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CHICAGO, IL – Dave Olson jokes that his new book has lots of pictures. They’re mostly charts and graphs, actually, but they illustrate what he says is no laughing matter—church attendance is far lower than most people believe and has been declining.Read more of this story.

As a plant of Saddleback Church 20 years ago, Main Place’s ministry has burgeoned, planting seven churches of its own and expecting to birth a dozen more by 2020, says pastor Rich Mathisrud. As a church planter, Main Place spends much of its time running businesses to locate and serve the downtrodden. Its church-planting abilities surprisingly come from starting nonprofit businesses.Read more of this story.

Longhorns’ men’s basketball coach now watching what he says, eatsDespite a long history of, uh, very colorful language during a consistent coaching career that has included one Final Four, 13 straight NCAA tournament appearances and 15 postseason victories, Rick Barnes has had a change of heart.And voice.The Texas coach no longer curses.Swear to God.For many coaches, giving up cursing would represent a sterner test of wills than being unable to question a ref’s call. Using four-letter words, hyphenated words and words that would make a sailor blush have been a part of coaching for as long as basketball has been…

The death early this week of a young Wisconsin girl from a treatable form of diabetes, whose parents prayed over her rather than seek medical help, could re-ignite a debate over a state law that essentially shields such activity from criminal prosecution. So says the Madison-based author of When Prayer Fails, a new book about parents who, for religious reasons, refuse to provide medical care for their children."Maybe the statute will get tested out soon," muses Shawn Francis Peters, who teaches writing and U.S. history at the UW-Madison.Read more >>

The Shroud of Turin, the 14- by 4-foot linen believed by some to have been wrapped around Jesus after the crucifixion, might not be a fake after all, according to new research.Read more of this story.

One morning Virginia Gillis woke up and experienced what she calls "divine intervention." God, she said, was making her decisions for her. He wanted her to live. She got a ride to downtown St. Louis. With just a plastic bag of clothes, she went to the nearest shelter. For the next six months, she was homeless. But she had a new vantage point on life.Read more of this story.

Sending out hundreds of Easter cards this year? Attending way too many Easter parties? Doing some last-minute shopping for gifts to place under your Easter tree? Getting tired of those endless Easter-themed specials on television?I didn’t think so.Unlike Christmas, whose deeper spiritual meaning has been all but buried under an annual avalanche of commercialism, Easter has retained a stubborn hold on its identity as a religious holiday. Read more of this story.

Jonathan Merritt nailed his equivalent of "95 Theses" to the door of the Southern Baptist Convention. And the door surprisingly opened, at a speed much faster than Martin Luther experienced in Wittenberg almost 500 years ago.Mr. Merritt, a 25-year old seminarian, got religion a year or so ago about the perils of a changing climate. More specifically, the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary student began thinking about how his fellow Southern Baptists needed to make a bigger priority out of the environment.Read more of this story.

COMMENTARYThe other day, on my walk up the hill and around the block, I found a dirty penny on the pavement. An old response kicked in: The find is mine. I bent over, picked it up and put it in my pocket. Back in the house, I dropped it, among other coins similarly discovered in recent years, in a woven reed basket on my dresser. It’s a small basket, as wide as a hen’s egg is long; a friend gave it to me one Easter, soon after my parents died. She’d filled it with paper grass hiding jelly beans and…

NEW ORLEANS — These old walls have never heard music like this. On Sundays, when morning light fills the vaulted space of the former First United Methodist Church on Canal Street, drummer Vel McCall sometimes lays down an up-tempo, hip-swaying gospel beat for what used to be that sober Protestant standard "Blessed Assurance." The choir is mixed, black and white. So is the rest of the Mid-City congregation, which also includes Hispanics — and occasionally, members say, a handful of people whose scruffiness suggests homelessness, or something close to it. All are quite welcome in the First Grace United Methodist…