I was stunned
at how relatively rare
such instances were.

Social researcher George Barna spent several years searching for evidence that attendance and involvement in a local church makes a difference in a person's life:

"While we certainly found some wonderful examples," he writes, "I was stunned and deeply disappointed at how relatively rare such instances were."

Reading this prompts further questions for me:

1) What is spiritual transformation? What does it look like? How does it feel? Why does it matter?

2) If the church supposedly provides a moral foundation for society, then what does it mean that this institution is failing? Isn't even making a difference?

3) Is this really a new problem?

I'd like to know.