Story number 4 for 16 Jun 2003

(USA)–Next, a recent survey from Barna Research indicates four out of 10 Americans discuss religion and other spiritual matters in any given week. The survey indicates most people talk about movies and television, money, sports, politics and then spiritual beliefs. Life Action Revival Ministries Byron Paulus says this research isn’t necessarily good news. “It just kind of hit me, you know, that passage there in Mark that says, ‘The deceitfulness of riches, the cares of this world, the cares of life, choke out the word so that we become unfruitful.’ And so, we take encouragement in the percentage that do talk about it, we wonder if what really is being talked about most has it really become counter productive.” Paulus doesn’t believe this is a sign of revival. “When our conversation is more on movies and money and sports and politics than it is on spiritual beliefs, there’s a ways to go yet before we can declare there’s a movement of or toward revival.”