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        <title>Christian Daily International | Data</title>
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                <title><![CDATA[Survey finds only half of South Korean church teens confident in the gospel, with family playing key role]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/survey-finds-only-half-of-south-korean-church-teens-confident-in-the-gospel-with-family-playing-key-role</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/survey-finds-only-half-of-south-korean-church-teens-confident-in-the-gospel-with-family-playing-key-role</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[CDI Staff]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[Worship, youth, young adults, teens, church, service]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Christian Daily International ]]>
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                                    <![CDATA[ A survey of more than 3,300 South Korean churchgoers found youth worship attendance and gospel confidence lagging behind adults, even as overall satisfaction with church life remained high. ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Thu, 20 Aug 2026 05:35:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[Fewer than half of female middle and high school students in South Korean churches say they are confident in the Christian gospel, and youth worship attendance remains well below pre-pandemic levels, according to a major new survey of the country's next generation of churchgoers.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
Fewer than half of female middle and high school students in South Korean churches say they are confident in the Christian gospel, and youth worship attendance remains well below pre-pandemic levels, according to a major new survey of the country's next generation of churchgoers.
The Pastoral Data Research Institute (PDRI), known in Korea as Mokdeyeon, published findings from its "Korean Church Next Generation Trend 2026" study on Aug. 18, according to reporting by Christian Daily Korea. The research, conducted over roughly a year beginning in 2025, surveyed 3,308 people across seven groups, including students, parents, teachers and ministry workers.
Overall, just 53% of middle and high school students attending Sunday school said they "believe" in the gospel with confidence. The figure varied sharply by gender: 57% of male students responded affirmatively, compared with 48% of female students. Students who described a close relationship with their parents reported higher gospel confidence at 59%, while those whose families hold regular home worship services reported the highest rate at 75%.
"The relationship with parents and family worship showed relatively high rates in connection with confidence in the gospel," PDRI said in its published findings.
The survey also documented a persistent gap in worship attendance between youth and adults since the COVID-19 pandemic. Using pre-pandemic attendance as a baseline of 100, adult worship participation had recovered to 94% as of May 2026, while Sunday school attendance stood at 81% — unchanged from January 2024, according to PDRI data.
That gap extends to weekly attendance. Among adult churchgoers surveyed, 75% said they attend worship every week, against 60% of youth — a 15-percentage-point difference. Of those youth who do attend, 43% said they participate in worship only, 30% in worship and Sunday school study, and 27% in a fuller range of church activities and fellowship.
Despite these figures, overall satisfaction among youth was relatively high. Some 64% of middle and high school students said they were satisfied with church life, giving it an average score of 3.9 out of 5. The leading reason for satisfaction was friendships, cited by 41%, followed by the pastor or associate pastor at 36%, and praise and worship at 32%.
Among dissatisfied students, 43% pointed to church programs and activities as the main problem, with the pastor and sermons each cited by 27%. Satisfaction with Sunday school teachers stood at 61%, three percentage points below the overall church satisfaction rate.
On factors that had supported their spiritual growth, students ranked summer and winter retreats first at 42%, followed by praise and worship at 39%, sermons at 28%, and fellowship with peers at 25%.
PDRI said its findings point to an ongoing need to strengthen retreat programming and praise ministries for youth, and called on churches to engage parents early in the year to encourage their children to attend retreats. The institute noted that declining birth rates and rapid social change are reshaping the environment surrounding the next generation of Korean Christians, making it essential for churches to assess where young people actually stand in their faith.]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA[Barna book argues worldview gap explains why many Christians think like the culture]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/barna-book-argues-worldview-gap-explains-why-many-christians-think-like-the-culture</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/barna-book-argues-worldview-gap-explains-why-many-christians-think-like-the-culture</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[CDI Staff]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[George Barnas new book, How to Think Like Jesus: 7 Cornerstones to Build a Biblical Worldview, releases Sept. 15, 2026.]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ George Barna's new book, How to Think Like Jesus: 7 Cornerstones to Build a Biblical Worldview, releases Sept. 15, 2026. ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Wed, 19 Aug 2026 10:31:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[A new book from Christian researcher George Barna argues that the reason many people who call themselves Christians think and live indistinguishably from the broader culture comes down to a missing foundation — not a lack of sincerity, but the absence of a coherent biblical worldview]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
A new book from Christian researcher George Barna argues that the reason many people who call themselves Christians think and live indistinguishably from the broader culture comes down to a missing foundation — not a lack of sincerity, but the absence of a coherent biblical worldview, a conclusion he draws from more than 1,000 surveys and interviews with over one million Americans.
How to Think Like Jesus: 7 Cornerstones to Build a Biblical Worldview, published by Arizona Christian University Press in partnership with Fedd Books, is scheduled for release Sept. 15, 2026.
Barna, who directs research at Arizona Christian University's Cultural Research Center, identifies seven core beliefs he describes as the non-negotiable building blocks of a biblical worldview — covering topics such as the nature of God, the authority of Scripture, human sin, the definition of truth, and what he calls God's definitions of meaning, purpose and success.
"Your worldview is only as strong as its foundation," Barna writes in the book. "You will experience as much success in life as your worldview allows."
The book grows out of research Barna has conducted at the Cultural Research Center, which also produced the ACU Worldview Assessment — an online tool that measures an individual's worldview and gives readers a score reflecting how their beliefs align with each of the seven cornerstones. "Because worldview is measurable, we have research data that identify the incidence of various worldviews, how people piece together the elements of their life philosophy, and insights into the life consequences of people's chosen philosophy," Barna writes.
The central distinction the book draws is between what Barna calls "genuine disciples" and "cultural Christians" — people who identify with Christianity but whose thinking and decision-making, he argues, have been shaped more by surrounding culture than by biblical convictions.
Barna is a professor at Arizona Christian University and founder of The Barna Group. He also serves as senior research fellow at the Family Research Council Center for Biblical Worldview and has authored or co-authored more than 60 books, including several New York Times and Amazon bestsellers. The new title builds on themes from his 2023 book, Raising Spiritual Champions: Nurturing Your Child's Heart, Mind and Soul.]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA[UN warns children are 'guinea pigs' for unregulated AI as online risks mount]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/un-warns-children-are-guinea-pigs-for-unregulated-ai-as-online-risks-mount</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/un-warns-children-are-guinea-pigs-for-unregulated-ai-as-online-risks-mount</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[CDI Staff]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[Imaginary Friend]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Pheniti/Adobe Stock ]]>
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                                    <![CDATA[ The United Nations is urging a fundamental shift: the burden of protecting children online must fall on the platforms generating harm, not on children, parents or caregivers. ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Wed, 19 Aug 2026 07:55:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[The United Nations is calling on governments, technology companies and advertisers to act on what it describes as a pressing and consequential policy challenge — the safety, rights and digital future of the world's most connected generation.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
The United Nations is calling on governments, technology companies and advertisers to act on what it describes as a pressing and consequential policy challenge — the safety, rights and digital future of the world's most connected generation.
The United Nations is calling for urgent, coordinated action to protect children and young people from escalating dangers in digital information spaces, warning that business models built on capturing attention and harvesting personal data are shaping the online experiences of a generation with little recourse against harm.
A new UN report released ahead of International Youth Day on Aug. 12 found that disinformation, algorithmic manipulation, targeted advertising, online harassment and opaque AI systems now pose serious and compounding threats to children's safety, development and rights. The brief, published Aug. 10 by the UN Department of Global Communications, is the third in a series examining how to strengthen integrity across global information environments.
"No child should be a guinea pig for unregulated AI," UN Secretary-General António Guterres said. "When a child is harmed, the answer must never be 'the algorithm did it.'"
More than 80% of young people between the ages of 15 and 24 are now online worldwide, the brief reported. In lower-income countries, young people are nearly twice as likely to use the internet as the broader population — even as significant digital divides persist within and across regions. In higher-income countries, children's relationship with digital platforms often begins in early childhood and deepens through adolescence.
Children and youth now engage with digital technologies across nearly every dimension of daily life: education, social connection, economic opportunity, entertainment and civic participation. Yet the platforms shaping those experiences were not designed with child welfare at the center.
Built for revenue, not for children
Technology companies have constructed their platforms around what researchers call the "attention economy" — business models that depend on maximizing the time users spend online and the data that can be extracted from their behavior, habits and emotional states. This model funds hyper-personalized advertising that can be tailored in real time to individual vulnerabilities and insecurities, the UN report said.
