Return Every Sunday for a Month to Get a More Comprehensive Understanding The goal of 52 Churches was to visit a different Christian church every Sunday for a year. As people learned about our journey, they became universally excited. Many wished they could go on their own church visiting sojourn. Some followed my blog posts […]
The Journey Is Over, but the Insights Have Just Begun As we told people about our journey of visiting fifty-two churches in a year, everyone was intrigued. They wanted to hear more and expressed great interest in the book. A few were envious, wishing they could do the same, but most admitted they could never […]
Another Perspective of Visiting 52 Different Congregations for a Year By Candy DeHaan What do you do when God prompts your husband to take a one-year break from your home church to visit other congregations, a different one every week? You can’t argue with God, so you go on a fifty-two-week adventure by your husband’s […]
Dating Churches or Settling Down Visiting churches seems a lot like dating: both parties are, in theory, on their best behavior and hopeful of a positive outcome. Dating is fun—for a while. There’s variety and excitement for each outing, but eventually an emptiness emerges, and you yearn for more. You seek connection, you want commitment, […]
Wrapping Up Our Year of Visiting Churches Our journey of visiting fifty-two churches is over, though the memories will last forever. With much to consider, this wrap-up pulls together key elements of our adventure. I hope this helps you and your church better interact with and respond to visitors, as well as find new ways […]
Preparing to Visit Our Next 13 Churches Going forward in our journey of visiting 52 Churches, we may bypass more churches on our list to vary the scope of our adventure. So far, we’ve skipped one that wasn’t a Christian gathering and another because they were in limbo, pending a turnaround. The next thirteen churches […]
Here’s an Overview After Visiting Our First 13 Churches We’re one-quarter of the way through our journey. It’s been more than what I’d hoped for and at the same time, not as much of what I expected. In attending the churches closest to home in our rural, white, middle-class area I expected little racial diversity, […]
Learn More about 52 Churches Discover more in the 52 Churches infographic to see key insights and data about the churches my wife and I visited in a year as covered in my book 52 Churches . Click on the above image to get a better look or download your own copy of the 52 Churches infographic. Whether or […]
We’ll Bypass Visiting This Church (For Now) So far, we’ve visited twelve churches. With one exception—a spiritual community that wasn’t exclusively Christian—we’ve faithfully attended every church on our list, according to their distance from home. As our journey continues, we’ll skip some to maximize the breadth of our experience. The first church we’re skipping is […]
Apprehension about Visiting Our First Congregation It’s Sunday morning, and we’ve yet to visit our first church. Even though it’s only been a week, I already miss my friends at our church. I already miss what I know and expect, even though I know to expect the unexpected. At least the unexpected happens in a […]