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Full Transcript of Episode 05: Data Surprises From Our Study on the Unreached
Study was sponsored by the Billy Graham Center for Evangelism at Wheaton College. Find out more about the upcoming 2017 Amplify Conference in the Chicago area.
Lizette Beard: [00:00] Podcasting from Nashville, Tennessee, this is “Keep Asking,” the weekly podcast that helps you dive in a bit deeper and wider into the research providing insights into today’s church and culture. Guys, good to be back. How’s everybody doing?
Casey: [00:26] Doing well, great.
Lizette: [00:32] Really, because I feel like the Giants aren’t doing so great.
Casey: [00:37] As of our recording here they’re three and three. They just won a big game against the ravens. The schedule is going to clear up. Probably by the time people are listening I expect them to be…
Lizette: [00:47] Headed to the Super Bowl?
Casey: [00:48] Probably, yeah.
Lizette: [00:49] Excellent. How are the Broncos doing? Have you been able to stay up with that?
Scott McConnell: [00:55] They’re still looking strong. They’ve had a couple hiccups, but they’re looking strong. I’m only rooting for one Giant this year. Your wide receiver is on my fantasy team, but otherwise it’s all…
[01:09] [crosstalk]Lizette: [01:10] Is that the mouthy one, the one that throws the fits on the sidelines?
Scott: [01:12] Yeah.
Casey: [01:13] That’s what wide receivers do.
Lizette: [01:14] I’ve been learning that. As I listen to sports radio, I’m learning they’re a bit like the divas.
Scott: [01:23] Who else is called to run as fast as they can on every play and for three out of four plays it really doesn’t matter? I can see why they get a little bit of an attitude after a while.
Lizette: [01:34] Today we’re talking a little bit about how research can clarify assumptions and data findings. A lot of times we all walk around, you have to walk around to survive in society assuming some things, drawing conclusions.
[01:54] The reason we’ll dig in specifically on what we call quantitative or survey data is so we can get specific counts or specific pictures. We think we know something, and then if we get good data back we can either confirm it or adjust it. Casey, tell us a little bit about what data can tell us or clarify in the picture of a research question.Casey: [02:27] I think one of the things we have is a propensity to have an image in our head already of a group. Sometimes even as we’re going into a research project we know the people who are asking the question have an idea in their head of what the data is going to look like on the other end already.
[02:46] They have a suspicion that there’s a particular trend or movement happening in broader culture that they’re interested in studying. One of the things that’s great about that is we have actual validation of that as to whether that’s happening or not. [03:07] We’re able examine those assumptions. Instead of building narratives on those assumptions we can build narratives on the facts.Lizette: [03:15] Scott, trying to tie back into decision making, there’s simple ways when people take in data and it affects decision making. That can be a visit to the doctor’s office, checking the weather. It helps you adjust. I thought it was going to be this, but now it’s that.
[03:33] What are some ways that you’ve seen in research we’ve been able to help or contribute to clarifying the picture?Scott: [03:43] Often times when people go to describe something they’re kind of making it up or their most recent experience really influences their thinking. When we can bring numbers to describe an audience it can be incredibly helpful even if some of those numbers are exactly what the people were thinking in the first place, it confirms their hunch.
[04:07] Also when we can bring numbers that bring clarity because we’re showing that it’s a little different than they were thinking, that’s definitely helpful. One of the recent studies we did that with was with the unchurched study. [04:20] We surveyed Americans who have not been to church in six months except for a wedding or a funeral. By looking at the unchurched, some of them didn’t look exactly like we expected.Casey: [04:34] I think that, at least for some of us, we walk around with this picture of the unchurched as a monolithic group. You have an image maybe of higher educational attainment or maybe of nonreligious in terms of their religious preference, atheist, agnostic, no religious preference.
[04:57] What we see is that there’s actually a lot more diversity and several faces to people who aren’t regularly attending church.Lizette: [05:06] That’s funny that you say that because I grew up in an unchurched home. I know that surprises everyone with all my devout behavior all the time. My family very much blue collar, high school educated but also very successful business owners.
[05:24] I have a natural inclination to picture the unchurched, I lean towards blue collar and those who are not necessarily real quick to jump into new or upper middle class social situations which are a lot of the church experiences that I have. It’s interesting to have that different picture.Casey: [05:47] So much of it is informed by our individual experiences and who do we know who is in that space as opposed to any broader picture.
Lizette: [05:57] Scott, what’s the danger if people do not step back and look at a broader picture and they speak authoritatively just from anecdotal experience?
