Top Reasons Unchurched People Choose a Church

My new favorite resource on this topic is Thom S. Rainer’s book Surprising Insights from the Unchurched.

This is the result of one of the most extensive studies ever conducted on the unchurched population.

He has surveyed those who have become churchgoers within the last two years. 

In this case, the “formerly unchurched” themselves were asked to give feedback on what was and was not influential in their conversions.

The research was a very responsible, independently evaluated, qualitative study.

Over a six year period, Rainer’s group studied over 2,000 “effective evangelistic churches,” defined as those having 26 conversions per year and a conversion ratio (membership/annual conversion) of less than 20:1 (national norm for American churches is 85:1).

Less than 4 percent of American churches met the criteria.

This was a particular niche of study, asking questions of those who made that transition into effective evangelistic churches.

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

Photo credit: Church Steeple photo credit: TechSavi via cc