Children's still-forming cognitive and emotional capacities make them particularly susceptible to design features engineered to exploit psychological weaknesses. Algorithmic systems can trap young users in escalating content loops, exposing them to increasingly extreme material — including content related to self-harm, suicide, pornography, extremism and violence. Gaming and social media environments use deceptive interface designs, intermittent reward mechanics similar to slot machines, and "fear of missing out" tactics to drive compulsive engagement and spending.
Children also struggle to tell the difference between organic content and paid advertising, a gap that commercial interests are structured to exploit. Some technology companies have begun placing advertisements within AI-generated results and summaries, deepening an already wide literacy deficit.
"Protecting them and including them are not competing goals. We have to do both," said Charlotte Scaddan, UN Senior Adviser on Information Integrity.
The brief argues that framing these problems as a matter of parental oversight or individual screen time misses the structural forces driving harm. Digital systems are now so deeply woven into commercial, educational and social life that opting out is neither feasible nor realistic for most families. The burden, it says, must rest on the platforms generating the harm and the regulatory systems needed to govern them — not on children, parents or caregivers.
A global wave of regulation — with gaps
Governments around the world are moving to fill what the UN describes as critical policy gaps. Australia sparked international regulatory momentum in 2024 by requiring social media platforms to prevent users under 16 from holding accounts. The European Union is weighing a comparable measure across its 27 member states, while Indonesia and Malaysia have enacted similar laws. The United Kingdom plans to introduce age restrictions in early 2027.
Brazil's Digital Statute of the Child and Adolescent, enacted in September 2025, stands as one of the most comprehensive approaches to date. It prohibits behavioral advertising targeting minors, bans the use of children's personal data in ways that violate their rights and mandates the highest default privacy settings for users under 18 — while also requiring age verification mechanisms.
A UNICEF analysis across six jurisdictions — Australia, the European Union, India, Kazakhstan, South Africa and the United Kingdom — identified a cluster of common business obligations present in at least half the frameworks reviewed, including safety-by-design requirements, impact assessments, complaints procedures and transparency reporting. The African Union adopted a Child Online Safety and Empowerment Policy in 2024, though the UN brief notes that its effect depends heavily on the capacity and political will of individual member states.
Despite the breadth of this regulatory momentum, the brief warns that existing frameworks were not designed to address what is coming. AI technologies are introducing risks — synthetic content, AI-facilitated exploitation and opaque algorithmic systems shaping children's information environments — that current rules cannot adequately reach. The UN and children's rights experts have warned against a "wait-and-see" approach to AI governance, arguing that legislative frameworks should incorporate children's rights from the outset, before this window of opportunity closes.
Coalition puts children's rights at the center of AI governance
One month before the brief's publication, UN News reported on the launch in Geneva of the Coalition for Children's Rights and Protection in the Age of Artificial Intelligence — a new international body whose founding members committed to ensuring that children are treated not merely as technology users to be protected after the fact, but as rights holders whose perspectives shape how AI systems are designed in the first place.
Seventeen countries signed on at launch: Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Czech Republic, El Salvador, Estonia, France, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Luxembourg, Morocco, the Netherlands, the Republic of Korea and Spain. UN founding members include the Department of Global Communications, the UN human rights office, the International Telecommunication Union, the Office for Digital and Emerging Technologies, UNICEF and UNESCO.
The coalition is anchored in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the world's most widely ratified human rights treaty. Its formation followed Secretary-General Guterres's call for an AI Child Safety Pledge at the Global Dialogue on AI Governance in July, and a landmark G7 agreement among digital and technology ministers on common principles for safer digital spaces for children.
Youth as actors — and targets
The UN brief presents young people as active participants in public life — creators, advocates, organizers and civic leaders — whose capacities the information ecosystem should be designed to support rather than exploit.
Youth-led movements have demonstrated the power of digital platforms to mobilize rapidly and across borders, using shared cultural symbols to build transnational solidarity around issues from government corruption to climate change and human rights. These movements have, in some cases, outpaced governments' own messaging capabilities.
Yet the same environments enabling that civic energy also expose young activists to serious risks. Women and girls who enter the public sphere — as journalists, human rights defenders, politicians or activists — are disproportionately targeted by technology-facilitated violence, the brief said. Youth protesters have faced online harassment, state and non-state surveillance, disinformation campaigns designed to discredit their movements, internet shutdowns and the exploitation of algorithmic amplification by actors seeking to polarize and destabilize.
The brief also identifies a structural problem of representation. Despite the scale and sophistication of youth-led movements worldwide, young people's perspectives remain underrepresented in the policy forums where decisions about information integrity are made and contested. Closing this gap, the brief argues, is both a rights obligation and a practical requirement for building effective, durable solutions.
What the UN is calling for
The UN's recommendations are organized around five core principles drawn from its Global Principles for Information Integrity, launched by Guterres in June 2024.
On trust and resilience, the brief calls for states to require safety-by-design from technology companies and hold platforms accountable for outcomes rather than intentions alone. Age-appropriate design, it says, must be embedded in product architecture from the start — with the highest available privacy and safety settings as the default for younger users, not something they must navigate menus to find.
On advertising, the brief calls on advertisers to stop targeting minors with behavioral advertising and to ensure commercial messaging is clearly distinguishable from organic content. It points to Brazil's law and the EU's Digital Services Act as models, while calling for industry coalitions to establish shared norms around what constitutes manipulative or exploitative practice when directed at young audiences.
On public empowerment, the brief calls for digital and media literacy to be integrated into formal education from an early age, with content and methods tailored to children's developmental stage. It also calls for accessible, child-friendly mechanisms for reporting harm and seeking redress — including mental health referrals — available in local languages and designed with direct input from young people themselves. Accountability measures must ensure that platforms and other actors can be held responsible when their products cause measurable harm.
On independent media, the brief identifies the decline of local journalism and the spread of "news deserts" as a compounding problem for children's access to reliable, relevant information about their communities. AI companies are exacerbating that decline, it notes, through aggressive data scraping and zero-click summaries that bypass direct access to news websites. Young people are also increasingly media producers in their own right — through social media, podcasting and other platforms — and the brief argues that the same press freedom protections extended to professional journalists should apply to children and youth engaged in civic and journalistic expression online.
On transparency, the brief identifies a significant systemic barrier: technology companies hold vast quantities of data on how their platforms affect users, but that data is largely inaccessible to independent researchers. Without it, neither policymakers, educators, parents nor children themselves have the evidence needed to make informed decisions. The brief calls for data-sharing arrangements that protect user privacy while enabling rigorous independent scrutiny — with particular urgency around the AI systems now mediating so much of what children encounter online.
The brief also flags a geographic blind spot in the existing evidence base. Most research on children and digital environments has been conducted in North American and European contexts, despite the fact that most of the world's children and young people live in the global South. It calls for sustained investment in research capacity in underrepresented regions, alongside genuine partnerships with institutions and young people there.
Physical spaces as a necessary counterweight
A different kind of recommendation also included is an emphasis on physical environments. Community centers, libraries, youth clubs and other shared spaces outside the home and school — sometimes called "third spaces" — are essential foundations for information integrity, the UN report said. These are places where young people encounter different perspectives, practice civic engagement and develop the habits of mind that digital platforms alone cannot build.
The brief calls on states to work with all stakeholders to support the conditions for children and youth to have dynamic, varied lives beyond digital platforms — treating this not as a cultural preference but as a structural necessity for building resilient, informed and participatory societies.
Young people are not only among the populations most affected by the failures of the global information ecosystem, but also among the most motivated and capable of helping to fix it, the brief argued. The question, it says, is whether institutions — governments, technology companies, civil society, media organizations and the UN itself — are willing to bring them in as genuine partners rather than treating their protection as the whole of the problem.]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA[Canadian evangelical body launches study on pastor shortage]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/canadian-evangelical-body-launches-study-on-pastor-shortage</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/canadian-evangelical-body-launches-study-on-pastor-shortage</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[CDI Staff]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[Pastor, preaching, church, pulpit, bible]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Unsplash / Nycholas Benaia ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Tue, 18 Aug 2026 15:54:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada has announced a new research project to assess how many churches across the country lack pastoral leadership and what factors are driving that gap.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada has announced a new research project to assess how many churches across the country lack pastoral leadership and what factors are driving that gap.
The study, conducted through the EFC's Centre for Research on Church and Faith in partnership with Northwest Seminary's Propel Lilly grant program, will examine pastoral calling, training and long-term sustainability in ministry.
