Top 13 Reasons that Unchurched People Choose a Church

(research conducted by Ranier, p. 18)

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

In December 2009, that number had dropped to 45%.

Source: “How Teenagers Faith Practices are Changing.”

The study suggests a significant decline in believing teens attempts to witness.

The report goes on to say:

Teenagers are consistently among the most religiously active Americans, with nearly six out of every 10 teens engaged in some type of group spiritual activity in a typical week. Yet, the spirituality of teenagers is also remarkably diverse and fluid. . . . .

Kinnaman noted: “Christian teenagers are taking cues from a culture that has made it unpopular to make bold assertions about faith or be too aggressively evangelistic.

Some of the Barna Group’s other research shows that the vast majority of these students agree with the statement it is ‘cool to be a Christian.’

Yet fewer young Christians apparently believe it is worthwhile to talk about their faith in Jesus with others.

Among 13- to 17-year-old Protestants, there are actually signs of increased religious activity: they are more likely to pray, go to worship services, read the Bible and attend youth group meetings than were Protestant-affiliated teens a dozen years ago.

Given that religious participation is improving among this group, the drop in personal evangelism among born again Protestant teens is even more striking, dropping from 72% in 1997 to 53% in late 2009.”

What does this suggest for youth pastors who may still see lots of activity and high attendance?

Are there forms of evangelism training that can help your teens share their faith in a way that is natural and normal?

Perhaps part of their aversion is with some of the models and forms that have been handed down from previous generations.

What I did as a youth minister

I did youth ministry for 15 years in at least 3 different churches.

I intentionally provided evangelism training every year for these students, helping them learn non-obnoxious conversational ways of doing evangelism in cooperation with the Holy Spirit.

I focused on:

• How to find the passionate foundation of your faith so that sharing is natural.
• How to find people who want to talk with you about their spiritual journey
• How to notice the right time to have spiritual conversation that helps others in their journey towards Christ.
• What stories to tell and how to tell them.

Read more clicking on the banner below.

I find over and over again in my practice that coaching “removes the fog from the mirror.”

Fog = Evangelism Obstacles

Personal evangelism intimidates way too many pastors and church members.

Consider these stats from cited in Got Style?: Personality-Based Evangelism, Jeffrey Johnson

An informal poll found that when asked “Why don’t Christians share Christ?”

• 33.5% are afraid of being rejected, embarrassed.
• 21.7% are afraid of not having answers
• 19.2% rarely think about the need to share their faith.
• 17.3% don’t know what to say.
• 8.3% haven’t found a way that is comfortable for them.

Based on pastors I’ve talked with in recent weeks, nearly all these answers would be true of them as well.

Each of these valid reasons are like “fog on the mirror.”

Evangelism seems impossible.

Put them all together, and you’ve got a huge amount of emotional inertia to overcome.

There are so many layers – it’s easier to avoid evangelism rather than think about it.

As such, there is no starting point for action.  The intimidation factor simply leaves us a gnawing feeling that one ought to be doing something, but there is no place to start.

It’s so undefinably nebulous that you can’t see anything you can actually do.

That’s fog on the mirror.

Evangelism Coaching wipes some fog away.

Personal Evangelism Coaching is an intentional conversation over 4 phone calls to wipe the fog from the mirror.

You spend intentional time looking for clarity and developing a plan.

One of the benefits these busy pastors receive from coaching is new clarity.

You’ve helped me focus on personal evangelism as a pastor.  My conversations are now more “peppered with spiritual talk” than they used to be.

This time has helped me to focus on developing a plan for training the incoming batch of elders for their work along with me on personal evangelism.  It has helped me keep evangelism on the front burner to overcome the lack of intentionality in our elder traning.  I’ve learned quite a bit as well from the books you’ve recommended.  - M. Gibbs, Oregon

You want to know what clarity sounds like during a conversation?

