{"id":32985,"date":"2022-09-10T16:30:58","date_gmt":"2022-09-10T21:30:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/americans-turn-to-god-and-generosity-after-natural-disasters\/"},"modified":"2022-09-10T16:30:58","modified_gmt":"2022-09-10T21:30:58","slug":"americans-turn-to-god-and-generosity-after-natural-disasters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/americans-turn-to-god-and-generosity-after-natural-disasters\/","title":{"rendered":"Americans Turn to God, and Generosity after Natural Disasters"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-image is-style-default\"><\/div>\n<p>By Staff<\/p>\n<p>When natural disasters occur, most Americans take increased interest in God and donate to relief agencies \u2013 and they trust faith-based agencies more than their secular counterparts. A third also believe prayer can avert natural disasters.<\/p>\n<p>Those are among the findings of a Lifeway Research survey conducted days after an historic EF5 tornado devastated parts of Oklahoma May 20, killing two dozen people and causing billions of dollars in damages.<\/p>\n<p>According to the study, commissioned by Lifeway&#8217;s Bible Studies for Life curriculum, a third of Americans increase their trust in God during times of suffering. In response to the question, &#8220;How do you feel about God when suffering occurs that appears unfair?&#8221; the most common response is &#8220;I trust God more&#8221; (33 percent). Other responses include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;I am confused about God&#8221; (25 percent).<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;I don&#8217;t think about God in these situations&#8221; (16 percent).<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;I wonder if God cares&#8221; (11 percent).<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;I doubt God exists&#8221; (7 percent).<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;I am angry toward God&#8221; (5 percent).<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;I am resentful toward God&#8221; (3 percent).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8220;Disasters, particularly natural disasters, perplex all of us,&#8221; said Ed Stetzer, president of Lifeway Research. &#8220;While some call them \u2018acts of God,&#8217; others question why a good and loving God would do such a thing.<br \/>&#8220;The fact is, God does not give us all the answers,&#8221; Stetzer said. &#8220;But, as Christians, we believe that God gives us Himself \u2013 and that is why we have faith. Faith is believing God when you don&#8217;t have all the answers. But, disasters test that faith \u2013 some people draw closer to God, some pull away.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Lifeway reported Southerners, frequent church attendees, and those without a college degree are likely to trust God more during disasters, while younger Americans are more likely to doubt God exists.<\/p>\n<div class='code-block code-block-1' style='margin: 8px 0;clear: both'> <\/div>\n<p>Nearly six in 10 Americans (57 percent) agree with the statement, &#8220;When a natural disaster occurs, my interest in God increases.&#8221; Thirty-one percent disagree and 12 percent don&#8217;t know. Nearly two-thirds of respondents living in the South agree (62 percent), compared with just over half in the West (54 percent) and Northeast (51 percent). Women, people with a college degree, and those who attend worship services once a week are also likely to be more interested in God during a disaster.<\/p>\n<div style=\"clear:both;margin-top:0em;margin-bottom:1em\">\n<div class=\"centered-text-area\">\n<div class=\"centered-text\" style=\"float: left\">\n<div class=\"u5629a7b8e2d661a746900bfab5c90db0-content\">See also&nbsp; Young Adults, Including Christians, Have Complicated Relationship with Money<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"ctaButton\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h3 class=\"has-large-font-size\"><strong>Prayer and natural disasters<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Despite their increased interest in God following disasters, most Americans doubt prayer can avert natural disasters. Fifty-one percent disagree that praying can avert natural disasters, with a third (32 percent) strongly disagreeing. Still, 34 percent believe prayer can avert natural disasters. American&#8217;s in the South (40 percent) are more likely to believe than those in the Northeast (26 percent) and West (28 percent).<\/p>\n<p>Thirty percent of Americans post on social media that they are praying for specific people or things. Sixty-seven percent do not post topics of prayer on social media and three percent don&#8217;t know.<\/p>\n<p>Among those who do post prayers on social media, most take a moment to actually pray rather than consider the post itself a form of prayer. When asked to complete the statement, &#8220;If I post a prayer on social media \u2026,&#8221; 23 percent say they always take a moment to actually pray and 10 percent consider posting the update to be form of prayer. Sixty-four percent complete the statement by saying they don&#8217;t post prayers.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"has-large-font-size\"><strong>Trusting and giving<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>When a natural disaster occurs, Americans trust faith-based groups to be more responsible than secular groups with their donations by nearly a two to one margin. Fifty-six percent agree they trust faith-based groups more, while 28 percent do not. Those who live in the Midwest and South, men, and those who do not have a college degree are more likely to trust faith-based charities, while those in the Northeast and Americans ages 45-64 are not as likely.<\/p>\n<p>Almost 60 percent of Americans donate to relief agencies in the wake of natural disasters. Thirty percent donate to both faith-based and secular relief agencies, 15 percent donate to faith-based relief agencies only and 12 percent donate to secular relief agencies only.<\/p>\n<p>A third of Americans (32 percent) don&#8217;t donate to any relief agencies.<\/p>\n<p>Download the research (PDF)<\/p>\n<div class='yarpp yarpp-related yarpp-related-website yarpp-template-thumbnails'>\n<h3>Related posts:<\/h3>\n<div class=\"yarpp-thumbnails-horizontal\">  12 Truths of Building a Culture of Prayer in Your Church  Most Open to Spiritual Conversations, Few Christians Speaking  22 Vital Stats for Ministry in 2022  8 Ways COVID-19 Is Complicating Disaster Ministry Responses <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Staff When natural disasters occur, most Americans take increased interest in God and donate to relief agencies \u2013 and they trust faith-based agencies more than their secular counterparts. A third also believe prayer can avert natural disasters. Those are among the findings of a Lifeway Research survey conducted days after an historic EF5 tornado &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/americans-turn-to-god-and-generosity-after-natural-disasters\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Americans Turn to God, and Generosity after Natural Disasters&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32985\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}