Researchers plan to conduct a needs analysis of past, present and projected pastoral workforce demands among EFC-affiliated congregations. They will also hold conversations with denominational, higher education and church leaders to identify what is preventing people from entering pastoral ministry — and what is driving current pastors to leave it.
The EFC said it has already begun consulting with affiliate leaders across Canada to ensure the study addresses their specific concerns about pastoral vitality in the 21st century.
According to the EFC, the Centre expects its findings to produce benchmark projections of current and future pastoral needs and to help church and denominational leaders develop strategies for identifying and recruiting pastoral candidates. Researchers also hope to clarify the relationships between denominations, congregations and Christian higher education institutions in forming the next generation of pastors.
The study is also expected to shed light on how pastors develop resilience and longevity in ministry — a question the EFC described as central to sustaining healthy churches over time.
Those with relevant perspectives or questions about the research may contact the team at research@theefc.ca.]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA[Most evangelicals give their spiritual lives a C+, new study finds]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/most-evangelicals-give-their-spiritual-lives-a-c-new-study-finds</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/most-evangelicals-give-their-spiritual-lives-a-c-new-study-finds</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[CDI Staff]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[worship, church, praying]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Unsplash / Ismael Paramo ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Tue, 18 Aug 2026 12:03:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[A new survey of 1,000 evangelical Protestants in the United States found that believers rate their own spiritual lives at an average grade-point equivalent of 2.42 — roughly a C+ — with evangelism, financial giving and tithing ranking as the weakest areas, according to research released by Infinity Concepts and Grey Matter Research.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
A new survey of 1,000 evangelical Protestants in the United States found that believers rate their own spiritual lives at an average grade-point equivalent of 2.42 — roughly a C+ — with evangelism, financial giving and tithing ranking as the weakest areas, according to research released by Infinity Concepts and Grey Matter Research.
The study, titled "The Spiritual Report Card: Perception vs. Practice Among Evangelicals", asked participants to grade themselves across 12 areas: prayer, Bible knowledge, Bible reading, tithing, charitable giving, volunteering, church attendance, worship, Christian relationships, evangelism, ministry involvement and their overall relationship with God.
Only 12% of respondents assigned themselves an average grade of A. At the other end, 16% averaged a D+ or below, including 2% who gave themselves a failing grade.
One of the more striking findings, according to the researchers, was how accurately believers' self-assessments reflected their actual behavior. Ron Sellers, president of Grey Matter Research, said the alignment between perception and practice was unexpected.
"When some evangelicals say they are struggling spiritually, they usually are not being overly critical — they are being honest," Sellers said. "What surprised us was not that Christians recognize their weaknesses — it's that their self-evaluations so often synchronize with their behavior. But we also see that recognizing the problem is not necessarily producing meaningful change."
The data showed the correlation playing out consistently across categories. Among those who gave themselves an A for Bible reading, the overwhelming majority reported reading Scripture daily. Among those who gave themselves a failing grade in the same category, few reported opening the Bible at all. Church attendance followed a similar pattern: 92% of those who graded themselves A in attendance said they attended in-person services weekly or more often, compared with just 7% of those who gave themselves an F.
Two categories where self-assessments appeared to outrun actual behavior were Bible knowledge and financial giving, according to the study.
Respondents rated prayer and their overall relationship with God as their strongest areas, while evangelism and financial generosity — both giving and tithing — were rated lowest.
Mark Dreistadt, president and CEO of Infinity Concepts, said the findings present both a challenge and an opening for church leaders.
"This study offers something every church leader wants but rarely has — a candid look at how believers evaluate their own spiritual health," Dreistadt said. "The encouraging news is that most Christians recognize both their strengths and their struggles. The challenge for the Church is helping people move from honest self-awareness to intentional spiritual growth."
The research was conducted by Grey Matter Research, a consumer insights firm that has worked with more than 100 charities, ministries and Christian denominations since 1996. The full report is available for download through Infinity Concepts.]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA[Young people twice as likely to want more liturgy, structure at church: Lifeway]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/young-people-twice-as-likely-to-want-more-liturgy-structure-at-church-lifeway</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/young-people-twice-as-likely-to-want-more-liturgy-structure-at-church-lifeway</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[The Christian Post]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[Young people twice as likely to want more liturgy, structure at church: Lifeway]]></media:title>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Fri, 07 Aug 2026 08:42:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[Younger churchgoers in the United States are twice as likely than older worshipers to want more liturgy and structure added to their church services, according to the Evangelical research group Lifeway Research.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
Younger churchgoers in the United States are twice as likely than older worshipers to want more liturgy and structure added to their church services, according to the Evangelical research group Lifeway Research.
Among churchgoers ages 18 to 29, 18% say they would like more liturgical elements, and 19% of those ages 30 to 49 say the same, compared with 9% of churchgoers 50 and older, a Lifeway survey of over 1,200 Protestant churchgoers found.
The gap also shows up in satisfaction.
Just 69% of churchgoers ages 18 to 29 and 30 to 49 say they are content with the current amount of liturgy in their church, compared with 80% of those 50 to 64 and 77% of those 65 and older.
Liturgical style refers to elements such as set prayers, responsive readings and formal patterns of worship, as opposed to a more informal or organic service.
Churchgoers who are 65 and older are more likely to say their church is very liturgical, 29%, compared with 15% of those ages 18–29.
The respondents were surveyed in September 2025, and the survey contains a sampling error that does not exceed plus or minus 3.2 percentage points. 
Scott McConnell, the group’s executive director, said many younger churchgoers are early in their spiritual growth and still working out how the overall narrative of Scripture connects.
"Liturgical elements such as creeds and other regular practices can serve as helpful reminders of biblical truths and provide structure that guides believers through worship,” McConnell said.
Nationally, most Protestant churchgoers are satisfied with their church’s worship style regardless of age.
Three in four churchgoers, 75%, say they are fine with the current amount of liturgical style in their church, while 13% would like more, 5% would prefer less and 7% are unsure.
Protestant churches vary widely in how they structure services. About one in four churchgoers, 24%, say their church has a very liturgical style. The largest share, 42%, say their church has some liturgical elements, while 27% say their church has none and 7% are unsure.
McConnell said individual churches and branches of Protestant Christianity carry different amounts of liturgy in their history, and called it reassuring that most churchgoers are comfortable with whatever style they attend.
“Whether a church uses responsive readings and creeds or a more organic style of worship, those different expressions share the same goal — helping people acknowledge God’s presence and worship Him together. When churches are moving in that same direction, a variety of worship styles can be effective,” said McConnell.
Among those who want change, few want less liturgy.
With 13% wanting more liturgical elements, 8% currently attend churches with some liturgical practices and 5% attend churches with none. Of the 5% who want less, 3% attend churches with some liturgical elements and 2% attend very liturgical churches.
A separate study conducted in 2019 found that only 15% of U.S. Protestant pastors named the task of navigating varying worship preferences as the biggest challenge they faced with music in their congregation.
According to the latest Lifeway research, denomination also correlates with liturgical style.
Almost half of nondenominational churchgoers, 45%, say their church has no liturgical style, as do 27% of Baptists. Most Lutherans, 56%, and nearly two in five Presbyterian or Reformed churchgoers, 38%, say their church is very liturgical.
Presbyterian or Reformed churchgoers, at 22%, are among the most likely to want more liturgical elements added to their services. Lutherans, at 10%, nondenominational churchgoers, at 9%, and Methodists, at 8%, are less likely to want additional liturgy. Nondenominational churchgoers report some of the highest satisfaction with their current worship style, at 79%, compared with 71% of Baptists.
Churchgoers who hold Evangelical beliefs are more likely than those who do not to say their church has no liturgical style, 34% against 19%.
Other demographic patterns also emerge. Men, at 26%, are more likely than women, at 21%, to say their church is very liturgical. African American churchgoers, at 19%, are more likely than white churchgoers, at 11%, and Hispanic churchgoers, at 10%, to say they want more liturgical elements.
Education level correlates with satisfaction. Churchgoers with a bachelor’s degree or graduate degree, 78%, are more likely than those with a high school education or less, 70%, to say they are content with their church's current amount of liturgical style.
Church size shows a similar pattern. Most churchgoers at churches with 500 or more attendees, 51%, say their congregation has no liturgical style, and 80% of those attendees say they are content with the current approach.