• “A-ha – I didn’t see that before.”
• “That makes a lot of sense.”
• “I need to do that.”
• “I can do that.”
• “I will do that.”

At the end of each conversation, more fog is wiped off the mirror.

I’m having fun doing this.

It’s my desire to encourage pastors and then equip them for providing leadership in the area of evangelism in their congregation.  I hear that in pastor’s voices as I’ve been talking with them the last few weeks.

Personal Evangelism Coaching:

If you would like personalized help in personal evangelism over the next 60 days, I provide a telecoaching service of four phone calls over a 60 day period.  It’s four phone calls over 8-12 weeks.

Read more about personal evangelism coaching and the fees here:  Personal Coaching for Personal Evangelism

Out of 132 contacts that Jesus had with people recorded in the New Testament, 6 were in the temple, 4 were in the synagogue, and 122 were out in the mainstream of life. (Adapted from Why Christians Sin, by J.K Johnson, Discovery House, 1992)

As evangelists, we need to make sure that we are regularly engaging people outside of the church.

Most of us freely admit that after being a Christian for a few years, we find our social circles have changed to mostly Christians.

In fact, Jeffrey Johnson Got Style?: Personality-Based Evangelism shows research that confirms that most do so within two years of becoming a Christian (p. 76).  He cites a 1998 study by Charles Arn that shows that most Christians may only have on average, friendships with less than 4 people outside the church.

What can we do to fix that this week?

Today’s Guest Article is from Jeffrey Johnson, author of Got Style? Personality Based Evangelism.

See my review of Got Style at Personality Based Evangelism

It seems clear that a believers’ early communication then and now is about a personal encounter and experience with Christ, not really a doctrine or dogma.

Why?

It certainly is because the Holy Spirit leads and moves people, and the Spirit’s role cannot and will not be minimized.

But is there also some God-given something in people the Holy Spirit works with that enables them to be early and effective witnesses, even without special training?

I believe there is.

My study and experience have led me to this conclusion.

Personality is the Human Component

More than anything else, personality is the human component involved in effective evangelism.

By personality, I mean much more than the traditional dichotomy of extrovert vs. introvert, which pits three-fourths of population against the other fourth, respectively.

Extroverts and introverts can be found in varying degrees in any of the personality styles.

By personality I mean God’s inherent wiring as to how people generally engage and interact with the world.

People seem to instinctively know this even if they have different ways of expressing it.

A recent informal poll found only 8 to 10 percent of Christians regularly share Christ with others.

When asked, “Why don’t Christians share Christ?” several responses were given:

• 33.5% – Afraid of being rejected, embarrassed
• 21.7% – Afraid of not having answers
• 19.2% – Rarely think about the need
• 17.3% – Don’t know what to say
• 8.3% – Haven’t found a way to share that fits personal style  (In other words, it’s not comfortable or natural.)

Though the last response names “personality” specifically, personality seems to be behind the other responses; people are really saying they haven’t found a way to do evangelism naturally – as a part of how they are “wired.”

Because evangelism has become associated with something unnatural or forced, it feels “bad.”

I never understood why sharing the something so good makes so many feel so bad until I realized most people are doing evangelism in a way contrary to the way God made them.

We are called to do evangelism out of “grace, not guilt. It can be enjoyable, not just an endurable experience.”

Scriptural Examples of Personality Influences

I began searching the inspired pages for how Scripture views and values evangelism.

While contemporary examples are helpful, they cannot replace New Testament examples.

What I began to see was evidence that we all have this “personality thing” and it influences how we share Christ with others.

Paul.

One of the most striking examples of Spirit-used personality is in the Book of Acts where we read about Saul, whom we come to know later by his Greek name Paul.

Examining some of Paul’s story will give us a glimpse of how the Spirit works with personality, not only to find faith (Evangelism) but to mature in it as well (Discipleship), but that’s content for another book at another time.

