Top 13 Reasons that Unchurched People Choose a Church(research conducted by Ranier)
90% - Pastor/Preaching
88% - Doctrines
49% - Friendliness of Members
42% - Other Issues
41% - Someone Church Witnessed to Me
38% - Family Member
37% - Sensed God’s Presence/Atmosphere of Church
25% - Relationship Other than Family Member
25% - Sunday School Class
25% - Children’s/Youth Ministry
12% - Other Groups/Ministries
11% - Worship Style/Music
7% - Location
Top 9 Reasons that Church-Attenders Choose a Church(research conducted by the Barna Group in 1999)
58% - Doctrine/Theology
53% - People Caring for Each Other
52% - Preaching
45% - Friendliness
45% - Children’s Programs
43% - Helping the Poor
36% - Denomination
35% - Like the Pastor
26% - Sunday School
Top 6 Things that Keep the Formerly Unchurched Active in the Church(research conducted by Ranier)
62% - Ministry Involvement
55% - Sunday School
54% - Obedience to God
49% - Fellowship of Members
38% - Pastor/Preaching
14% - Worship Services
The statistics speak for themselves. Overall, doctrine, the pastor and his preaching, and the friendliness and fellowship of the congregation are the most influential qualities.
http://www.churchmarketingsucks.com/archives/2009/07/why_people_pick.html
Showing posts with label Future. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Future. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Monday, June 15, 2009
Why Young Adults Leave the Church (by Mark Sayers)
5 Reasons why young adults leave the Church....
Reason #1
Choice Anxiety
Well here we go, in no particular order, reason number one why Young Adults are leaving the church. Ladies and Gents introducing…(drum roll please)…Choice Anxiety.If you live in the West you are rich, not just financially, but you enjoy an affluence of options and choices.
On one hand this is fantastic, we have access to millions of opportunities and experiences that our forebears could never dream of. But the flipside of this abundance of choice means that we become paralysed in the face of a million possibilities, choices and variables. Barry Schwartz in his book The Paradox of Choice notes that the more choices we are given, the more our well -being and happiness deteriorates. Why? Because whatever choice we make we are always comparing our decisions to the myriad of other possible choices. Thus we can never be at peace with the paths that we take, we are always comparing and fretting, we are stuck with a constant gut level anxiety or angst over our choices.
Add to this the fact that daily we are confronted with thousands of advertising messages all of which are designed by experts and marketing psychologists, and each has the purpose to make us feel discontent with our lives in order to make new purchases, and you can see why we are stuck in choice anxiety.
Churches are now seeing a similar marketing driven form of choice anxiety. As churchesstruggle to make inroads missionally in Western cultures, churches are becoming more and more sophisticated and competitive in their marketing to believers, thus many churchescontribute toChristians feeling less satisfied where they are. Iremember catching up with a Young Adult pastor of a large and successful young adults ministry. He was absolutely beside himself with worry over a rumour thatwell known church wasgoing to plant in his suburb. He told me that he estimated that if this happened he could losehundreds of his young adults.
How does this play out in the faith lives of young adults? Christian young adults are stuck with a constant splinter in the mind, the never ending nagging feeling that they might have made the wrong decision. Maybe they have chosen the wrong church to attend? Should they be at the hip contemporary mega-church down the road? Or maybe they should try the small emerging church in the next suburb? Or should they rejoin their friends and family at the traditional church that they grew up in? Did they even makeright choice in following Christ?Maybe they should move Cities, States, Countries? Should they change partners, careers, lifestyles, ethics?
All of these factorscreate a constant and nagging feeling that young adults must leave their churches in order to find fulfilment. However as soon as you move and set your tent down, that nagging feeling returns. Sadlymore andmoreyoung adult believers areexperiencing aharried, exhausting and restless spiritual homelessness.
Any thoughts on Sayers views? (by the way Sayers is an Australian)
Reason #1Choice Anxiety
Well here we go, in no particular order, reason number one why Young Adults are leaving the church. Ladies and Gents introducing…(drum roll please)…Choice Anxiety.If you live in the West you are rich, not just financially, but you enjoy an affluence of options and choices.
On one hand this is fantastic, we have access to millions of opportunities and experiences that our forebears could never dream of. But the flipside of this abundance of choice means that we become paralysed in the face of a million possibilities, choices and variables. Barry Schwartz in his book The Paradox of Choice notes that the more choices we are given, the more our well -being and happiness deteriorates. Why? Because whatever choice we make we are always comparing our decisions to the myriad of other possible choices. Thus we can never be at peace with the paths that we take, we are always comparing and fretting, we are stuck with a constant gut level anxiety or angst over our choices.
Add to this the fact that daily we are confronted with thousands of advertising messages all of which are designed by experts and marketing psychologists, and each has the purpose to make us feel discontent with our lives in order to make new purchases, and you can see why we are stuck in choice anxiety.