Originally published by The Christian Post.]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA[Practicing Christians use AI more than most Americans, Barna finds]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/practicing-christians-use-ai-more-than-most-americans-barna-finds</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/practicing-christians-use-ai-more-than-most-americans-barna-finds</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[The Christian Post]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[Practicing Christians use AI more than most Americans, Barna finds]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Getty Images/Exkalibur ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Wed, 29 Jul 2026 06:05:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[Practicing Christians are using artificial intelligence in both their work and personal lives more than most Americans, and nearly half of them say they would trust the technology with their spiritual growth, according to a recent survey from Barna Group.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
Practicing Christians are using artificial intelligence in both their work and personal lives more than most Americans, and nearly half of them say they would trust the technology with their spiritual growth, according to a recent survey from Barna Group.
The findings come from a survey of 1,514 U.S. adults conducted in November 2025 and another of 442 Protestant pastors conducted in December 2025. Researchers found that even though practicing Christians already use AI more than their pastors, they still want their guidance on engaging with the technology. Only a minority of pastors, around 12%, feel prepared to give guidance on using AI.
About 44% of practicing Christians say they use AI “very often” or “often” in their personal lives. This share is 13 percentage points higher than the 31% of U.S. adults overall who fall in the category of AI engagement. Only 29% of non-practicing Christians reported the same engagement.
When it comes to AI use on the job, 39% of practicing Christians reported using the technology often compared with just 26% of U.S. adults nationwide.
Only 16% of pastors say they use AI “often” personally and 5% said they engage AI for personal matters “very often.” Some 45% said they used AI “not very much” or “not at all.” About a third said they use AI only “sometimes.” Even for work purposes, 24% of pastors said they used the technology very often compared with 39% of practicing Christians.
Nearly half of practicing Christians say they would trust the technology with their spiritual growth. However, the data shows that spiritual growth isn’t the top priority for engagement.
Most Christians use AI for learning, getting advice or improving their writing much more than for interpreting Scripture or spiritual guidance.
“Ask people yes-or-no whether they use AI, and the average pastor and the average American look about the same,” Daniel Copeland, Barna’s vice president of research, said. “It’s frequency of use where the difference actually shows up.”
Research produced by Barna earlier this year suggests that about a third of practicing American Christians say the spiritual advice they get from artificial intelligence is just as good as that from a pastor, with practicing Christians more likely to agree with this notion than non-practicing Christians and non-Christians.
The findings come as advocacy organizations like Tech Justice Law, a public-interest litigation firm, push to ensure that “artificial intelligence products are safe by design, subject to oversight, and transparent to their users.”
“Our work is grounded in a simple, yet important premise: if it would be illegal, exploitative, or dangerous for a human actor to engage in certain conduct, it should not be immunized simply because the harm is mediated through software,” Tech Justice Law states on their website.
“This principle animated why, in fall 2024, we filed the first wrongful death case on behalf of Megan Garcia, against an AI chatbot company, Character.AI, its co-founders Noam Shazeer and Daniel DeFreitas, and Google.”
On Tuesday, Tech Justice Law was also one of several organizations that sued OpenAI and its co-founder and CEO Sam Altman on behalf of former Florida pastor Scott Winters, alleging he nearly died after ChatGPT-4o gave him inaccurate medical advice during several months of what he says were manipulative conversations.
Among other things, Winters’ lawsuit accuses OpenAI of engaging in the unauthorized practice of medicine and exploiting sensitive information about his religious beliefs to increase his engagement with the product. His medical struggles and increased dependence on the technology led him to leave his job as a pastor.
Originally published by The Christian Post.]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA['He is the Lord of the harvest and he will do it': Operation World editor calls Arise Asia to participation in unfinished task]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/he-is-the-lord-of-the-harvest-and-he-will-do-it-operation-world-editor-calls-arise-asia-to-participation-in-unfinished-t</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/he-is-the-lord-of-the-harvest-and-he-will-do-it-operation-world-editor-calls-arise-asia-to-participation-in-unfinished-t</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[CDI Staff]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[Jason Mandryk, editor of Operation World, addresses delegates during the morning session of the Arise Asia 2026 Congress in Manila, Philippines, July 28, 2026.]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Christian Daily International ]]>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Jason Mandryk, editor of Operation World, addresses delegates during the morning session of the Arise Asia 2026 Congress in Manila, Philippines, July 28, 2026. Mandryk presented data showing more than two billion people remain unevangelized worldwide, with 34,000 added to that number each day, while pointing to digital access, diaspora communities, and church planting movements as evidence the gap can be closed. ]]>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[A slide displayed during Jason Mandryks keynote address at the Arise Asia 2026 Congress in Manila, Philippines, July 28, 2026, shows that 81 percent of the worlds non-Christians do not personally know a follower of Jesus.]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Christian Daily International ]]>
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                                    <![CDATA[ A slide displayed during Jason Mandryk's keynote address at the Arise Asia 2026 Congress in Manila, Philippines, July 28, 2026, shows that 81 percent of the world's non-Christians do not personally know a follower of Jesus. Mandryk, editor of Operation World, cited the figure to illustrate what he described as the core relational barrier to global evangelization. ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Tue, 28 Jul 2026 20:15:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[The Great Commission will not be finished at the rate the church is currently working, Jason Mandryk told approximately 4,000 young Christians gathered for the Arise Asia 2026 Congress Tuesday morning (July 28) — and the numbers, he said, make that conclusion unavoidable.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
The Great Commission will not be finished at the rate the Church is currently working, Jason Mandryk told approximately 4,000 young Christians gathered for the Arise Asia 2026 Congress Tuesday morning (July 28) — and the numbers, he said, make that conclusion unavoidable.
Mandryk, a Canadian citizen living in South Korea who serves as editor of Operation World, the global prayer guide tracking the state of Christianity in every nation, opened the second day of the congress with a data-driven survey of the unfinished task. His address drew on statistics from the World Christian Database, Operation World, and the Joshua Project to argue that the Church needs to rethink the scale of its missionary effort — and then offered reasons, grounded in the same data, to believe that transformation is possible.
"Data is my love language," Mandryk said near the opening of his address, and he proceeded to spend the better part of an hour making good on the claim.
A gap that keeps widening
The first number Mandryk put before the congress was one that, he acknowledged, many in the room might already know. More than two billion people alive on earth today — 28 percent of the global population — have no meaningful access to the gospel. They have never heard the name of Jesus in a context where they could respond.
But the raw percentage understates the problem. Because the world's highest birth rates are concentrated in its least-evangelized regions, the number of unevangelized people is not shrinking. It is growing. Every day, Mandryk said, 34,000 more people are born into a world where they will not encounter the gospel.
"Trying a little bit harder isn't going to get rid of that deficit," he said. "We need to conceive of mission in an entirely new way, and we need to mobilize the whole Church to be part of the Great Commission."
Mandryk traced the trajectory across two millennia. In 50 AD, approximately 99.9 percent of humanity had not heard the gospel — the Church was barely a generation old. By 1960, that figure had dropped to 50 percent. By 2025, the most current data puts it at 28 percent. The progress is real. But the complication is that the raw number of unevangelized individuals has moved in the opposite direction: from 250 million at the time of the New Testament, to 1.5 billion in 1960, to more than 2 billion today.

The social geography of that gap is also stark. Eighty-one percent of the world's non-Christians, Mandryk said, do not personally know a single follower of Jesus. No Christian friend, no Christian colleague, no Christian family member. "The vast majority of people who become followers of Jesus do so because of a personal relationship with another Jesus follower," he said. "And yet the majority of those who aren't Christian don't know a Christian."
Where the need is concentrated
Mandryk showed a map dividing the world's unevangelized billions by region. The Americas account for only 12 million. Europe has roughly 30 million. The Pacific, 1.4 million. Africa jumps to more than 300 million. Asia accounts for 1.8 billion — alone representing nearly the entire unevangelized population of the world.
The most populous country in the world has 600 million people who have not heard the gospel. The second most populous has 500 million. "Just those two countries by themselves represent over a billion people who are still waiting to hear about Jesus," Mandryk said.
He then pointed out that the large majority of delegates in the room came from within the region he was describing. "Arise Asia therefore is one of the most strategic conferences in the world today," he said, "because we're mobilizing a new generation to go where there is no gospel — and that is mostly inside that circle, " as he pointed to Asia on his slide.
Among the world's unreached people groups, defined as communities where the Church has not grown large enough to evangelize its own members without outside help, the same pattern holds. India alone has by far the largest number; China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Iran together account for hundreds more.
The testimony problem
Mandryk spent a portion of his address on a challenge that, he said, has less to do with geography and more to do with how Christians present themselves to the world.