Paul was, from Scripture’s earliest references, a passionate persecutor of those who held the new Christian faith. He was present at the martyrdom of Stephen and, though only watching over the outer garments (coats) of those who stoned Stephen, he was guilty by association.

At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him [Stephen], dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul (Acts 7:57-58 NIV).

Paul’s passion finds further expression as he traveled north to Damascus to, in his words, “persecute the church of God” (1Corinthians 15:9) and “try to destroy it”  (Galatians 1:13).

It is clear that for Paul, this was more than completing a job task.

He took his responsibility personally.

Personality is very personal. For each of us, it is unique. It defines who we are and directs how we interact with others.

And yet it was en route to Damascus to carry out this persecution that Paul had a life-transforming encounter with Jesus Christ.

Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples. He went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem.

As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” “Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. ” Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do” (Acts 9:1-5 NIV).

The record goes on to tell us that after only three days, Paul walked south on the same road, but he was changed from Christianity’s greatest persecutor or Christianity’s greatest promoter!

Saul spent several days with the disciples in Damascus. At once he began to preach in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God. All those who heard him were astonished and asked, “Isn’t he the man who raised havoc in Jerusalem among those who call on this name? And hasn’t he come here to take them as prisoners to the chief priests?” Yet Saul grew more and more powerful and baffled the Jews living in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Christ. (Acts 9:19-22 NIV)

What strikes me about Paul’s story is this:  it was only three days between the time he was an enemy of Christ and when he became a first-class friend of Christ.

More striking is Paul attended no online training program, no school of evangelism, no workshop or seminar.

What did God’s Spirit tap in to Paul to move him out to promote that which he passionately and intensely had persecuted days before?

God used Paul’s inherent assertive personality.

Surrendering his entire life to the Spirit, personality included, was a part of his transformation. With the same vigor, the same personality, Paul promoted the very thing he tried to destroy.

Paul’s conversion was evidence of the Spirit’s working in his heart.

Paul shared the Gospel using his personality as he surrendered himself to the Holy Spirit.

Speakers and Doers

This was just one example in Scripture. I wondered if there were other kinds of evidence for how the Spirit views or uses personalities, so I searched Scriptures further.

This is what I found:

Whoever speaks, does so using the words God provides, and whoever serves, does so using the strength God provides, so that in all these things, God might be acknowledged” (I Peter 4:11 NIV, italics mine).

This verse indicates everyone in the world fits into two broad groups:

• those who naturally engage the world by what they say and
• those who naturally engage the world by what they do.

The first group uses words (verbal or written) and emphasizes the head.

The second group uses works and emphasizes the hands.

There are three styles I believe under the “Words” and three styles under the “Works” with a couple substyles under a few.

These two groups describe how we all are generally wired as God created us.

Some are predominately doers

Looking further in Scriptures, 1 Peter 3:11 gives additional insight into the styles of presence: “…won, without a word, by their conduct” (NIV).

Here, it is not what is said, but what is done that can win people over.

People who are basically “doing type people” get their hearts and hands dirty in their evangelistic efforts.

But just so there is no misunderstanding: words also have a vital place.

1 Peter 3:15 reminds us “we should be ready always to give the reason for the hope that is within us” (NIV).

This verse assumes our lives will cause people to want to know “why” – and we need to be ready with words to explain because they will initiate the conversation and ask the questions.

It must also be understood here that evangelism is not about convicting, convincing, or converting the non-Christian.

That is the work of God through the activity of the Holy Spirit in a person’s heart.

Evangelism is about introducing people to Christ through persuasive presentation, using both speech (lips) and actions (life) to share the Good News.

Presentation only appeals to a need already present in a person or that can be perceived during the encounter.

Thus, evangelism is really about conversing with the person in such a way that communicates the Gospel.

Again, words and works are the two basic ways we can evangelize.

God wired us with one or the other of these broad based personality categories.  .

