While nearly half of the adult population attends religious services during a typical week, people’s conceptual bond to the local church remains tenuous.

• Fewer than one out of every five adults firmly believes that a congregational church is a critical element in their spiritual growth and just as few strongly contend that participation in some type of community of faith is required for them to achieve their full potential.
• Only 17% of adults said that “a person’s faith is meant to be developed mainly by involvement in a local church.”             
• Just as few adults (18%) firmly embraced the idea that spiritual maturity requires involvement in a community of faith.  
• While most Americans contend that they want their lives to matter, a minority (44%) strongly affirms their commitment to “personally make the world and other people’s lives better.”
  
  
• The Barna Group: New Survey Reveals that Americans Have Commitment Issues, April 19, 2006
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"Seventy-eight percent of Americans say they are "convinced" that God exists"

• 12% think God probably exists, but have "a little doubt";
• 4% think God probably exists, but have "a lot of doubt."
• 4% think God "does not exist, but are not sure,"
• 1% are "convinced" that God does not exist.

Albert L. Winseman, D. Min. "Americans Have Little Doubt God Exists: Belief strong, but not monolithic."The Gallup News Service. December 13, 2005 Copyright © 2006 The Gallup Organization, Princeton, NJ. All rights reserved.

Elizabeth Marquardt on what happens in the souls of children of divorce.

For her master's thesis in divinity school, Elizabeth Marquardt wrote a paper called "The Moral and Spiritual Experiences of Children of Divorce." At the time, she found almost no data on the topic. "No one had looked," she says, "at how divorce in childhood shapes how children approach the biggest questions of all: Who am I? Where do I belong? What is right and wrong? What is true? Is there a God?"

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