? by Jim Davis, Michael Graham, and Ryan Burge