Scott: [06:09] They can completely miss the mark. I can see a lot of church leaders thinking back even to some historical patterns where some whole denominations, Assemblies of God and Southern Baptist convention, these denominations grew by reaching rural people who tended to be less educated. They grew very rapidly.
[06:31] Just from that historical memory, they may assume that those people have been reached and it’s the more educated urban folks that are not reached. A study like this can challenge that and say, “No, there’s actually a lot of less educated people who are not in church.”Lizette: [06:53] It could be even, I know from some extended family experiences, roots in having negative church experiences in those rural environments. My anecdotal experience is hearing those stories perpetuated over a period of time. Any other surprises or pictures as the face of the unchurched got clearer after this study?
Casey: [07:25] Going back to the religious affiliation aspect of it, the number we saw, depending on how you define it a little bit, we’re not counting those who only attend on religious holidays as churched, but the number we have is over half of those who are unchurched are Christian who are identifying as Catholic, Protestant, or non‑denominational.
[07:51] That’s a much bigger number than for me. In my experiences that I was bringing into it, that wasn’t the number I was expecting to see.Lizette: [07:57] Can you give me a little more clarity on these groups, the breakdown there?
Casy: [08:04] Sure. Using that definition of those who are attending less than once a month basically, so rarely, never, only on religious holidays, when you’re talking about unchurched as being that group, about 25 percent are Catholic. About 20 percent are Protestant, 11 percent non‑denominational, 32 percent non‑religious, what we normally call the nones.
Lizette: [08:31] We’ll put the charts up with these numbers in our show notes so you can access them at Lifewayresearch.com. What else about that group? Any particular focus?
Scott: [08:43] With these different religious preferences among the unchurched, we actually can divide them up. I think today let’s focus just on Christians who are not attending church. This is a religious preference. It’s not a detailed question on have they put their faith completely in Jesus Christ.
[09:08] As a religious preference, people who call themselves a Christian, they’re not afraid of that label, as we look at them we see that they’re pretty quick to think about religious things. We see 8 out of 10 of them saying that there’s an ultimate purpose and plan for their lives. [09:29] We see 6 out of 10 saying that it’s a major priority for them to be finding their deeper purpose, but there’s also some things that, when we think about how can churches and ministries be reaching out to unchurched people who think that they’re Christians or may very well have that relationship with Christ but are not a part of a faith community, there are things that can help us connect with them.09:59] We see that only 4 out of 10 admire Christian friends and their faith but 8 out of 10 say that if a Christian friend really values their faith I don’t mind them talking about it.
Lizette: [10:12] That could be surprising for some folks because you can hear people talking about the reluctance or the fear or if you’ve approached it and had negative feedback.
Scott: [10:27] A lot of times when we talk about reaching the unchurched we think it’s a conversation at ground zero. For a lot of the folks that call themselves Christians, they know some facts. They’ve had some experiences in church. We’re picking up at a different place in the conversation.
[10:48] The very best opportunity is when friends of theirs who are Christians can share their own experiences. That’s the biggest segue and the biggest opportunity available.Lizette: [11:01] I’m going to toss this out there to whoever wants this first because I’m going to ask you to think about two studies at a time. I think I can see some connections between what we saw in the theology study and the unchurched Christians. It seems like to me those, if you’ve got some of those weaknesses in doctrine or understanding…
[11:29] Did you guys make any of those connections, or do you see something that could help our listeners tie those two studies together?Casey: [11:36] I think across the board what we saw in the theology study was that we have this subset that we’re talking about, those with evangelical beliefs who affirm a few basic tenets of what it means to be an evangelical, who still, nevertheless, had a lot of fuzzy details on some of the specifics of their faith.
[11:57] When we looked at that and compared it by attendance, what we saw is those who are attending somewhat regularly are more often to fall in line with orthodox beliefs. They’re immersing themselves in a community of people teaching that.Scott: [12:18] I think the theology study definitely showed us how a lot of Americans have some basic understanding of who Jesus Christ is, who God is, but anytime it slips into the relationship with God element, that’s where they get a little sketchy in what they know and what they understand.
[12:45] We as individuals, we as churches, we as ministry leaders, as we think about how to connect people with Christ, we really have to focus a lot on the relationship piece. Even as we asked Christians who are unchurched what might they be likely to attend in a church setting, the things that scored high were not the typical things of, “Let’s just invite them to worship. Let’s invite them to a small group or a Sunday school class.” [13:13] It was events to make their neighborhood safer. It was community service projects that scored higher than attending the more traditional churchy settings. Those don’t sound very relational. It’s going to be hard to jump from a service project to talking about someone’s relationship with God. [13:39] Those are definitely areas where we can build relationships human to human, person to person. It’s in those friendships that we’re going to have the opportunity to have the more important conversation of how can your relationship with Christ begin. How can it develop? How can it grow?Lizette: [13:56] I don’t know how many others for Christians stood out as far as events, but the one thing that I thought was interesting just in the study as a whole, there are different types of events, different types of gatherings that different folks would say they’re likely to attend and some unlikely to attend.