Though I have been touting this dichotomy for years, the most concise descriptors I’ve read that contrast between words and works are presented in Irresistible Evangelism.

Below are several pairings, representing two sides of a continuum; word or proclamation styles are on the left and works or presence styles are on the right.

• Monologue … Dialogue
• Presentations … Conversations
• Our language … Their language
• Count (quantity of) conversions …Count (quality of) conversations
• Front door approaches … Back door approaches
• Fishing from the bank … Swimming with the fish
• Scripted … Spontaneous
• Winning … Nudging
• Gospel presentations … Gospel experiences

Dr. Jeffrey A. Johnson

National Coordinator of Evangelism and New Church Planting for National Ministries

American Baptist Churches USA

Source: PC(USA) – Presbyterian News Service – PC(USA) records steepest membership loss since reunion in 1983.

Membership in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) fell by 69,381 in 2008, the Office of the General Assembly (OGA) has announced in its annual statistical report, continuing a trend that began in the mid-1960s.

Total membership of the denomination is now 2,140,165.

According to the Research Services office of the General Assembly Council (GAC), the 2008 decline was the PC(USA)’s largest numerical and percentage net membership loss since Presbyterian reunion in 1983.

Almost 104,000 people joined the PC(USA) last year, but that good news was more than offset by the 34,101 Presbyterians who died, the 34,340 who were members of the 25 congregations that left the PC(USA) for other denominations, and the staggering 104,428 who were removed from the rolls by their sessions without apparently joining any other church.

Can a positive spin be put on this?   The General Assembly Stated Clerk announces

Parsons insisted that “Presbyterians can be evangelists!”

“But we often stumble over the words. Can we not challenge one another to be able to answer these basic questions,” he said. “Why do I believe in God? Why do I go to church? Why do I go to that particular church?”

Fewer congregations were dissolved in 2008 than in 2007 — 65 vs. 71 the previous year. And 40 new churches were organized last year, 23 more than the previous year. The PC(USA) currently comprises 10,751 congregations.

This suggests the need for

• Additional personal evangelism training.
• Personal or Congregational Coaching to help existing congregations in personal evangelism, not just church planting or transformation
• Evangelism Trainers who can help members articulate their faith or share their personal stories of God’s activity in their life.

Part of this ministry’s goal is to help individuals learn how to share their faith without being obnoxious, and without stepping into all the politics of denominational positions on social issues.

Later this year, I will launch www.EvangelismTrainingUniversity.com, to help provide some personal evangelism training.  It will have a susbscription fee with it, but the material is in the works.

There is a signup form to get more information as it unfolds over the summer of 2009.

The course is still in the works, so there is not a lot of details I can provide at the moment.

Eric Hoey, in an additional statement wrote:

In a June 18 statement, the Rev. Eric Hoey, the GAC’s director of Evangelism and Church Growth,  . . . . . attributed the large number of new members, in part, to the “Grow Christ’s Church Deep and Wide” initiative that came out of the 218th General Assembly (2008).

“Grow Christ’s Church Deep and Wide” created a groundswell of local and regional activity. The initiative challenged all levels of the church to acknowledge our decline and to commit to four areas of growth: evangelism, discipleship, servanthood and diversity,” Hoey said.

“Presbyterian News Service has written a series of articles about congregations that are engaged in innovative outreach programs in order to Grow Christ’s Church Deep and Wide,’” he added.

Highlights:

• Only 11 percent would be willing to self-identify as a visitor on first visit.
• 26 percent would visit some kind of reception.
• Most would want to “size up a congregation” first.

This might suggest some things about our traditional church visitor practices like making them fill out a register, wear a name tag that says visitor, stand up and speak.

I address a bunch of these in my downloadable book How to Welcome Church Visitors.

Original article “Pretend I’m not here”:

The majority of formerly churched adults who want to go back to the pews want to return to a new church with new faces, LifeWay Research found. But only a few want to be identified as a newcomer during their first visit.

