Back in the 1990s, it often seemed that every city and town in America had a strip mall with a Christian bookstore where you could purchase WWJD bracelets and enough devotional books to fill up the Ark of the Covenant. But today, these Christian bookstores are a dying breed. Indeed, it seems we are fast approaching an America where this particular brand of religious retailer will be no more than a memory. Over the last decade, Christian bookstores across the nation have been shuttering.
In some cases, consumers are just less interested in the stores’ God-blessed inventory. But plenty of others are just opting to purchase religious items from online retailers, with Christian bookstores humbled before the same digital market forces that felled secular mom-and-pop bookstores. The flailing Christian bookstore industry reached code red status earlier this year when Family Christian Stores, touted as “the world’s largest retailer of Christian-themed merchandise,” declared it would shutter all of its 240 stores across America and lay off 3,000 employees. READ MORE
I buy large quantities of a New Testament Bible called Here’s Hope from Lifeway Christian Stores. I have done this for over 7 years now. I take these into the worst criminal areas and give them to the children. I then Mentor the children at the same time as I give them a Bible. This is how we change the culture. If the churches would get off their holy fuse and go into their neighborhoods even door to door we could change this culture for the good.