Do You Communicate with God More Often When the Economy is Bad?

Recently, the company I work for was involved in a lawsuit involving trademark issues. We are a Christian-owned company with a strong print catalog business, and another company put out a print catalog using our trademarked company name. Our business saw a big decline. The other company argued that our decline in sales was the result of the bad economy, and not a result of anything they had done to interfere with our business.

As part of the preparations for court, our team did a lot of research about what happens in churches when the economy is bad. We found out some interesting facts that, while they didn't necessarily surprise us, might surprise some of you:

? Church giving in the USA was at it's highest level in history(3.5%) during the early years of the Great Depression(i)

? During each recession cycle between 1968 and 2004, the rate of growth in evangelical churches jumped by 50 percent. By comparison, mainline Protestant churches continued their decline during recessions, though a bit more slowly.(ii)

? In a 2000 study of 14,000 U.S. congregations found that 7% of American congregations had participated in some interfaith activity, such as holding a joint religious service. It also found that 8% had collaborated with another congregation on a community service project. By 2005, the institute reported that the number of houses of worship participating in inter-religious worship tripled to more than 22%, and the number joined in community service had risen more than fourfold to 38%." (iii)

There is really only one logical conclusion to draw from these statistics: Bad times are good for churches.

This leaves us all in an interesting quandry. In bad times, more of us go to church and pray for times to get better. We re-examine our lives, learn how to live with less, help our neighbors more and make sure we have our priorities in the right (or at least better) order….hmmmm

God loves us and wants us to be happy, right? So we pray for things to get better so that we can afford the stuff we can't afford when times are tough, and we have more job stability, so we don't necessarily need to maintain such close connections with our friends, neighbors and family, and…

Yes, you see where I am going with this.

Given how people tend to behave when economic times go south, why would God be interested in granting prayers for economic stability? As a parent, yes, I want my children to be happy, but I also want them to behave, have good manners, and treat other people the way they themselves want to be treated. I doubt anyone would disagree that God our Heavenly Father wants exactly the same for us, His children.

Perhaps our collective prayers need to be a resounding "Thank you God!" for showing us the opportunities for growth as people and a society that come from hard times. Perhaps the more we give ourselves up to this greater purpose, the closer we get to true success.

As the recession has progressed throughout 2009, we know that our business; which primarily specializes in selling professional audio video equipment and church supplies to churches, temples, and schools is seeing growth. One of our vendors, the Cavanagh Bread Company-which supplies about 75% of the Communion wafers to churches in North American and Europe is having it's best year in business ever. Here is proof that there are opportunities in down times, not only to grow a business, but to grow the ways God would most like to see us grow.

(i)Based on research completed by Sylvia Ronsvalle, executive vice president of Empty Tomb inc., a research ministry based in central Illinois.

(ii)"Praying for Recession: The Church Cycle and Protestant Church Growth" by David Beckworth, Texas State University.

(iii)"Faith Communities Today" completed by the Hartford Institute for Religion Research in 2000 and a 2005 follow-up study, reviewed and further studied by Gustav Niebuhr in Beyond Tolerance-Searching for Interfaith Understanding in America.