[14:17] I saw that as really an opportunity for churches or individuals who wanted to reach out or take a step. There’s different ways to go about it. There’s not one “this is the exact way” to get people engaged. Casey?Casey: [14:38] We saw some differences in terms of ground that might be easier to plow or harder in terms of helping people to engage in the community of faith. Still 48 percent of Christians said that if someone they knew invited them to a worship service they’d be likely to attend.
[15:01] That’s a minority, but it’s almost half of them that say even if you just invite them to a worship service right off the bat, among unchurched Christians, that they would consider going. For some people it’s just as simple as extending an invitation. [15:16] For others, as Scott was mentioning, there were some other opportunities and activities that they might be more likely to attend than that. There’s a variety of connection points that could happen there.Scott: [15:33] There were about five different types of activities that a majority of unchurched Christians would be willing to attend at a church. That variety really comes in there. Not only are we putting different faces on who the unchurched are, but the people who might do the inviting, we might have different faces.
[15:53] You might be more willing to invite them to a small group. I might be more willing to invite them to a concert. Casey might be more willing to invite them to that service project. Each of us can be…Lizette: [16:04] Why didn’t you pick me for service projects? I’m a little offended. Go ahead, sorry.
Casey: [16:09] I think also, kind of to Scott’s point, what we saw a lot is that just having a personal connection, being the one doing the inviting, that made a difference. We asked questions, “Would this be an effective way to try and get you to join in, to come to something?”
[16:32] We saw advertisements, door‑to‑door, and all these different methods, they paled in comparison to just a personal friend or family member, those close personal connections being the person doing the inviting. That makes a big difference too.Lizette: [16:50] I think it’s a great reminder that we’ve seen historically in research that word of mouth, the relationship ‑‑ as culture changes there’s going to be shifts ‑‑ but the significance of a relationship.
[17:03] One of the things that stood out to me was there’s these opportunities to invite and include unchurched into church activities but also how willing am I to go to something of theirs, something significant. I think there’s a real balance there. Are we building a relationship that’s a real relationship, or are we building a relationship to say, “Oh, I need you to come do this.”Casey: [17:32] Our friend Micah Fries, who used to work with us, I saw him on Twitter one time write something to the effect of we shouldn’t become friends with nonbelievers, or, I guess in this case, with Christians who aren’t attending church to invite them to church.
[17:48] We should become friends with people who aren’t going to church and invite them to church. I think that’s a pretty critical distinction to make.Lizette: [17:53] I’m sure he said it in an even more upbeat way than that and hashtagged #EverythingIsAwesome.
Scott: [18:00] Speaking of upbeat, one of the encouraging findings is that half of Christian unchurched folks believe that they will attend church regularly sometime in the future. That invitation may be all that’s standing between them and getting involved.
[18:17] [background music]Lizette: [18:17] We’re going to have to wrap up here today. What are some other topics that we may try and cover in future podcasts?
Scott: [18:27] There’s definitely more from this study. We’ll dig into who the nonreligious are who don’t attend church, and we will also dig into people who have attended church in the past but don’t attend anymore.
Lizette: [18:43] Thanks guys. Thanks for listening to Keep Asking, the Lifeway Research podcast. If you liked what you just heard, we hope you’ll pass along our Web address, lifewayresearch.com to your friends and colleagues.
[18:53] Be sure to tweet your questions and comments to us @LifewayResearch and @smcconn, @statsguycasey, and @lizettebeard. Join us next time for another edition of Keep Asking. Keep asking, learn more, and do better.Links of interest:
- Unchurched Will Talk About Faith, Not Interested in Going to Church by Lifeway Research
- Most and Least Religious U.S. States (2016) by Pew Research
- New Churches Draw Those Who Previously Didn’t Attend (2015) by Lifeway Research
- Church involvement varies widely among U.S. Christians (2015) by Pew Research
- Unchurched 20-somethings More Open than Older Unchurched (2009) by Lifeway Research
- 2017 Amplify Conference in Chicago area
- BGCE hosts inaugural Evangelism Leaders Fellowship (2016) by Ed Stetzer
- For more information on the Evangelism Leaders Fellowship
You can find the methodology for this study and download a copy of the report at the bottom of this article.