Graham Named Most Influential Preacher Protestant pastors see Billy Graham as the most influential living preacher, by a large margin, according to the results of a recent survey conducted by LifeWay Research. Pastors who represent both liberal and conservative Protestant churches were asked to name three living preachers that have most influenced them. Billy Graham, who has preached

to more than 200 million people in 185 countries since 1949, was mentioned by 21% of those surveyed--three times more than any other. The other nine preachers that made up the top ten were:

		Charles Swindoll, senior pastor of Stonebriar Community Church in Frisco, Texas, and founder of Insight for Living Ministries.
		Charles Stanley, senior pastor of First Baptist Church, Atlanta, Georgia, and founder of In Touch Ministries.
		Rick Warren, senior pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif.
		John MacArthur, pastor-teacher of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, Calif.
		Barbara Brown Taylor, an Episcopal priest, religion professor at Piedmont College in northeast Georgia and author of 12 books.
		David Jeremiah, senior pastor of Shadow Mountain Community Church in San Diego, Calif., and founder of Turning Point Ministries.
		Max Lucado, minister of writing and preaching at Oak Hills Church in San Antonio, Texas.
		John Piper, pastor of preaching at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minn.
		Andy Stanley, senior pastor of North Point Community Church, Buckhead Church, and Browns Bridge Community Church--all in the Atlanta, Georgia, area.

The list was compiled from telephone interviews with 1,002 pastors in November 2009.

Caregiving in the US Nearly one-third of the American adult population serves as a family caregiver according to a new report, Caregiving in the U.S. 2009. The study is based on interviews with 1,480 caregivers chosen at random and offers a national profile of people caring for adults, the elderly and children with special needs. Notable findings include: One in seven caregivers provides care, over and above regular parenting, to a child with special needs.     Caregiving lasts an average of 4.6 years.     Caregivers provide an average of 20 hours of care per week.     The main reasons people need care are old age (12%), Alzheimer's disease (10%), mental/emotional illness (7%), cancer (7%), heart disease (5%) and stroke (5%).     Illnesses/problems for which children need care are led by ADD/ADHD, autism, mental/emotional illness and developmental delay/mental retardation.     Caregivers of children provide the most time-intensive care.

Americans Mix Multiple Faiths Large numbers of Americans engage in multiple religious practices, mixing elements of diverse traditions and attending worship services of more than one faith or denomination, according to the results of a new poll by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life. Though the U.S. is an overwhelmingly Christian country, significant minorities profess belief in a

Nearly half of the public (49%) says they have had a religious or mystical experience, defined as a "moment of sudden religious insight or awakening." This is similar to a survey conducted in 2006, but much higher than in surveys conducted in 1976 and 1994, and more than twice as high as a 1962 Gallup survey (22%). In fact, this year's survey finds that religious and mystical experiences are more common today among those who are unaffiliated with any particular religion (30%) than they were in the 1960s among the public as a whole (22%).

The report also shows that one-third of Americans (35%) say they regularly (9%) or occasionally (26%) attend religious services at more than one place, and most of these (24% of the public overall) indicate that they sometimes attend religious services of a faith different from their own. Three in ten Protestants say they attend multiple types of religious services, including services at denominations different from their own, and one-fifth of Catholics say they sometimes attend non-Catholic services.