He cited recent research from the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association surveying Americans who do not attend church, focusing on younger demographics. The study found that the majority of those respondents were put off from engaging with Christianity because of the faith's association with a particular political figure. Mandryk insisted his point was not about politics as such, but about perception.
"The bottom line is that if our politics and the way that we communicate that puts up a barrier between people and encountering Jesus, then we really need to reexamine our hearts," he said. "This is not an ethical or a moral or a policy issue. This is a gospel issue."
He drew a contrast with the early Church. Quoting the early Christian theologian Tertullian, who wrote a defense of Christianity while it was still being actively persecuted by Rome, Mandryk cited the observation that pagans were drawn to the faith by watching how Christians treated one another: "See how they love one another and how ready they are to die for one another," he quoted Tertullian as saying.
He also recounted a story from roughly a century and a half later, during the reign of Julian the Apostate. When plague spread through cities and pagans fled, Christians ran toward the sick to care for those who had been abandoned. Christians had already become known for rescuing infants left to die of exposure by parents who did not want them, raising those children in their communities. Julian, Mandryk said, found this behavior so confounding — and so politically damaging to paganism — that he complained to his own priests about it.
"The Church grew in these centuries because of its fearless testimony to Christ, because of its love for one another, and because of its willingness to run into places of risk in order to demonstrate with their very lives the love of Jesus," Mandryk said.
Where the money goes
Mandryk cited another data point that he described as sobering. Of all giving by Christians — tithes, offerings, church contributions — only a small fraction of one percent reaches missionaries working among unevangelized peoples. By comparison, he noted, Americans spend more money annually on Halloween costumes for pets than the entire Christian world gives to frontier mission.
He connected this to a pattern he traced back more than two centuries. When a young William Carey raised the question — in his Baptist church in England in the late 1700s — of what Christians owed to those who had never heard the gospel, an elder of the church told him to sit down. "When God pleases to convert the heathen, he will do it without your aid or mine," the elder said.
"I thank God that William Carey did not sit down," Mandryk said. The movement Carey helped spark has since contributed to hundreds of millions of people hearing about Jesus, beginning with Carey's own decades in India.
Today, Mandryk said, roughly 15,000 long-term missionaries serve cross-culturally among unreached people groups. By his calculations, if every new missionary to such groups were responsible for reaching 50,000 people during their tenure, the Church would still need 75,000 additional workers — five times the current number — to cover the remaining unreached peoples. "The order of magnitude of need," he said, "is just staggering."
Reasons for confidence
Mandryk shifted, in the second half of his address, to evidence that the gap can be closed.
He pointed first to the quality of information now available. When Carey wrote his landmark 1792 pamphlet — one of the earliest surveys of global religious populations — he was working with a handwritten table of nations using place names that are barely recognizable today. Contemporary mission researchers now have access to detailed data on every country's religious demographics, church presence, and language groups, compiled by organizations including the World Christian Database, Operation World, and the Joshua Project.
Digital access is accelerating change in ways that Carey could not have imagined. Seventy-four percent of the world's population is now connected to the internet, Mandryk said. People in heavily restricted contexts — where asking a Christian neighbor about Jesus could result in violence or expulsion from one's family — can now explore the gospel privately, through social media, through apologetics channels, and through online Scripture tools available in hundreds of languages.
Among Muslims especially, Mandryk said he believes the combination of prayer and digital access is producing a historic shift. He cited a statement by a prominent Muslim leader who used the phrase "avalanche of apostasy" to describe the number of younger Muslims leaving Islam after researching it online. Several well-known apologists — including figures active on YouTube and social media — have reached Muslim audiences in ways that traditional outreach could not.
He also pointed to the spread of church planting movements and disciple-making movements: rapid multiplication networks operating outside conventional denominational structures, where new believers are immediately incorporated as evangelists. These movements, Mandryk said, are growing most quickly in historically unevangelized regions — the Muslim world, the Hindu world, and communities shaped by animist belief.
Diaspora communities add another layer. With more than 300 million people living outside their birth countries — a number that Mandryk noted includes himself (born in Canada, many years in England, now in South Korea) — the opportunity exists for believers from the Global South to carry the gospel back to their own unreached communities, through in-person witness, through return migration, and through digital media that reaches diaspora members worldwide.
"When we love one another in Jesus' name among the nations," Mandryk said, describing international mission teams made up of believers from Australia, Korea, Brazil, and Germany serving together in some parts of Asia, "there may be no more powerful way to convey the gospel."
The burden belongs to the Lord of the harvest
Mandryk closed with a word about where the weight of the Great Commission ultimately rests, emphasizing that it is not with the people in the room.
"We don't need to be distressed by the fact that 34,000 new unevangelized are being added every day," he said. "We don't need to be anxious about the reality of the thousands of unreached people groups still around the world today. Why? Because he is the Lord of the harvest and he will do it. And we just have the privilege of saying our ‘yes’ to God in order to be part of his story."
He listed the many forms that participation might take: going physically to a place where no church exists, engaging unreached communities through digital platforms, praying, giving, or equipping those who go. "The burden doesn't fall on us," he said. "Only the joy."
Arise Asia 2026 continues through the week in Manila.
Follow Christian Daily International's full reporting on Arise Asia 2026.]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA[Rogue AI breached real systems on its own — and companies say the era of theoretical risk is over]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/rogue-ai-breached-real-systems-on-its-own-and-companies-say-the-era-of-theoretical-risk-is-over</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/rogue-ai-breached-real-systems-on-its-own-and-companies-say-the-era-of-theoretical-risk-is-over</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[CDI Staff]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[Open AI Artificial Intelligence]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Unsplash / Levart_Photographer ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Wed, 22 Jul 2026 10:55:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[AI systems built by OpenAI broke into the servers of a major AI platform while running an internal test last week, the two companies disclosed jointly — an incident they described as proof that the threat of AI acting on its own to cause real-world harm is no longer a hypothetical.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
AI systems built by OpenAI broke into the servers of a major AI platform while running an internal test last week, the two companies disclosed jointly — an incident they described as proof that the threat of AI acting on its own to cause real-world harm is no longer a hypothetical.
OpenAI and Hugging Face, one of the world's largest repositories of publicly available AI models, confirmed the breach this week. Reuters also reported on the incident. Researchers and security professionals say the episode marks a turning point in a long-running debate over how capable — and how dangerous — advanced AI systems have become.
The breach began during a routine internal test at OpenAI designed to measure how effectively its AI could carry out cyberattacks. Two of the company's most advanced models were given a hacking challenge to solve, with their normal safety guardrails switched off — a standard practice during capability testing to see what the models can do without restrictions.
What happened next went well beyond what the researchers anticipated.
The AI systems, confined to what OpenAI described as a sealed testing environment with no access to the wider internet, found an undiscovered flaw in the software managing that environment and exploited it to break out and get online. OpenAI said it has since reported the flaw to the software maker.
Once online, the models reasoned that Hugging Face — a platform that hosts thousands of publicly available AI tools and datasets — might hold answers to the challenge they were trying to solve. They then used stolen login credentials and additional security flaws to gain access to Hugging Face's internal servers, where they retrieved data that would help them complete the test.
"All evidence suggests that the models were hyperfocused on finding a solution, going to extreme lengths to achieve a rather narrow testing goal," OpenAI said.
Hugging Face detected the intrusion while it was still underway and shut it down before fully knowing they were dealing with an AI. The company said no publicly available models or tools on its platform were altered, though some internal data and account credentials were accessed.
The attack involved more than 17,000 individual automated actions — searches, probes, attempts — carried out at machine speed. "This matches the scenario the industry has been forecasting," Hugging Face said in its disclosure.
Investigating what happened turned up a problem with implications beyond this incident. When Hugging Face's security team tried to use commercially available AI to help analyze the attack, those tools refused — their built-in safety filters blocked the security-related content, unable to tell a defender from an attacker. The company ultimately used a different, locally hosted AI model to complete the analysis.
That gap — attackers using AI with no restrictions while defenders find their AI tools blocked — is one that Hugging Face said organizations need to plan for now.
"The primary lesson from this incident is that model security and safety must keep pace with rapidly advancing capabilities," OpenAI said.
The UK government's AI Security Institute separately evaluated one of the OpenAI models involved and found it capable of carrying out complex, sustained cyberattacks over long periods — a capability this incident showed can translate from the lab to the real world.
OpenAI said it is improving the controls and monitoring around internal AI testing, and both companies said they are continuing to investigate the incident together. OpenAI is sharing early findings, it said, so that other organizations can begin strengthening their own defenses.
