Q. What are some of the biggest challenges for the church and how would you address those?<\/p>\n
A. One overall is the increasing secularization of our society. They have all these surveys that say church has been in a decline after the 1960s because that was such a different time. Across the board, it doesn\u2019t matter whether you\u2019re Roman Catholic, Episcopal or Lutheran, there\u2019s been a 23 percent drop off in church membership since 9\/11. It\u2019s an even a bigger shift in New England.<\/p>\n
The culture\u2019s changing so that\u2019s both a problem and an opportunity. This means there are a lot of people to reach through the Gospel. But it\u2019s going to take different ways of proclaiming that.<\/p>\n
Another change would be that we have churches that are doing fine and others that are struggling.<\/p>\n