Newsweek ran an article this week: The End of Christian America - this study, fueled by the results of the 2009 American Religious Identification Survey. (see this interesting graph).

"the central news of the survey was troubling enough: the number of Americans who claim no religious affiliation has nearly doubled since 1990, rising from 8 to 15 percent."

Ed Stetzer recently spoke with Christianity Today providing additional information from the Christian perspective: Christianity Will Not Die Out in this Generation.

America, having been initially settled by zealous protestants, started-out with a "Christian" culture. Unfortunately, this has probably allowed millions of Americans over the last 300 years to think they're Christian and heaven-bound because they go to church, or own a bible. The Christian culture of America has also lead to a heretical mis-interpretation of the Gospel, one that persists today, and that is: if you live a moral life, you're a good person and you will go to heaven.

Unfortunately, many Christians have taken up this idea - that we must make America Christian by making it moral, and make it moral by outlawing certain sins (and perceived sins). However, this strategy does not work. You cannot force someone to behave right and thereby change their heart and win them to Christ. Unfortunately in the process of trying to make American moral, we've earned mistrust, hatred and rejection of the Church from outsiders - and rightly so.

That we've done this is a TERRIBLE TRAGEDY, because it has embittered entire generations against the Church making them unwilling to hear the true Gospel from the institutional church. They misunderstand and mistrust us, so they're no longer interested or willing to listen. We're having to re-invent church by making it more cool and relevant - "not your Grandma's church."

If we're going to win America (and the World) for Christ (I hope we do!) it's not going to be by legislating morality ( 1Cor 5:12 "what business is it of mine to judge those outside the church?"), it will be by telling and living the true Gospel, loving our neighbor sacrificially, shining Christ's awesome light. Therefore, let us stop fighting political battles where we ferociously argue against our secular opponents, but rather let us win them to Christ with patience, love, grace, and truth.

From Tony Steward and the ever innovative team at LifeChurch.tv:

Easter is here, and it is the one time every year that a ton of people open up their hearts to God, just a little, and are willing to check out church again. This year let’s make Easter Visible Online. At LifeChurch.tv Craig Groeschel will be talking about “Can You See Him.” What would it look like if we helped thousands of people “see him”, maybe for the first time?!

So, we have a big challenge for everyone! We want to make Easter visible online like it has never been before by using all the amazing tools that are on the internet like Twitter, Facebook, Blogging and everything else. So how can you help?

1. Go view, share and embed (embed is putting the video on your blog) the Video below (link to video). We want to get enough views on this video that people all across YouTube and the Internet can literally see Easter. The kicker is that the video is also an invite to Church Online.
2. Twitter this message: “Help me make Easter visible Online! View this video http://bit.ly/VCkwK and retweet! #easter” (You could also do the very same thing on Facebook)
3. Click Here and you can have some “Church Online” cards sent to you for you to pass out at work and anywhere you can think of - you might even put the video link (video link: http://bit.ly/VCkwK) from the Twitter message on there!
4. Email some friends the link to the Video and ask them if they would want to go to Church Online for Easter! Invite them to come and view an Online Experience in your home together. (If you would like more details on how to do a Watch Group - email us here!)
5. Digg, StumbleUpon, Twitter and Facebook this Blog Post for any of your friends that you know what the details about how to make Easter Visible Online this year. (You can do that very easily by click on the Share link at the bottom of this post)
6. Put the Twitter Message as your Email Signature. (Without the retweet of course)
7. Come up with your own creative ideas for helping to make Easter Visible Online (For the link to the video use http://bit.ly/VCkwK)

If you haven’t ever jumped in with an event around Church Online before this is the time to do it. Most of the things in the list above take SECONDS to do and can make such an impact in someone’s life. Every week we have people respond to God at work in their lives through Church Online. Image what HE could do during Easter when people’s hearts are cracked open again, just a little, to hearing from God.

(If you want to track the progress of #easter on Twitter you can click here and see all the messages from other people.)

We all should know, they are:

"Love the Lord with all your heart, mind and strength" and "Love your neighbor as yourself."

In fact, it seems that no other admonition is repeated more in the New Testament than to love and be loving to one another.

If this is true, why aren't we known for this? Why do our kids and many adults think it's "don't lie"?

It seems like Christians are more known for not smoking, drinking or cussing, and trying to make non-Christians stop sinning, than for loving their neighbors.

No wonder our churches are shrinking, many of us are just like the Pharisees Jesus condemned.

If we want to win more people to Christ, we're going to have to live radical lives of love, servanthood and sacrifice - like Jesus commanded and modeled for us to live.

Seth Godin recent blogged that if you want to be successful, you should not focus on pleasing the 2% of people who are critical of you. And you should not try to please your fans who want the status quo. instead:

"So, who should you listen to?

Your sneezers.

You should listen to the people who tell the most people about you. Listen to the people who thrive on sharing your good works with others. If you delight these people, you grow."

Read the whole post here.

Do you know who your "sneezers" are?

Just Kidding! But Andy Stanley and Craig Groeschel will both be answering questions from the stage at Catalyst ONE DAY - check it out!

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Andy Stanley loves teaching leadership to leaders. He's all about sharing the leadership wisdom he's learned with other leaders in the body so the Kingdom can advance! But not all leadership problems are addressed by his lessons.

So he's agreed to answer your leadership questions. Just post your question/problem in the comments below. Andy will choose the TOP 5 most interesting/relevant questions and answer them on the blog.

Additionally, for the top 5 questions, Andy will call you for a 30 minute discussion session to help you better understand the solution.

Questions must be entered before 5pm tonight and Andy's answers will be posted Monday next week!

ASK AWAY!