Read a July 9, 2009, story in The Christian Post about a survey showing that Christian nonprofits are increasingly relying on volunteers. The study, conducted by J. David Schmidt & Associates for the Christian Leadership Alliance, showed that one out of five Christian nonprofits is relying on volunteers to offset labor and income losses due to the recession.

Read a July 2009 Religion News Service story (posted by the Adventist Review) about the closing of Michigan-based Christian relief group International Aid due to financial woes, and job cuts at World Vision, one of the largest evangelical relief agencies.

Read a May 2009 cover story in Christianity Today about how non-profit organizations fared during the recession.

Joseph P. Daniels is an economics professor at Marquette University in Milwaukee. He co-authored a paper that presented an economic model of “religious investment” to explain how seeker-oriented megachurches attract and keep members.

Read a Sept. 17, 2003, Forbes magazine article on entrepreneurial and marketing activities of megachurches.

Read a Nov. 15, 2006, article about product placement and other marketing strategies targeting megachurches. The article is posted at the University of Pennsylvania’s Knowledge@Wharton site.

Arar Han, who is attending business school at Stanford University, edited Asian American X: An Intersection of Twenty-First Century Asian American Voices.

Read an August 13, 2012, article published by the Religion News Service about how the tenets of Islam are interpreted differently around the world.

The Rev. Patrick Howell is vice president for mission and ministry at the School of Theology and Ministry at Seattle University. He co-edited the book Empowering Authority: The Charisms of Episcopacy and Primacy in the Church Today. He has frequently written about Pope Benedict XVI for the Seattle Times.