Churches are now seeing a similar marketing driven form of choice anxiety. As churchesstruggle to make inroads missionally in Western cultures, churches are becoming more and more sophisticated and competitive in their marketing to believers, thus many churchescontribute toChristians feeling less satisfied where they are. Iremember catching up with a Young Adult pastor of a large and successful young adults ministry. He was absolutely beside himself with worry over a rumour thatwell known church wasgoing to plant in his suburb. He told me that he estimated that if this happened he could losehundreds of his young adults.
How does this play out in the faith lives of young adults? Christian young adults are stuck with a constant splinter in the mind, the never ending nagging feeling that they might have made the wrong decision. Maybe they have chosen the wrong church to attend? Should they be at the hip contemporary mega-church down the road? Or maybe they should try the small emerging church in the next suburb? Or should they rejoin their friends and family at the traditional church that they grew up in? Did they even makeright choice in following Christ?Maybe they should move Cities, States, Countries? Should they change partners, careers, lifestyles, ethics?
All of these factorscreate a constant and nagging feeling that young adults must leave their churches in order to find fulfilment. However as soon as you move and set your tent down, that nagging feeling returns. Sadlymore andmoreyoung adult believers areexperiencing aharried, exhausting and restless spiritual homelessness.
Any thoughts on Sayers views? (by the way Sayers is an Australian)
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Should Nazarenes be 'allowed' to drink the dreaded 'A' word called Alcohol?
Well here it is people, another biggie. Hopefully this will stimulate some discussion amoung us.
What are your thoughts relating to this?
Is it time for this issue to be brought out into the public spotlight and debated/discussed/worked through? What are our congregations view towards drinking alcohol?
Should we change our position as a church? Should we decide as a denomination to be more 'biblical' when it comes to alcohol consumption? Feed me some points of view...
Which view should we hold:
1. Prohibitionsist and teach that all 'drinking' is a sin and that alcohol is an 'evil'?
2. Abstentionist and teach that drinking is not sinful but christians should avoid it out of Love for others and a desire not to cause anyone to stumble, is this 100% biblical?
3. Moderationists and teach that drinking alcohol is not a sin and that each person must let christian concience guide them without judging others, for 'wine' is neutral and can be used in both good and bad ways.
If i was to recieve an honest response from people in our church across Australia, i would bet (if is was a betting man) that we would see and average of at least 30-35% or 1/3 of our people have consumed alcohol of some sort in the past 12 months. Is that a fair call? what do you think the figure would be?
So what does this mean for us? How do we respond to this issue? Does it mean these people are no longer 'holiness' people?
I am interested in some honest and up front discussion here....anyone?
look forward to your responses.
Peace
What are your thoughts relating to this?
Is it time for this issue to be brought out into the public spotlight and debated/discussed/worked through? What are our congregations view towards drinking alcohol?
Should we change our position as a church? Should we decide as a denomination to be more 'biblical' when it comes to alcohol consumption? Feed me some points of view...
Which view should we hold:
1. Prohibitionsist and teach that all 'drinking' is a sin and that alcohol is an 'evil'?
2. Abstentionist and teach that drinking is not sinful but christians should avoid it out of Love for others and a desire not to cause anyone to stumble, is this 100% biblical?
3. Moderationists and teach that drinking alcohol is not a sin and that each person must let christian concience guide them without judging others, for 'wine' is neutral and can be used in both good and bad ways.
If i was to recieve an honest response from people in our church across Australia, i would bet (if is was a betting man) that we would see and average of at least 30-35% or 1/3 of our people have consumed alcohol of some sort in the past 12 months. Is that a fair call? what do you think the figure would be?
So what does this mean for us? How do we respond to this issue? Does it mean these people are no longer 'holiness' people?
I am interested in some honest and up front discussion here....anyone?
look forward to your responses.
Peace
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Where will the Australian Church of the Nazarene be in 10 years?
This question has been bouncing around my mind for quite a while now.
Where will we be? and more importantly how will we end up there?
The choices we make as an Australian church TODAY will make a difference as to where we are in 10 years time.
some issues to think about:
1. how many pastors (who are not retired) will we have in 10 years at the current rate of 'recruitment'?
2. how many active churches (ones with actual people attending) will we have in 10 years at the current rate of church planting?
3. what will be the Australian Nazarene church's demographics be?
what are your thoughts?
Where will we be? and more importantly how will we end up there?
The choices we make as an Australian church TODAY will make a difference as to where we are in 10 years time.
some issues to think about:
1. how many pastors (who are not retired) will we have in 10 years at the current rate of 'recruitment'?
2. how many active churches (ones with actual people attending) will we have in 10 years at the current rate of church planting?
3. what will be the Australian Nazarene church's demographics be?
what are your thoughts?
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