Hugging Face co-founder and CEO Clem Delangue said the incident shows why openness across the AI industry matters more than secrecy. "AI safety won't be solved by any single company working in secret," he said. "It will be solved in the open, collaboratively, with broad access to AI for every defender, everywhere."]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA[Less than 1% of trafficking victims are ever identified, but church can help, anti-trafficking leader tells UN forum]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/less-than-1-of-trafficking-victims-are-ever-identified-but-church-can-help-anti-trafficking-leader-tells-un-forum</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/less-than-1-of-trafficking-victims-are-ever-identified-but-church-can-help-anti-trafficking-leader-tells-un-forum</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[CDI Staff]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[Sarah Scott Webb, representing the World Freedom Network, tells UN forum delegates that fewer than one percent of trafficking victims are ever officially identified.]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Christian Daily International ]]>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Sarah Scott Webb, representing the World Freedom Network, tells UN forum delegates that fewer than one percent of trafficking victims are ever officially identified. ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Mon, 13 Jul 2026 18:30:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[Fewer than one in a hundred victims of human trafficking is ever formally identified, a global anti-trafficking advocate told a United Nations side event Monday, calling the gap a fundamental failure of protection systems worldwide — and a challenge the church is uniquely placed to help address.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
Fewer than one in a hundred victims of human trafficking is ever formally identified, a global anti-trafficking advocate told a United Nations side event Monday, calling the gap a fundamental failure of protection systems worldwide — and a challenge the church is uniquely placed to help address.
Sarah Scott Webb, founder and director of the Oceania Freedom Network and a leader within the World Freedom Network, addressed the High-Level Political Forum side event "From Commitment to Action: Urban Solutions to Human Trafficking in Liberia and Sierra Leone," held July 13 at the Salvation Army's International Social Justice Commission in New York.
"Less than one percent of trafficking victims are ever officially identified," Webb told the gathering. "That means for every one victim who reaches protection and assistance, more than ninety-nine remain invisible — invisible to governments, invisible to services, invisible to justice, invisible to us."
Webb argued that victim identification is the single most critical bottleneck in the global anti-trafficking response. "Victim identification is the gateway to every other part of the anti-trafficking response," she said. "Without identification, victims aren't protected, traffickers aren't held accountable, communities remain vulnerable, and the true nature of trafficking stays hidden."
The side event was planned by the World Evangelical Alliance's UN New York team as part of its ongoing advocacy on human trafficking policy, and co-organized by the World Freedom Network, Rain Collective, and World Hope International. It brought together UN member states, UN agencies, researchers, civil society, and faith-based organizations to examine evidence-based approaches to combating trafficking, with a particular focus on Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Speakers discussed research findings from both West African countries, where grassroots programming by trusted local networks is working to strengthen community resilience against emerging forms of exploitation. The session was framed around Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities, and SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals.
At the heart of Webb's address was a challenge to how victim identification is understood. She said the standard definition — the moment an official authority formally certifies someone as a trafficking victim — is correct but incomplete, because it captures only the end of a much longer process.
She drew on her home country as an illustration. In New Zealand, she said, victim identification is considered to have occurred at the moment Immigration New Zealand formally certifies that the legal threshold for trafficking or exploitation has been met. That determination unlocks legal protections for the person involved. "That's how victim identification is commonly understood — and it's not wrong," Webb said. "But it's incomplete. Because it's only the very end of the identification process, not the whole thing."
"Victim identification begins long before that moment of formal determination," she said. "It is more accurately defined as a process — a series of interactions where different people, at different points of contact, notice indicators of trafficking, build trust, ask the right questions, share information, and make decisions that shape what happens next in a victim's journey to safety."
Webb illustrated the point with an account of a young migrant woman who passed through a health clinic, a factory labor audit, a place of worship, and an immigration encounter — each interaction a missed opportunity. "At every point she was visible. She interacted with multiple systems designed to protect people. And yet identification never happened. Not because no one cared, but because each point of contact saw only one piece of her story."
She contrasted this with a different version of the same encounters, in which a health worker asks whether the woman is free to leave her job, a labor auditor notices her passport is not in her possession, a faith leader recognizes fear rather than stress and knows who to call, and an immigration officer pauses to ask questions before issuing a penalty. "Nothing about the victim changed," Webb said. "Everything changed about the ecosystem."
Webb emphasized that victim identification requires awareness, trust, screening, referral, and partnership across multiple sectors. Governments, law enforcement, health professionals, businesses, researchers, churches, and civil society all have a place within it, she said, but none can do the work alone.
The role of churches and faith communities drew particular emphasis. Webb noted that faith communities often hold the trust and local access that formal systems lack, giving them the ability to reach people who would never approach a government office or law enforcement agency.
"Civil society and faith communities bring trust, local knowledge and access to vulnerable communities," Webb said. "Together, we create the conditions in which victims can be recognized, protected and supported."
That argument has a long international pedigree, she noted. The Palermo Protocol — the United Nations agreement that has formed the legal backbone of the global anti-trafficking response for more than two decades — has recognized partnership as one of the foundations of an effective response since its adoption. SDG 17 reinforces the same principle, she said, affirming that complex global challenges can only be solved through strong, multi-stakeholder collaboration.
She noted that the importance of partnership was affirmed at the same day's ministerial session of the UN General Assembly. "Partnership is essential," she said, "emphasized by the president of the General Assembly at this morning's ministerial session at the UN."
Webb also highlighted the need for evidence over assumption. Research into why victims remain hidden — what barriers exist, where systems break down, which partnerships make the greatest difference — is what makes better policy and practice possible, she said.
"If we can't understand why victims remain hidden, we cannot build the ecosystems that help them be found," she said.
The stakes are high: an estimated 50 million people live in modern slavery globally, with 27.6 million trafficked into situations of forced labor. The response to those numbers, she said, depends on persuading every sector of society — including the church — to see victim identification as a shared responsibility rather than a task delegated to authorities.
"We need to stop seeing victim identification as an event," she said, "and start seeing it as a shared responsibility. Our responsibility."]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA[Sabbaticals, role changes top pastor wishlist for burnout relief—but few can access them]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/sabbaticals-role-changes-top-pastor-wishlist-for-burnout-reliefbut-few-can-access-them</link>
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                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[CDI Staff]]></dc:creator>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Mitchell Leach | Unsplash ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Wed, 08 Jul 2026 16:33:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[More than half of Protestant pastors in the United States say they need help with their physical and mental health, while the burnout-relief measures they believe would work best remain largely out of reach, according to new research from Barna Group.]]></description>
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More than half of Protestant pastors in the United States say they need help with their physical and mental health, while the burnout-relief measures they believe would work best remain largely out of reach, according to new research from Barna Group.
The findings, published July 6 from a survey of 507 U.S. Protestant senior pastors conducted in early 2026, come as pastoral exhaustion has eased and confidence in calling has largely recovered from pandemic-era lows. Vocational satisfaction, however, has not followed. The share of pastors who describe themselves as "very satisfied" with their vocation has dropped 20 percentage points since 2015, from 72 percent to 52 percent.
When asked which area of their lives needed the most support, 52 percent of pastors named mental and physical health—well ahead of close relationships (41 percent) and financial stability (36 percent). Spiritual connection came in at 30 percent.
Age and gender shape those priorities. Pastors under 45 flag health concerns at higher rates than older colleagues—62 percent versus 51 percent. Female pastors prioritize health at even higher rates, with 66 percent naming it a top need compared to 49 percent of male pastors. Men, meanwhile, are somewhat more likely to identify close relationships as a pressing concern.
On the question of what would actually help, pastors were asked to rate a set of burnout-relief actions by both helpfulness and difficulty. Three responses stood out as high on both dimensions: extended rest such as a sabbatical, delegating responsibilities to staff or other leaders, and restructuring one's role to better match personal gifts and limits. Pastors say these measures would make the most difference. They also describe them as the hardest to take.
Sabbaticals require congregational backing and staffing cover. Delegation depends on having people to delegate to. Role restructuring requires a leadership team or board willing to raise and sit with uncomfortable questions. None of these can be accomplished unilaterally.
"There's a difference between recovering from burnout and actually resolving it," said Daniel Copeland, Barna's vice president of research. "Consistent rest, boundaries, and personal spiritual practices build the weekly rhythms that keep a pastor healthy. But the deeper question—whether your role is genuinely an expression of your gifts and strengths—requires a different kind of time and attention altogether."
