Businessman Roger Elswick is president of the Eleven Six Institute, which created MyChurchFinder.org "to get more people into those churches to make a difference in this country." It has various sponsors, including Turning Point USA, Texas Values, and Patriot Academy.
Author and speaker Neil Mammen, an engineer and Christian apologist who is involved with the site, says there are about 1.7 million internet searches for a new church every month. If every search represents a family of three or four, then he estimates about five to six million people are looking for a new church every month.
"That's not only believers, but that's unbelievers, people who just became Christians, or people who are just upset," Mammen explains. "They don't know what they're looking for, but they're looking for something, and they know that church might be the answer."
To determine which evangelical churches are biblically sound, culturally aware, and/or legislatively active, MyChurchFinder has pastors fill out a survey and then grades them on their answers.
"There's an A, B, C, and a 'would not recommend' rating," Mammen details. "A, B, and C have different qualifications. A C church is the least you can get, and that is that you are biblically sound. The B rating is that you are not only biblically sound, but you're also legislatively active or culturally aware. That means that you teach about critical race theory (CRT) and teach about the false social justice; you teach against abortion and all that."
"The A rating means you are all three," he continues. "That means you are not only biblically sound, but you're also culturally aware; you know and you preach about how abortion is bad and how CRT is bad, but the most important part of that is then you do something about it."
Currently, MyChurchFinder.org has details about 188 churches in 45 states. Visitors to the website can research the churches in their area and reach out to the pastors for more information about them.
In this election year, Mammen says it is especially important for those people who are going to good churches to keep going there and for people going to bad churches to leave them.
"They're just propping up the decay of America," he submits.
In the Catholic Church, the battle over the blessing of homosexual unions continues.
Not long ago, the pope sparked confusion when he said priests were allowed to bless certain homosexual unions, and in response, a conservative cadre of priests and academics signed onto a letter that said, "Despite its explicit reaffirmation of the traditional doctrine of the Church on marriage, it turns out that the pastoral practice that the document allows is in direct opposition to it."
Now, while Jesuits are pushing for Pope Francis to expand the role of homosexuals and same-sex unions within the Church, dozens of conservative priests, teachers, and theologians are urging the pontiff to hold the line.
"There is very clearly a battle within the Catholic Church over the Church teaching on homosexuality," says Austin Ruse of the Center for Family & Human Rights (C-Fam). "The Jesuits … are kind of leading the charge."
"There's a lot of confusion in the Church right now because of these uncertain trumpets that we hear coming out of the Vatican," Ruse continues. "I'm not criticizing the Pope. I think a lot of what the Pope does is confusing and hard to understand."
Meanwhile, a new breed of young, orthodox Catholics is gaining more influence in the Church.
"There's a new study out by Stephen White at the Catholic University of America that overwhelmingly the young seminarians in the Church in America are orthodox faithful Catholics," the C-Fam president relays.
Specifically, that report reveals that younger Catholic priests are far more likely to describe themselves as theologically orthodox or conservative, politically conservative or moderate, and plan to be "first responders" to the abuse victims they encounter in their ministry.
With that in mind, Ruse says he is very optimistic about the direction of the Catholic Church.
