I’m in Nashvegas today working on materials for my book, Essential Church. It’s now available for pre-order - check it out!
A new study from the Pew Research Center uncovers some contrarian results regarding wealth desires in the United States. The study elucidates:
Only 13% of adults say it’s “very important” for them to be wealthy, ranking this personal priority far behind six others measured in a new survey by the Pew Research Center Social & Demographic Trends project.
These measures point to what Americans value most. The list shakes out in the following rankings:
What We Value Most (% saying item is “very important” to them)
67% - Have enough free time to do the things you want to do
61% - Being successful in a career
61% - Having children
53% - Being married
52% - Doing volunteer work or donating to charity
52% - Living a religious life
13% - Being wealthy
I’m surprised by the findings – “being wealthy” pulls up in last place. But the survey report adds:
Don’t get Americans wrong — a majority certainly wouldn’t mind being rich. According to the survey, another 43% of adults say being wealthy is “somewhat important” to them, while about the same proportion say it’s “not too important” (33%) or “not important at all” (10%). These survey findings cannot answer whether most Americans genuinely place a medium-to-low value on wealth, or whether they accept the fact that they’ll never be rich, or whether they’re reluctant to admit that money matters a lot to them. But whatever the explanation, it’s striking how few Americans rank being wealthy as a top priority in their lives.
My puzzlement about these findings unwound some after reading the next section:
Who most wants to be rich? Those who aren’t, this survey suggests. Fully 22% of those with family incomes of less than $20,000 a year say it’s “very important” for them to be wealthy. That’s more than double the proportion of adults who earn $100,000 or more a year.
Paradoxically, while the least affluent are the most likely to value wealth the most, they’re also among the most likely to value wealth the least. Fully 13% of those in the less-than $20,000 income category say becoming wealthy is “not important at all” to them, nearly double the proportion of those in the $100,000 or more category who hold this view. As it turns out, there’s an age-related explanation for these seemingly inconsistent results. Those in the lowest income tier contain disproportionately large numbers of adults under the age of 30, a group that most values wealth, but also a heavy share of retirement-age adults, a group that values wealth the least.
Perhaps this study helps shed some light on the success of the prosperity gospel in our nation. What’s your take? Can we connect the dots with this report and what seems to be an abundance of health and wealth messages?
I returned home from my hiking trip at the Grand Canyon to a bundle of unread emails and Google Reader items. I tried in vain to get cell phone and Internet/email reception in the backcountry, but God has preserved the canyon from these mind-zapping communication trinkets.
Perhaps like many of you, I was disheartened to find several commentaries on the declines in the SBC. For those of you who don’t know much about the Southern Baptist Convention, click here for some information. It is the denomination to which I belong, and the way in which my church cooperates with other churches for the sake of the gospel.
The facts are fairly straightforward:
Baptisms in the Southern Baptist Convention fell for the third straight year in 2007 to the denomination’s lowest level since 1987, dropping nearly 5.5 percent to 345,941, according to LifeWay Christian Resources’ Annual Church Profile (ACP). Baptisms have declined annually seven out of the past eight years. Total membership also declined by 0.24 percent to 16,266,920.
My father stated it well, “Although we pray God will bring revival and change, the trajectory is not positive. If current trends don’t change, it seems we are about to enter a period of declining membership.”
News on these declines can be found here, here and here. Good conversations around this issue can be found here, here, and here.
I’ve purposely decided not to write much about this issue. Quite frankly, there isn’t much I wish to say about these declines. But there is a whole lot that I can do to help reverse the trend. As a pastor, I will take personal responsibility for leading my church in the Great Commission and the Great Commandment.
My wife and I head off to the Grand Canyon early tomorrow morning. I’ve hiked the backcountry out there twice before, but this will be the first time that Erin accompanies me. We’re both excited to get away and see one of the most majestic scenes in all of God’s creation – gazing at a sunset and sunrise from the bottom of the canyon up.
The Grand Canyon is special to me beyond reasons of sheer beauty. It was at the canyon a few years back that God finalized his call on my heart to become a pastor. A few of my church friends and I ventured on an epic road trip from Louisville, KY to the Grand Canyon, hiking it for several days, and then driving home through Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and Kansas. Twelve guys on an eleven-seat church bus was in itself an adventure.
After standing amazed at the glory of God’s creation, breathing in the magnificence of Northern Arizona, we traveled over the Hoover Dam and through Las Vegas, NV.
We stopped for dinner in Vegas, but we didn’t stay for a meal. Disgust replaced our appetites. We saw in stark contrast the grandness of God’s creation at the canyon to what man has created in Vegas, a portico of sin in a desolate desert.
It was through God’s general revelation of nature that He specifically revealed to me the next stage of my life – to pastor people. It was in Vegas that the weight of a lost world finally fell upon my shoulders. I felt the urge to beg and plead people to spend a day looking at the glory of God’s handiwork rather than wallowing in the filth of man’s masterwork. Watching people wilt in and out of blinking oblivion, I deeply wanted them to know the omnipotent Creator who brings life in the fullest.
The dichotomy between Vegas and the canyon is infinite – what God does versus what man does. It was on that trip that I experienced the gravity of worshiping creation over worshiping the Creator. All of the buildings in Vegas are mere facades – poor replicas of the real thing. After the exquisite adventure of the Grand Canyon (which included a narrow escape from an attack of killer bees), Vegas felt sinfully tame.
Perhaps Jim Elliot said it best in his diary, “The Lord made mountains to climb, not just to look at, and up there one understands why – seeing the vista that most folks never see, with the sense of farness that most never feel.”
Many in our communities are far from God – they are searching for meaning in mere facades. They are betting their lives on a lie from Satan. Grand fulfillment is found only in One – the Lord and Savior over all, Jesus Christ.
From the Pew Forum on Religion:
One-quarter of all adult Americans under age 30 (25%) are not affiliated with any particular religion, which is more than three times the number of unaffiliated adults who are age 70 and older (8%). Overall, younger Americans tend to be considerably less Protestant and far less religiously affiliated than older Americans.
Taking into account current census data (as of today), the number of under-30 Americans unaffiliated with any particular religion is 31,375,207. The harvest is abundant…
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