The percentage of Americans who evaluate their lives well enough to be considered “thriving” on Gallup’s Live Evaluation Index reached 59.2% in June, the highest in over 13 years of ongoing measurement and exceeding the previous high of 57.3% from September 2017. During the initial COVID-19 outbreak and economic shutdown, the thriving percentage plunged nearly 10 percentage points to 46.4% by late April 2020, tying the record low last measured during the Great Recession.

The most recent results, captured June 14-20, 2021, are based on 4,820 U.S. adults surveyed by web as a part of the Gallup Panel, a probability-based, non-opt-in panel of about 120,000 adults across all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

For its Life Evaluation Index, Gallup classifies Americans as “thriving,” “struggling” or “suffering” according to how they rate their current and future lives on a ladder scale with steps numbered from 0 to 10, based on the Cantril Self-Anchoring Striving Scale. Those who rate their current life a 7 or higher and their anticipated life in five years an 8 or higher are classified as thriving.

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A record-high 59.2% of Americans now rate their lives highly enough to be considered thriving. https://t.co/t85Tqb2qO1

— GallupNews (@GallupNews) July 7, 2021

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U.S. drug overdose deaths surged nearly 30 percent in 2020, reflecting toll of pandemic https://t.co/VUc3GdPmAN

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) July 14, 2021

The Wedding Dress; And Why I Tithe….
By Susan Clarkson Keller, St. Philip’s Church, Charleston

I began tithing sometime after college, when I began my first job. Despite being a young believer, I understood that tithing was a way to show God how much I trusted Him to provide for me.

Then a speaker came to St. Philip’s in the mid-1980s, whose message greatly impacted my thinking about giving. I was challenged not only to tithe, but to see everything I had as God’s and to realize what a blessing it would be to give more and more to the work of the Kingdom, in and out of the church. I decided then to start tithing my gross income… which was a big step for me. Since that time, I have experienced the faithfulness of God in providing for me in some truly remarkable ways….

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The Latest Edition of the #Anglican Diocese of South Carolina Enewsletter https://t.co/nPK8Lq6dwY #parishministry #anglican #religion #southcarolina #communications pic.twitter.com/akya2tigla

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) July 14, 2021

In this post, let me mention another way we can address this problem, and that is by fixing the one thing that is missing in most sermons today.

In my role as a seminary professor, I have heard a lot of sermons over the years. Some of these are from students preparing for ministry, but many are from seasoned pastors who’ve been in the pulpit for years.

And these sermons seem designed to do many positive things: inform, proclaim, teach, explain, illuminate, clarify, comfort, encourage, and motivate. And, sometimes, they do some less positive things: entertain, titillate, speculate, charm, beguile, and even amuse.

But there is one thing that very few sermons do, and that is persuade.

Now, a persuasive sermon may not be what you think. For most people, the word brings to mind formal “apologetics” where we make the case for Christianity over and against other worldviews.

And while some formal apologetics may be involved, I am using “persuade” here to refer to how a pastor might seek to show that any particular Christian doctrine, truth or behavior is genuinely wonderful, excellent, and worthy of our lives, and thereby better than any other alternative that is out there.

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Here's the one critical thing missing from most sermons, according to Dr. @MichaelJKruger. https://t.co/lugwHzpZiR

— Reformed Seminary (@ReformTheoSem) July 8, 2021

This rapid shift in American religion was driven primarily by evangelicals becoming more prominent in American culture. The rise of televangelists like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson coincided with the Religious Right beginning to assert itself in electoral politics. Because the nones were relatively small at this point, there’s ample reason to believe that significant numbers of mainline Protestants became evangelicals through the 1980s.

By the late 1980s, evangelicals had become 25–27 percent of the population, and the mainline population was stuck around 20 percent. In 1993, evangelicals hit their peak in the data at just under 30 percent and have since gone into a slow and steady decline over time.

Between 2000 and 2018, the decline among evangelicals has been relatively modest—just about two percentage points. The mainline also declined three times as fast during this same time period, dropping from 16 percent in 2000 to just over 10 percent in 2018.

When you look at where both traditions started in 1972, evangelicals are slightly up, while the mainline is significantly smaller.

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New @CTmagazine from me.

For every 3 mainliners who become evangelicals, there are 2 evangelicals who became mainline.

Evangelicals have relied on that to buoy their numbers for decades. But, as the mainline declines, that won't work going forward. https://t.co/eaBuI8dBuu

— Ryan Burge 📊 (@ryanburge) July 13, 2021

Almighty God, who didst give to thy servant Argula von Grumbach a spirit of wisdom and power to love thy Word and to boldly draw others unto its truth: Pour out that same spirit upon us, so that we, knowing and loving thy Holy Word, may be unashamed of Christ and may not sin against the Holy Spirit that is within us, Amen.

The Episcopal Church also commemorates Argula von Grumbach, Scholar & Church Reformer, c.1554 https://t.co/BMcyTAJKVO

The 1st known Protestant woman writer, she is best known for her letter to the University of Ingolstadt's faculty challenging the arrest of a Lutheran student pic.twitter.com/cIUkX9TwYn

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) July 14, 2020

O Lord Christ, by whose single death upon the cross the members of thy body also die to servitude and sin: Grant us so to crucify the old man, that the new may daily rise with thee in the immortal power of thy free Spirit, who liveth and reigneth with the Father and thee, one God, world without end.

Breathtakingly Beautiful Sunrise Sails Just Off The New Jersey Coast….⛵️🌅😍 pic.twitter.com/xEwTR7ZDme

— Gary (@DJGARYNH) July 13, 2021

But for thee, O Lord, do I wait;
it is thou, O Lord my God, who wilt answer….

Do not forsake me, O Lord!
O my God, be not far from me!
Make haste to help me,
O Lord, my salvation!

—-Psalm 38:15; 21-22

King David playing the harp

From the Westminster Psalter, c. 1200

Royal MS 2 A XXII, f. 14vhttps://t.co/PzDVFC8JE1 pic.twitter.com/eP0qfpftUf

— Medieval Manuscripts (@BLMedieval) July 13, 2021