Took a while because I had two teens graduate from 8th grade this evening - I'm glad to be done with middle school!
Anyway the celebration is over and here are some VERY preliminary findings from some of the research I'm doing this year. By the way, this is all to remain inhouse (not for distribution) since we are not done with the studies yet so the data is incomplete.
First the national study of megachurches - we haven't gotten much of it in yet - about 200 of what we hope will be 500 or so but there are some interesting changes when compared to the 2005 survey of megachurches we did.
I'll do this like a Q&A --- of the 200+ megachurches so far, can you guess the % that: (answers below)
A. Are led by clergy couples?
B. Report having "no problem recruiting volunteer leaders"?
C. Use a multiple-venue worship service format?
D. Say the label "evangelical" is the closest description among 8 choices offered?
E. Say small groups are "central to our strategy of Christian nurture and spiritual formation"?
F. Broke the 2,000 attendance barrier under their current senior pastor?
G. Have a radio ministry?
H. Have a television ministry?
I. Report "no conflict in the last two years"?
J. Planted a new church in the last 5 years?
K. State that if an active participant in their church stopped attending, the person would be contacted to find out why?
L. Finally, engage in the political activities of distributing voter guides and encouraging people to register to vote?
Answer key:
A. 12% are led by clergy couples
B. 19% have no problem recruiting volunteer leaders
C. 35% use a multiple-site worship service format (up from 27% in 2005, and 22% in 2000)
D. 64% call themselves evangelical, in 2005 only 56% and 48% did so in 2000.
E. 87% say small groups are central (up from 50% in 2000)
F. 80% broke the 2,000 attendance barrier under their current senior pastor
G. 17% have a radio ministry - twice as many did in 2000.
H. 16% have a television ministry - also about twice as many did in 2000.
I. 47% reported no conflict in last two years
J. 55% planted a new church in the last 5 years (up from 37% in 2005)
K. 20% said "definitely yes" for contacting active participants who stop attending
L. 25% engage in distributing voter guides, and 23% encourage people to register to vote
Remember this is all preliminary - and may just be due to the sample we got - I haven't tried to weight the data to correct the sample bias yet.
More in the next posting
Scott
