Ed Stetzer

3 weeks ago | usatoday.com | Ed Stetzer

Religious data rarely makes headlines, but a new wave of findings is creating a stir. For three decades, the percentage of Americans who identify as Christian has steadily declined, a trend confirmed by countless studies. For many believers, it has felt like an inevitable slide into cultural irrelevance. In a season of overwhelmed news cycles, these religious shifts haven’t received the coverage they should, but they are significant, and they keep coming.

1 month ago | churchleaders.com | Ed Stetzer |" airs Saturdays

The news of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School’s plan to leave Chicagoland and to merge with Trinity Western University in Canada marks a watershed moment in theological education. It would be difficult to overstate the significance of this move, for many TEDS has been a symbol of evangelical identity and theology for generations. At its core, this shift reflects the reality that theological education is in a moment of seismic change.

1 month ago | churchleaders.com | Ed Stetzer |" airs Saturdays

Church matters, and because church matters, what we mean by church matters. The New Testament presents the church as both universal and local, but its emphasis is overwhelmingly on specific local congregations—gatherings of believers committed to living out the gospel together. The New Testament show that the church isn’t just a place we go—it’s a people living on mission together. It does not require a steeple, but it does require people.

1 month ago | churchleaders.com | Ed Stetzer |" airs Saturdays

At the end of his first epistle to the Corinthians, Paul penned a line that hasn’t made it onto many T-shirts or coffee mugs. The words don’t inspire us with visions of the church advancing into the future.

2 months ago | outreachmagazine.com | Ed Stetzer

EDITORIALWhat fuels church health? Many factors contribute, but one of the most significant—maybe the most significant—is intentional evangelism. In this issue, we explore data from Exponential’s “Becoming Five Multiplication Study,” which surveyed more than 1,000 Protestant churches in the United States. The study evaluated churches on a scale from Level 1 (declining), Level 2 (stagnant), Level 3 (adding), Level 4 (reproducing) to Level 5 (multiplying).