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In one of its first published reports, the National Study of Congregations’ Economic Practices counters a popular story line—that congregations in the US, as a whole, are shrinking.

After surveying more than 1,200 congregations from 2014 to 2017, NSCEP researchers found that, nationally, there are more congregations experiencing growth in attendance than there are ones experiencing decline. What is changing, however, is how those congregations generate revenue.

The day after the deadly mass shooting at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue last October, more than a thousand people gathered on the Boston Common to mourn and pray.

As Amy McCreath, dean of the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, which overlooks America’s oldest park, watched people of various faiths unite to mourn another national tragedy, she was hit with an emotional realization.

Faith congregations across California are responding to the state’s housing crisis by sharing their parking lots with people living in their cars, providing mobile showers for the homeless, and joining their neighbors in calling for rent control in their communities.

But another form of housing advocacy has been taking place among spaces of faith.

A number of churches are exploring ways to build affordable housing on their own land. It’s what pastors and other leaders are referring to as YIGBY, or “Yes in God’s backyard.”

United Methodist pastor Anna Blaedel will not face a church trial for being a “self-avowed, practicing homo­sexual.” According to reports from United Methodist News Ser­vice, a date for Blaedel’s trial had been set when Blaedel instead re­quested an opportunity for a “just resolution”—a formal process within the church that focuses on “bringing healing to all parties.”

Scott Warren breathed a visible sigh of relief as he exited the federal courthouse in Tucson, Arizona, on November 20, having received a not guilty verdict in his retrial on two counts of felony harboring. The trial’s conclusion after only two hours of jury deliberation was an end to a prosecution that began when he was arrested along with two undocumented migrants in the Arizona desert in January 2018.