Only 11 percent said they would be willing to identify themselves as a visitor when visiting a church for the first time and 63 percent said they would prefer to wait until at least the second visit to let anyone know they are visiting.

Wanting a less formal introduction, 26 percent of formerly churched adults said they desire to slip in and casually introduce themselves after the service.

“Their perspective on visiting a church conflicts with many popular church practices,” said Scott McConnell, associate director of LifeWay Research, in the report. “Asking visitors to stand, a practice that is meant to be welcoming to visitors, may actually do more harm than good. Attending church is a big decision, and the formerly churched clearly want to be in the driver’s seat. The church can, and should, take proactive steps to create a welcoming environment, and respecting their desire to remain anonymous – at least initially – is a critical part of this.”

Most mega churches cater to the desires of new visitors. Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Ill., and McLean Bible Church in McLean, Va., give visitors the choice of attending a separate reception after services to meet church leaders and explore opportunities to get connected. Even in that small setting, they are not called to stand up and introduce themselves. The National Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C., leaves out receptions altogether and instead has information packets available for newcomers.

Instead of getting the newcomer treatment from church members, the formerly churched would rather first “size up” the church, said McConnell.

“Their desire for a welcoming church environment is not satisfied when members suddenly act nice as they learn someone is a visitor,” he said. “It should come as no surprise that the formerly churched prefer to size up the church before they identify themselves as a visitor.”

According to LifeWay, the formerly churched represent approximately 7 percent of Americans.

On another note, 64 percent of the formerly churched would prefer a church of the same denomination as the church they used to attend; 15 percent would opt for a different Protestant denomination; and 18 percent would prefer attending a non-denominational church. Additionally, the study found that 30 percent would consider a non-Protestant Christian denomination and 17 percent would consider a non-Christian religious affiliation.

The study was based on a national sample of 469 formerly churched adults in August 2006. The formerly churched were defined as Protestant adults who currently attend church less than five times a year, but previously attended regularly (at least twice a month) as an adult.

Source: Monday Morning Insight, December 2006

The American population self-identifies as predominantly Christian but Americans are slowly becoming less Christian.

• 86% of American adults identified as Christians in 1990 and 76% in 2008.
• The historic Mainline churches and denominations have experienced the steepest declines while the non-denominational Christian identity has been trending upward particularly since 2001.
• The challenge to Christianity in the U.S. does not come from other religions but rather from a rejection of all forms of organized religion.

34% of American adults considered themselves “Born Again or Evangelical Christians” in 2008.

The U. S. population continues to show signs of becoming less religious, with one out of every five Americans failing to indicate a religious identity in 2008.

• The “Nones” (no stated religious preference, atheist, or agnostic) continue to grow, though at a much slower pace than in the 1990s, from 8.2% in 1990, to 14.1% in 2001, to 15.0% in 2008.
• Asian Americans are substantially more likely to indicate no religious identity than other racial or ethnic groups.

One sign of the lack of attachment of Americans to religion is that 27% do not expect a religious funeral at their death.

Based on their stated beliefs rather than their religious identification in 2008, 70% of Americans believe in a personal God, roughly 12% of Americans are atheist (no God) or agnostic (unknowable or unsure), and another 12% are deistic (a higher power but no personal God).

America’s religious geography has been transformed since 1990.

Religious switching along with Hispanic immigration has significantly changed the religious profile of some states and regions. Between 1990 and 2008, the Catholic population proportion of the New England states fell from 50% to 36% and in New York it fell from 44% to 37%, while it rose in California from 29% to 37% and in Texas from 23% to 32%.

Overall the 1990-2008 ARIS time series shows that changes in religious self-identification in the first decade of the 21st century have been moderate in comparison to the 1990s, which was a period of significant shifts in the religious composition of the United States.

Download the full report.

From Ed Stetzer’s research:

In fact, 73 percent of unchurched twentysomethings consider themselves “spiritual” and would like to know more about “God or a higher supreme being.”

