Faith & Culture

On the second Sunday of Advent, the lawn of Highland Baptist Church in Louisville, Ky., will be covered with wooden crosses like one sees in a military cemetery. Each cross — about 75 of them — will represent one person in the community killed in violence during the year.

On the first Sunday of Advent, First Baptist Church of Lee’s Summit, Mo., experiences what Randy Buffington calls “controlled chaos.”

The address for Union Mound Baptist Church says Elkland, Mo. Like many rural churches, one needs to know how to get there before leaving the nearest highway and entering a maze of gravel roads.

Although large churches dominate headlines, churches with more than 1,000 members account for only about 2 percent of U.S. churches, and about 50 percent average less than 75.

Serving Clark Elementary School helps the roughly 40 members of Woodlawn Avenue Baptist Church in Wichita, Kan., realize they have a purpose, a contribution to make to their community.

Congregations and faith groups assist local public schools as a means to become more involved in their communities — and often at the invitation of school boards and superintendents.

As millennials — people born in the 1980s and ’90s — consider issues of faith and science, environmental issues are among their primary concerns. Recent polls suggest millennials are concerned about climate change and see environmental public policy actions as a priority.

Millennials see more affinity between religion and science.

Talking with church health consultants reveals similar stories. One common experience they often share features a church that asks for help after burning through several pastors in nearly as many years. During the consulting process, a deacon or other lay leader says something like “we just can’t find a good pastor” or “seminaries don’t train pastors like they used to.”

Pastors and church lay leadership must work to avoid becoming poisonous to their congregation and each other.