Several relief measures that pastors find more accessible also registered as meaningful: consistent personal spiritual practices, clearer expectations around role and schedule, short breaks such as a long weekend, and honest conversations with close friends or family. These ranked as helpful and relatively achievable.
At the bottom of the helpfulness rankings, the Barna research found, are resources and curricula specifically designed for burned-out pastors—despite their wide availability. The gap between what is offered and what pastors say would help is substantial.
Support structures within ministry show a similar unevenness. Eighty percent of pastors say they rely on a spouse as their primary personal support, and 65 percent turn to a fellow pastor or ministry leader. Forty-two percent name a close friend outside the church. Mentors or spiritual directors are cited by 30 percent, and only 18 percent say they rely on a counselor or therapist.
Female pastors draw on a wider range of support: they are more likely than male pastors to name friends outside the congregation (51 percent vs. 38 percent), family members (52 percent vs. 32 percent), mentors (36 percent vs. 28 percent), and therapists (29 percent vs. 14 percent).
Copeland said the data points to a gap between the institutional support structures churches typically offer and the conditions pastors say they actually need. "Pastors deserve the time to step back and ask honestly whether their role is an expression of their actual gifts," he said. "If there's any vocation we want liberated from the mundane, it's this one."
The research was conducted by Barna Group as part of its State of the Church initiative, produced in partnership with Gloo.]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA[Secular charity challenges UK Government’s evidence for LGBT conversion therapy ban]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/secular-charity-challenges-uk-governments-evidence-for-lgbt-conversion-therapy-ban</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/secular-charity-challenges-uk-governments-evidence-for-lgbt-conversion-therapy-ban</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[Chris Eyte]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[LONDON, ENGLAND - JULY 4: A parade-goer applies rainbow face paint ahead of the Pride In London 2026 parade on July 4, 2026 in London, England.]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Alishia Abodunde/Getty Images ]]>
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                                    <![CDATA[ LONDON, ENGLAND - JULY 4: A parade-goer applies rainbow face paint ahead of the Pride In London 2026 parade on July 4, 2026 in London, England. ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Wed, 08 Jul 2026 15:33:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[A secular sexual rights group challenged the reliability of evidence supporting UK Government plans for a ban on LGBT conversion practices, claiming the underlying data fails to justify the creation of a new criminal law.]]></description>
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A secular sexual rights group challenged the reliability of evidence supporting UK Government plans for a ban on LGBT conversion practices, claiming the underlying data fails to justify the creation of a new criminal law.
Parents and church pastors in the United Kingdom could face court trials, hefty fines, and prison time under the proposed ban on practices aimed at changing sexual orientation or identity, as previously reported by Christian Daily International. 
The Labour government published the Conversion Practices Draft Bill on June 25, aiming to criminalize abusive practices intended to  change or suppress sexual orientation or transgender identity. The legislation, which follows similar proposals introduced by the previous Conservative government, aims to introduce civil protection orders alongside criminal penalties to protect vulnerable individuals. 
Under the draft text, the law would apply to any conduct directed at people with the explicit intention of changing or suppressing their sexual orientation or gender identity.
Sex Matters, a U.K.-based human rights charity that campaigns for clarity on sex in law, policy, and language, challenged the evidence used by the government for the planned law.
"I am satisfied that, given the available evidence, it represents a reasonable view of the likely costs, benefits and impact of the leading options," Minister for Equalities Olivia Bailey said after signing the impact assessment.
Bailey also told the House of Commons that her decision relied on evidence regarding the prevalence and types of conversion practice abuse in the UK. She highlighted a new report titled "Still not Illegal: Evidence of modern-day conversion practices" by LGBT anti-violence charity Galop, which she said revealed hundreds of case studies alleging appalling abuse happening right now across the country.
However, Sex Matters pointed out that the report only contained a few dozen brief accounts.
"Most describe experiences that should not concern criminal law at all, such as family disagreements and 'misgendering,'" Sex Matters said in an online statement challenging the methodology of the research. "A handful concern assault and rape, which are already crimes. Overall it contains analysis of fewer than 200 cases, which are described in minimal detail."
The charity noted that both Bailey and Galop failed to mention that the evidence appeared to include the entirety of calls received by the government’s national conversion-therapy helpline. Galop received £360,000 ($479,966 USD) over three years to run the service, describing it at the time as a vital lifeline for the community. The funding followed a competitive bidding process managed by the Cabinet Office.
The Government Equalities Office (GEO) initially anticipated around 10,000 calls each year, based on a 2018 National LGBT Survey where 2% of respondents said they had undergone conversion therapy and 5% said they had been offered it.
"But the Galop report’s findings seem to suggest that only a handful of people – in single figures each year – called to report 'conversion therapy,'" Sex Matters said.
Sex Matters also stated that the Cabinet Office’s impact assessment made no mention of the three-year helpline data. When the charity requested performance and outcomes data from the GEO in 2023, the government office refused to disclose the details, claiming it would prejudice Galop’s commercial interests. 
According to Sex Matters, the figures in the Galop report indirectly reveal that only a handful of people ever called the helpline to report actual conversion practices. Instead of reflecting on the evidence from an almost silent helpline, the government doubled down on the idea that tens of thousands of people experience conversion therapy annually.
The group also challenged a survey commissioned by the LGBT rights charity Stonewall and conducted by Opinium Research in early 2024. The survey involved interviewing 2,000 adults online who identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender.
"It came up with a ludicrous figure of 10% for the proportion of LGBTQ+ people in the UK who have undergone an exorcism, and 2% for the proportion who had undergone an exorcism in the previous year alone," Sex Matters stated, questioning the demographic weighting of the study.
The charity referenced calculations by mathematician Dr. John Armstrong, who pointed out that this percentage would imply that clergymen in the UK perform approximately 24,600 gay exorcisms a year. For comparison, the total number of religious weddings in England and Wales in 2022 was 41,915, making the statistical claim highly improbable.
Furthermore, Sex Matters questioned the government’s interpretation of data from the Stonewall survey regarding allegations of conversion practice abuse.
"The government plucks from the Stonewall survey the number who said they had been told to ingest 'purifying' substances (11% ever and 2% in the past year) or who said they had been given 'pseudo-scientific counselling' to try to change their sexual orientation or gender identity (12% ever and 2% in the past year)," Sex Matters said. 
"It adds these figures and multiplies the sum by the number of LGB or T people found in the most recent census to conclude that 'approximately 75,000 to 93,000 people each year in England and Wales experience conversion practices based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.'"
Using those figures alongside an American study on depression risks, the government’s impact assessment calculated that a ban would prevent 28,486 to 35,268 cases of depression annually, saving the country around £700 million over 10 years. The government estimated the ban would cost £45 million ($60 million USD) to implement, including providing 45 minutes of education about the new law for public sector workers, including police officers, doctors, nurses, and social workers.
"These figures are fantastical," Sex Matters said.
The charity noted that Galop released its research report claiming to show the stark reality of modern-day conversion practices on the exact same day that the government published its draft bill. The Galop report, funded by UK Research and Innovation through Leeds University, examined records of 13,500 Galop clients between November 2022 and November 2025. This period coincided with the operation of the federally funded helpline, which also received a contribution of £30,000 per year from the Welsh government.
The principal investigator for the study, Professor Ilias Trispiotis, sits on the steering group of the Ban Conversion Practices coalition. 
Researchers found 371 potential cases among the client base, but judged only 195 to have sufficient depth and detail to use as evidence. Only 29 of those cases came through any of Galop's helplines, with most originating from official referrals for domestic abuse, housing, or hate crimes.
According to Sex Matters, 76% of the identified cases occurred within families, mostly involving actions by parents toward their often adult children. The charity noted that no examples of historical aversion therapy involving electric shocks or physical mistreatment appeared in the study.
"Cases such as 'intentional refusal to use a chosen name or pronouns' or suggesting that healing trauma could lead to a client no longer being transgender are not abuse at all, but are rather accounts of parents or therapists not accepting the idea of 'gender identity,'" Sex Matters said. 
