by Alan Langstaff

Odds & Ends are topics worth covering that do not necessarily require a whole article.

MORE MEN ATTENDING CHURCH (IN USA)

“Men have outpaced women in church attendance the past three years, reversing a longstanding trend of more women in the pews that narrowed in 2016, Barna said in its 2025 State of the Church release, created in partnership with Gloo.

Women had outpaced men in attendance since 2000, then at 47% to 38%, before men began outpacing women in 2022, at 35% to 30%. In 2024, 30% of men were attending weekly, compared to 27% of women.

“As a leader,” researchers said, “consider how your church is reaching and connecting with women, who have traditionally been more engaged but now waver.”

Several reasons could be driving the gender flip in attendance, researchers told Baptist Press, but cited none as definitive to any degree. Among them:

— Women are overwhelmingly responsible for homecare and childcare and increasingly work in the marketplace because of a rising cost of living.

— “More women are single today than ever before,” researchers said, “and many feel discouraged by the dating pool at church, as church attendees are more often married than not.”

— Researchers pointed to the lingering trauma of the COVID-19 pandemic and its shift on remote engagement in church and work.

— “A troubling number of Christian ministry leaders have publicly and egregiously fallen to sexual sin, which tends to make women in particular feel uncomfortable and unwelcome,” researchers said. “These hurtful experiences cause great dissonance for women.”

Overall, 2024 closed with 28% of U.S. adults attending church weekly. But early 2025 shows signs of promise with as many as 32% of adults attending church weekly, researchers said.

The gender flip in attendance was among five top trends Barna and Gloo announced in their State of the Church report released March 13.”

(By Diana Chandler, Ministry Watch)

THE MORE DEMOCRATS GO TO CHURCH, THE MORE THEY LOOK LIKE REPUBLICANS

“The more often Americans attend virtually any Christian denomination, as well as Jewish services, the more likely they are to adopt conservative political views, according to a recent statistical analysis. “The more Democrats go to church, the more they look like Republicans,” states the study.

“Being politically liberal and being highly religious are just not compatible,” wrote Ryan Burge, an associate professor of Political Science at Eastern Illinois University and research director for Faith Counts. “Among white people who never attend: 45% are liberal. Among weekly+ attenders: 11% are liberal. That same pattern is there for every single racial group.”

Even attending church only once a year moves Americans further to the right of the political spectrum: More than one-third (36%) of annual church attendees are conservative, while one in four is liberal. More regular attendance makes believers more conservative. Only 4% of weekly churchgoers hold “very liberal” political views, while 23% are “very conservative” and another 29% are conservative.

Regularly attending church services displaces social theories, such as critical race theory, with a belief that individuals bear the moral responsibility of their own actions, the analysis discovered. Both Republicans and Democrats who congregate more than once a week are roughly twice as likely as those who never attend to agree with the statement, “God is more concerned about individual morality than social inequalities.” Registered Independents experienced a greater change of heart yet. 

“What is really stunning is the fact that even among Democrats, going to church more makes them more likely to believe that individual morality is more important to God than societal problems,” wrote Burge. “In other words, the more Democrats go to church, the more they look like Republicans.”

(By Ben Johnson, WashingtonStand)

VOLUNTEERS

“Volunteerism is rebounding from the hit it took during the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers found, with the highest rates of weekly volunteering seen in adult Gen Z, at 21%, and Millennials, 19%. That’s far more than the 9% of Boomers and the 12% of Elders who volunteer weekly, and far different than 2000 when the older generations were the top volunteers.

Researchers suggest the flip might amount to the dynamics of life stage and desire. Younger generations have more time flexibility, physical energy, excitement and opportunities to serve, researchers said, and are more able to give through service than financial resources.

“It could be that young people are offering what they have in abundance: their time, presence and passion,” researchers told Baptist Press. “It’s also important to think about this from not just the rise in volunteerism among next generations but the decline in volunteerism among older adults. Post-Covid, a plurality of Boomers and Elders have not rebounded back into active life.”

Gen Z, tending to be cause-driven, sensitive to problems and injustices, and wanting to see real change, appreciate the structured opportunities churches provide to make a difference, researchers said.

“Many churches have well-established volunteer programs and deep community connections,” researchers pointed out, “offering young people both meaningful ways to serve and the ability to see concrete results from their efforts.”

(By Diana Chandler, Ministry Watch)

ETERNAL WALL OF ANSWERED PRAYER

“Designed to be far more than an architectural marvel, the monument will become an ongoing testimony to God’s faithfulness, with Christians from across the United States invited to make an impact by sharing their unique, powerful and everyday prayer testimonies, which will be included on the mammoth landmark.

The grand architectural piece will be erected in Coleshill, Birmingham, just 90 miles north of London, and visible from nearly six miles away. Construction will include one million white bricks, each one digitally linked to an individual’s personal story of answered prayer, from the small every-day experiences to the larger-than-life miracles. Designed as an infinity loop, or Möbius strip, the surface has neither beginning nor end, just like God. Each answered prayer will be digitally linked to a specific location in the monument, and visitors will be able to hold their phones up to a brick to discover the specific answered prayer it represents with either audio, video or text.

“The power of just one person’s story can impact countless lives for the better,” shares Eternal Wall founder and visionary, Richard Gamble, “Think about what a million can do. We are all important to Jesus and all have a story to tell — the piece of us that moves others and points them to Him.”

(By InspireNewswire, January 17, 2025)

MEN & WOMEN

The High Court in UK/England has declared there are only two sexes – male and female.

1 IN 10 AMERICANS IDENTIFY AS LGBTQ+

“A Gallup Poll shows that nearly one in 10 adults in the United States identifies as being LGBTQ+, with results showing that the figures have nearly doubled since 2020 and nearly tripled since 2012, when the pollsters first measured the numbers. The poll, released Thursday, shows that younger generations are more likely to identify their sexual preferences as being other than heterosexual, with more than one in five Gen Z adults and 14% of millennials identified as being LGBTQ+.”

(By Sandy Fitzgerald, newsmax.com)