A recent story featured on the PBS program Religion & Ethics Newsweekly includes a discussion with A. Robert Jaeger, the President of Partners for Sacred Places and keynote speaker for our 2013 Sacred Places Symposium.
Across the nation, declining church membership is taking its toll on the physical state of houses of worship. In Philadelphia, churches are venturing into new partnerships to try and preserve their historic buildings. “Congregations have shrunk so much and budgets have shrunk so much that it’s hard for congregations to keep up with their buildings,” observes Bob Jaeger, president of Partners for Sacred Places, who calls the neglect of houses of worship a national crisis. “Unless they do something creative and bold, many of them will close or merge in the next ten, twenty years,” he adds.
You can watch the segment from the PBS video below or see the official show page featuring a transcript of the event.