"The Stonewall survey and the Galop cases are the best evidence the government has of conversion practices in the UK which merit a new criminal law. Even added together, they are remarkably weak."]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA[PCUSA sees membership drop by nearly 27,000, loss of 128 churches: report]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/pcusa-sees-membership-drop-by-nearly-27-000-loss-of-128-churches-report</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/pcusa-sees-membership-drop-by-nearly-27-000-loss-of-128-churches-report</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[The Christian Post]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[PCUSA sees membership drop by nearly 27,000, loss of 128 churches: report]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ Courtesy PCUSA ]]>
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                                    <![CDATA[ The national office for the mainline denomination Presbyterian Church (USA), located in Louisville, Kentucky. ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Fri, 03 Jul 2026 07:03:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[Presbyterian Church (USA), the largest Presbyterian denomination in the United States, lost over 26,000 members and 128 congregations in 2025, according to a new report.]]></description>
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Presbyterian Church (USA), the largest Presbyterian denomination in the United States, lost over 26,000 members and 128 congregations in 2025, according to a new report.
A "Narrative Summary" of statistics released ahead of the PCUSA's 227th General Assembly was emailed to The Christian Post on Monday, showing a decline of 26,845 members from 2024 to 2025, with the denomination’s official membership number being 1,019,003 by the end of last year.
The summary was part of the Annual Statistical Report, prepared by the Office of Statistics and Rolls in collaboration with Research Services.
Although the denomination continued its decades-long decline, the report described 2025 as its "slowest rate in a decade." Membership fell by about 2.6% last year, well below the average annual decline of 4.6% over the previous 10 years.
Regarding member demographics, the report found that 60% were over the age of 55, including 35% who were aged 71 or older. By contrast, only 4% of members were aged 18 or younger.
The denomination also reported having 8,304 congregations at the end of 2025, which is 128 fewer than in 2024. Nearly all of these losses involved dissolutions of churches.
PCUSA reported launching 11 “newly organized congregations” last year, but also had 12 congregations that were “dismissed to other denominations,” according to the summary.
In recent decades, the PCUSA has seen a sharp decline in its membership, dropping from more than 2.5 million members in 2000 to just over 1 million members as of last year.
One contribution to the decline has been the theologically liberal direction of the denomination, which has prompted hundreds of congregations to disaffiliate in protest.
In 2010, for example, when the PCUSA General Assembly voted to allow regional bodies to ordain non-celibate homosexuals, about 300 congregations opted to leave the denomination in response, forming the theologically conservative ECO: A Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians.
PCUSA dipped below the 2 million member mark in 2011, according to numbers released in 2012, with then-PCUSA Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons saying at the time that it came down to "[a]t least two challenges."
"The first and primary need is to continue to increase our efforts to live out the Great Commission and share the good news of Jesus Christ," stated Parsons. "The second is to connect with the growing number of the 'Spiritual But Not Religious.'"
In May 2025, PCUSA's Interim Unified Agency reported that the denomination lost nearly 49,000 members in 2024, going from approximately 1.094 million in 2023 to approximately 1.045 million.
The Rev. Tim Cargal, who oversaw the report, told Presbyterian News Service last year that, at the current rate of decline, the PCUSA will dip below 1 million members by the end of 2025.
"Like all 'milestone' numbers, that will certainly garner a lot of attention, and deservedly so," Cargal explained at the time. "However, net losses do not tell the whole story."
"The broader American societal trends are of declining religious participation across denominations and faith traditions, but even in that context, the PCUSA is continuing to bring people into Christian community."
Originally published by The Christian Post.]]></content:encoded>
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                <title><![CDATA[New study links marriage to lower rates of family breakdown]]></title>
                <link>https://www.christiandaily.com/news/new-study-links-marriage-to-lower-rates-of-family-breakdown</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.christiandaily.com/news/new-study-links-marriage-to-lower-rates-of-family-breakdown</guid>
                                                            <dc:creator><![CDATA[Christian Today]]></dc:creator>
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                            <media:title><![CDATA[New study links marriage to lower rates of family breakdown]]></media:title>
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                                    <![CDATA[ New study links marriage to lower rates of family breakdown ]]>
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                                                                            <pubDate>Tue, 23 Jun 2026 02:24:00 -0400</pubDate>
                <description><![CDATA[A new study has challenged decades of academic and policy assumptions about the role of marriage in family stability, arguing that its benefits have been significantly underestimated.]]></description>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[
A new study has challenged decades of academic and policy assumptions about the role of marriage in family stability, arguing that its benefits have been significantly underestimated.
The report, "The Timing of Marriage and Union Dissolution", was produced by the Marriage Foundation in partnership with the Centre for Social Justice and is based on the doctoral research of Dr Harry Benson at the University of Bristol. 
The study examines whether lower rates of relationship breakdown often associated with marriage are primarily the result of factors like income, education and age, or whether marriage itself contributes to relationship durability.
According to the report, previous influential studies, including work by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), concluded that married couples were more likely to stay together largely because they tended to be older, wealthier and better educated than those who cohabit. 
Dr Benson argues that these studies were methodologically flawed and that they substantially underestimated the independent role of marriage.
“My analysis of the entire sample, using improved state-of-the-art methodology, shows that marriage accounts for half or more of the gap in union dissolution,” he writes in the report. 
The research uses data sourced from the Millennium Cohort Study, which followed 18,827 children born between 2000 and 2002 in the UK through their early teenage years. 
Dr Benson analysed a representative sample of more than 3,300 couples over a 14-year period and controlled for 27 factors, including age, education, income, religion, housing tenure and smoking habits.
The findings suggest that couples who marry before having children experience substantially lower rates of separation than couples who never marry. 
By their child’s fourteenth birthday, parents who had never married faced a separation rate almost twice (45%) that of those who had married before their first child was conceived (26%). 
Dr Benson suggests this may reflect what commitment theorists describe as “sliding” into marriage under social or family pressure, rather than making a deliberate commitment earlier in the relationship. 
Even so, these marriages remained more stable than relationships in which parents never married. Couples who married during pregnancy (34%) or after the birth of a child (23-30%) had considerably lower rates of relationship breakdown than those who remained unmarried (45%).
The report found that relationship instability was highest among cohabiting couples during the first three years of parenthood, with annual separation rates of around 4.1%. 
Married parents, by contrast, experienced separation rates of approximately 2.5-2.7% during the same period.
Dr Benson said the findings support the view that marriage itself plays a role in strengthening relationships.
“In short, being married substantially increases the chances that parents stay together, regardless of when marriage occurs, before, during, or after pregnancy, and regardless of socio-economic background,” he wrote in the report.
He added: “This groundbreaking study categorically demonstrates the benefits of marrying, and blows apart decades of Government policy that has consistently downgraded marriage to just another form of relationship like cohabitating. 
“It also serves as a rebuke to those politicians who have sneered at the institution and have, through their actions, actively discouraged marriage among the poorest couples with punitive welfare policies and a lack of courage to promote marriage for fear of being seen as old-fashioned or judgmental.”
The study draws on several psychological theories to explain the findings. These include commitment theory, which suggests that marriage solidifies dedication between partners while producing legal, social and emotional boundaries that raise the cost of exit. 
The report also references cognitive consistency theory and signal theory, both of which argue that marriage can strengthen commitment by publicly signalling long-term intentions and aligning behaviour with those commitments.
The report places its findings within the context of wider social changes in Britain. 
It notes that births outside marriage have risen from around 5% in the early 1960s to nearly half of all births today, while family instability increasingly occurs among cohabiting rather than married couples.
Crucially, most of these non-marital births are jointly registered by cohabiting couples rather than lone mothers, reflecting a structural shift in how families form.
According to the study, these trends have contributed to growing concerns about the social and economic costs associated with family breakdown.
The report argues: “If marriage itself contributes to stability, then policies that are neutral on marriage are not neutral in effect. Reducing social and fiscal barriers to marriage could therefore play a meaningful role in strengthening family stability and reducing the long-run social and economic costs of family breakdown.”
Among its recommendations, the study calls for greater public awareness of the stabilising effects of marriage, reforms to welfare policies that may discourage marriage, and targeted support for lower-income couples. 
It emphasises that “policy interventions which encourage timely marriage, through social messaging and targeted fiscal incentives, can strengthen family stability without coercion.”
Dr Benson said that reducing the social and fiscal barriers to marriage “would play a meaningful role in strengthening family stability and reducing the massive social and economic costs of family breakdown”, which he said run into the billions. 
“Yet the Government spends as little as £1 helping families stay together for every £6,000 in dealing with the consequences of family breakdown,” he said. 
“Even if they only addressed the appalling couple penalty in the benefits system that has actively deterred people from getting married, and stopped spouting the crazy and factually inaccurate mantra that all relationships are the same, and recognised that marriage is the gold standard of relationship types, that would be a step in the right direction.”
The report recommends further research into commitment and relationship outcomes, including the impact on children's wellbeing.
Originally published by Christian Today.]]></content:encoded>
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