One in Four Adults Listened to a Church Podcast Last Week Access to spiritual content via podcasting among Christians is about double the listenership of non-Christians.  According to a recent Barna study, 38% of evangelicals and 31% of other born-again Christians had listened to a sermon or church teaching via digital recordings available on the Internet (often called a "podcast"), compared with 17% of other adults. In macro terms, an enormous audience of roughly 45 million Americans reports going digital to acquire church sermon and teaching content. In all, one out of every four adults—23%--said they downloaded a church podcast in the past week. The profile of people who had listened to sermon podcasts cuts across generational lines, with older adults just as likely as young residents to listen in. Residents in the south (31%) were twice as likely as those in the northeast (14%) to access church podcasts. Similarly, Protestants (32%) were more intrigued by such content than were Catholics (18%); the same held true for non-mainline attenders (38%), compared to mainline Protestants (16%). African-Americans (50%) were very loyal listeners, especially when contrasted with Asians (14%). Furthermore, those who are economically downscale (35%) were more likely to listen to church podcasts than were upscale adults (10%). U.S. Religious Groups' Gifts to Developing Countries: $8.8 Billion Congregations are giving record amounts in relief and development assistance to poor countries, according to the first national random sample survey of U.S. religious giving from congregations of all denominations. This far-reaching study found that over half of U.S. congregations gave an average of $10,500 to U.S. organizations for relief and development in poor countries. Over 30% made donations directly to programs in developing countries as well as volunteering for short-term missions or service trips. The survey specifically excluded support for evangelism, recording expenditures only for such items as food, clothing, and medicines, as well as cash for schools, clinics and small business development. In 2006, these private financial flows were more than four and one-half times U.S. government foreign aid to developing countries. The $8.8 billion from religious congregations alone was over one-third of the official U.S. government aid of $23.5 billion. It Really Is More Blessed to Give According to new research, giving other people even as little as $5 can lead to increased well-being for the giver.  In a recent study published in the journal Science, researcher Elizabeth W. Dunn explores the ways that giving more money might lead to more happiness. The team found that happiness didn't correlate with personal spending but, rather, with how much they gave away. On the Vancouver campus, they handed out sealed envelopes containing $5 or $20 to 46 people. They instructed half the people to spend the money on themselves--either on necessities or indulgences--and then told the other half to give the money away, all by 5 p.m. Those who gave the money away were happier by the end of the day--and just as happy whether they gave away $5 or $20.