This is 11 percent higher than among unchurched individuals who are 30 years old and older.

They are also significantly more likely to attend church or a small group than older, unchurched generations.

This research is included in my newest book, Lost and Found: The Younger Unchurched and the Churches That Reach Them, co written by Richie Stanley and Jason Hayes. You can get some more numbers and thoughts from the authors of the book in this article at Lifeway.

The research suggests that the church is not doing well enough in meeting their needs, and looks into why they do or do not attend.

Definitions used in this research:

• Young Adults: 20-29 who didn’t go to church in the last 6 months (perhaps execept for a wedding or funeral)
• Spiritual: self-identify as spiritual.  A sense that God is real and they think about spiritual things.

They are interested in the Jesus, but not the church (See They like Jesus, but not the Church by Dan Kimball).  Interested in depth and community.  The catch is that these can be found outside of the church.

What they are looking for is what the church is called to be.

They have more historic beliefs such as Jesus actually rose from the dead,  but a higher sense of pluralism suggests they may not connect them with the local church.  81% believe in God or a surpreme being, but 58% suggested there is no difference between the dieties of other religions.

Listen to the full 20 minute podcast — I found it very interesting.

“The most encouraging take away, when a pastor looks into what young adults are looking for — any church despite their style or music — I can really help our church meet their needs: relationships, authenticity, social action, mentoring”

From the related article at Lifeway:

The survey also indicated that young adults have an openness toward conversations about Christianity. Eighty-nine percent of unchurched young adults say they would listen to what someone believes about Christianity. That number is 14 percent higher than among those 30 and older.

Young adults would also react positively to invitations from friends to study the Bible. Survey respondents were asked to affirm the following statement: “I would be willing to study the Bible if a friend asked me to.” Sixty-one percent of 20-somethings responded, “Yes.” That’s about 20 percent higher than affirmative responses from older generations.

The survey also revealed opportunities for churches among the 20-something crowd. According to the survey, 63 percent of young adults said they would attend church if it presented truth to them in an understandable way “that relates to my life now.” Only 47 percent of respondents 30 years old and older agreed.

Unchurched young people also want to know the church cares about them. The survey found that 58 percent of 20-somethings would be more likely to attend if people at the church “cared for them as a person.”

The national phone survey included 900 unchurched respondents ages of 20-29 and 502 respondents age 30 and over. The survey provides a 95 percent confidence that the sampling error is 2.5 percent.

Let me ask you this

What do these statistics mean for your local context?

Are you seeing this in your local church context?

Share with us what you think in the comment field (Feed readers via email or RSS will need to click through).

Charles Arn has surveyed thousands of people: (Source: 3 Questions for Charles Arn)

In your research, have you found that there’s one specific reason that visitors come to church?

The friendship factor.

We’ve asked more than 50,000 people over the last 10 years why they came to church, and between 75 and 90 percent of respondents say, “I began attending because someone invited me.”

Those friends and relatives are critical to the growth of churches. They far outweigh factors like the facilities, music, preaching, or children’s ministry—people may stay because of these things, but they come because someone they knew invited them.

I’m glad to see that there is some recent research done in the area of getting first time visitors.

If you want to know how to get your church to invite people, it starts with personal relationships with non-church goers.

In my notes about how visitors come to church, I have these stats from 1987. It is still in print from Amazon (Source:The Inviting Church, 1987 p. 44):

• 2% by Advertisement
• 6% by the Pastoral Invitation
• 6% by organized evangelism campaign
• 86% by friends or relatives

Your personal Network

Lifeway research released in 2009 indicated that most people are still open to a invitation to a church from a friend.  See: Statistics on Invitations to Church

Who can you invite to church?

How is your personal network growing?

Do you have unchurched and non-Christian friends to invite?

Check out our series on Building New Relationships to start examining your existing network of friends to invite.