On this episode of Neutzworld, I was fascinated by the results of a new nationwide study on faith and relationships, but Communion, a national non-profit organization

that works with churches to strengthen families and develop stronger faith lives.

The study reveals a strong correlation between people who grew up in homes with married

parents and their continuation of their practice of faith in adulthood.

It also shows that loneliness is a crisis that is negatively affecting relationships and religious life.

The conclusions of the study are drawn from a nationwide survey of 19,000 Sunday church attendees conducted during worship

in 112 evangelical, Protestant, and Catholic congregations.

That's an amazing amount of work. Here to discuss the new study,

I'm really pleased to welcome my guest, J.P. de Gance. He is the founder and president of Communio and the co-author of the book, Endgate, the church's strategic move

to save faith and family in America. Oh, J.P. Welcome and thank you for joining me on Newt's world.

It's exciting to be here.

Thanks so much for having me, Newt.

How did you go from working in politics to looking into the relationship between marriage and faith?

You know, it became like a lot of people who come to DC, you do this to try to save the country and you start to recognize that a lot of what's going on in our politics is

downstream of what's happening culturally in our homes actually and God redirected my life about 15 years ago.

My sister's family failed.

She was an abusive marriage,

and she ended up becoming temporarily homeless.

And my wife and I, she asked us to take in her four kids.

And we experienced what happens when families fail in a real powerful way and

God used that to redirect my life in some pretty significant ways and I started asking the question

what would it look like to use the types of tools and technologies

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