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Champion Resources

Amazing resources to help you leverage data and technology to grow people.

Ryan Burge, PhD

Written by: Ryan Burge, PhD

Ryan P. Burge is an assistant professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University. Author of numerous journal articles, he is the cofounder and a frequent contributor to Religion in Public, a forum for scholars of religion and politics to make their work accessible to a general audience. He is the author of The Nones: Where They Came From, Who They Are, and Where They Are Going (Fortress Press, 2021) and the forthcoming 20 Myths About Religion and Politics in America (Fortress Press, 2022). Burge is a pastor in the American Baptist Church.
ministry

Searches for Sorcery Were Up in 2021 - What Does That Mean?

One of the most widely used Bible websites in the world is the Bible Gateway. It gets millions of hits per month and serves as a tremendous barometer for the spiritual...

data

The Michigan Shootings Surface Longtime Tensions for People of Faith

Last Tuesday, the news headlines were dominated by a story out of Michigan of a young man who brought a gun to his school and went on a rampage, killing four of his...

A Time for Neighbors

One of my all-time favorite internet moments involves a mistaken text sent by Wanda Dench, a white grandmother of six in Mesa, AZ. The text message was originally meant for...

What The Day of The Dead Can Teach Pastors

One of the most widely read stories on Christianity Today’s website over the last few weeks was focused on the Mexican holiday of Día de los Muertos or “The Day of the Dead.”...

ministry

Understanding the Bible: The Hunger is Real

The second most popular plan in the Bible App last week was The Bible Project’s Character of God. The reading plan helps readers understand five key attributes of God’s...

ministry

Giving Has Not Declined For All Churches. A Theory on Why…

One of the questions that I get the most when I do interviews with members of the media is, “What will the long term impacts of COVID-19 and the subsequent lockdowns be on...

A Pioneer of the Quantified Self

One of the most widely read stories on Christianity Today last week was about the author Gary Chapman. Chapman is the author of the wildly successful book, The Five Love...

data

Trust is Waning in One Key Area

The biggest religion story covered by Christianity Today over the last week was the ongoing meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Meeting. That committee had...

data

End-Times Curiosity: Are You Meeting Your People Where They Are?

One of the search terms that has seen a lot of movement on YouVersion over the last few weeks is the phrase “mark of the beast.” Each week, hundreds of visitors are looking...

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Searches for “marriage” on the Rise, Despite Decline in Marriage Rates

While searches in YouVersion’s Bible app often turn up to-be-expected terms like “healing”, “love” and “fear”, one term that shows up consistently in the Top 10 is the word...

data

One Simple-but-Important COVID Pattern for Pastors to Understand

One of the interesting ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic is that most Americans became very interested in statistics and epidemiology over the last eighteen months. It...

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Christian Sentiment: Vaccines Are Top Of Mind

Most articles that are published to online platforms have a very short shelf life. Within just a few days, traffic to those posts tends to slow to a trickle. But, that wasn’t...

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Harvard's New Chaplain is An Atheist - What This Does (and Does Not) Tell Us About the Faith of Young Adults

Possibly the biggest religion news story in this back-to-school season came from the New York Times’ Emma Goldberg who wrote about the installation of Greg Epstein as the...

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What We Can Learn From the Mars Hill Trend and Other News

It’s always helpful for pastors to know what kind of stories their congregants—and peers—are reading and discussing. Christianity Today sets the standard for Christian news...

data

Healing In August: A Look at YouVersion Trends

In the month of August in the YouVersion Bible app, there’s a clear, unmistakable message about what users are seeking in terms of biblical guidance.

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Amazing resources to help you leverage data and technology to grow people.