Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Reasons People Choose A Church

Scott Sterner reports:

OK, I just pulled this from churchrelevance.com and was admittedly suprised by these statistics. For so long the church has believed the most important way to grow your church is with music. Music is still very important, but it is interesting to me that it isn't the deal breaker, especially for unchurched people.

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Top 13 Reasons that Unchurched People Choose a Church

(research conducted by Ranier)

  1. 90% - Pastor/Preaching
  2. 88% - Doctrines
  3. 49% - Friendliness of Members
  4. 42% - Other Issues
  5. 41% - Someone Church Witnessed to Me
  6. 38% - Family Member
  7. 37% - Sensed God’s Presence/Atmosphere of Church
  8. 25% - Relationship Other than Family Member
  9. 25% - Sunday School Class
  10. 25% - Children’s/Youth Ministry
  11. 12% - Other Groups/Ministries
  12. 11% - Worship Style/Music
  13. 7% - Location

Top 9 Reasons that Church-Attenders Choose a Church
(research conducted by the Barna Group in 1999)

  1. 58% - Doctrine/Theology
  2. 53% - People Caring for Each Other
  3. 52% - Preaching
  4. 45% - Friendliness
  5. 45% - Children’s Programs
  6. 43% - Helping the Poor
  7. 36% - Denomination
  8. 35% - Like the Pastor
  9. 26% - Sunday School

Top 6 Things that Keep the Formerly Unchurched Active in the Church
(research conducted by Ranier)

  1. 62% - Ministry Involvement
  2. 55% - Sunday School
  3. 54% - Obedience to God
  4. 49% - Fellowship of Members
  5. 38% - Pastor/Preaching
  6. 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.



4 comments:

d a w n said...

1-Serves wine instead of grape juice
2-MUSIC that has drums & guitar & no old lady playing an organ
3-Single section- ratio of guys > girls
4-Activities outside of church..camping, volunteering...
5-serves real bread instead of those dry waffers that don't taste anything like a cookie.
6-Real life stories in the sermon- not just reading from the bible.

d a w n said...

Macalester or Hamline campus fo sho.

I think I saw a chick in the front row spinning her thong tha thong thong thong.

Tim Bastron said...

Dawn, I think you meant to post your thong comment on my other post. Can you believe those cats are waving socks around? Yikes.

Anonymous said...

I can't really pinpoint what drew me to MSC. It was a combination of SO many things! I think it was "just my time." His plan---finding my purpose!