Hello! It’s me…talking about Jesus again. In one of the data journalism readings, it advised users to get data that people really care about and will continue to care about after the story “ends.” Religion, church…JESUS are all things that I, personally, care about but would like to see how much the American people care about from a “then and now” perspective. Has it changed in the past decade by asking and seeking to find data to answer:
- How many more churches are there?
- How many new religions are there?
- Church participation?
- Growth or decline in atheism (if the data reveals)
The journalistic aspect to this could center around the fact that the United States is a melting pot for all religions and is protected by our First Amendment. I found some data that could be useful for past information here.
If I were to be honest and wanted to take a literal leap of faith, I would like to do a crowdsourcing data collection to ask specific questions for believers and non-believers.
- Are you part of a religion?
- Do you attend church on a regular basis?
- Do you believe in your faith/organized religion?
- And so on…
The story for this way of doing things would be crucial to the Christian community to see who is out there to be reached from within and outside their community. It’s not shocking to think that many Christians that tithe, go to church and participate in ministry do not actively live our or believe in their faith. That’s all I have for now!