A new survey has broken down America’s church attendance to reflect the growing number of “church” options that have redefined how Christians worship on Sunday.
Beyond traditional church, American Christians are increasingly adopting new forms of faith community such as house churches, marketplace ministries and cyberchurches. The new Barna survey, released Monday, takes into account these “church” options and contends that popular measures such as the percentage of people who are “unchurched” – based on attendance at a conventional church service – are out of date.
“The fact that millions of people are now involved in multiple faith communities – for instance, attending a conventional church one week, a house church the next, and interacting with an online faith community in-between – has rendered the standard measures of “churched” and “unchurched” much less precise,” The Barna Group noted.
As a result, the Christian polling group created a new measurement model with five types of people: unattached, intermittents, homebodies, blenders and conventionals.
Unattached are people who attended neither a conventional church nor a live faith organization during the past year. This includes house church, simple church, intentional community. Some of these people use religious media, but they do not have personal interaction with a regularly-convened faith community.
This group of people represents one out of every four adults (23 percent) in America. About one-third of the segment has never attended a church ever in their life.
Intermittents are those who have participated in a conventional church or live faith community within the past year, but not during the past month. About one out of every seven adults (15 percent) belongs in this category. About two-thirds of this group attended at least one church event within the past six months.
Meanwhile, homebodies are people who have not attended a conventional church during the past month, but have attended a house church meeting (three percent).
Then there are the blenders who attended both a conventional church and a house church during the past month. Most of these people attend the traditional church as their primary church, but are also experimenting with new forms of faith community. In total, blenders represent three percent of the adult population.
But most of America still fit the conventional churchgoer description – someone who attended a conventional church during the past month but had not attended a house church. Almost three out of every five adults (56 percent) fit this description. Participation includes attending a wide variety of conventional church events, such as weekend services, mid-week services, special events, or church-based classes.
Six out of 10 adults in the unattached category (59 percent) consider themselves to be Christian. Moreover, 17 percent of the unattached are born again Christians – defined as people who have made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that they consider to be very important in their life, and who believe that they will experience Heaven after they die because they have confessed their sins and accepted Christ as their savior.
One-fifth (19 percent) of the unattached read the Bible and three out of every five (62 percent) pray to God during a typical week.
The Barna study also identified characteristics of the unattached that might enable conventional churches or other ministries to reach out to them as Easter approaches. Continue >>
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Great missionary movements from Europe and America began to send missionaries to remote
parts of the world and evangelized the people in Asia and Africa. The Churches in those
days had the greatest burden to spread the good news of Jesus Christ. But right after the
2nd world war, evangelizations became a second option and Churches began to operate
like selfindulging organizations. Very few denominations showed interest in foreign missions,
but the material prosperity began to influence Churches. While believers in other parts of
the world worship under the tree, we had the most comfortable settings of worship with
all the luxuries. Our Churches lost the vision of world evangelization, but turned like
private clubs with a big cross in front of the building. Now we are faced with, yet another
danger of prosperity gospel and its leading proponents are following the life style of C.E.O.s of
fortune 500 companies. Our Churches are far away from the first century Church, so it is
time for a great revision in many fronts.
Let's review the purpose of THE CHURCH. Jesus said that the CHURCH would be built on one foundational truth - that He is the Christ, the Son of God. Jesus, the HEAD oif the CHURCH then outlined our purpose in the Great Commissiion. We are to MAKE DISCIPLES in all nations, BAPTIZE converts in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and teach the converts all the things that Jesus has commanded. We are also to celebrate His eternal presence together. We can and should from time to time celebrate (worship and praise Him) His presence individually, but Jesus said that something supernatural can be expected when we join together for corporate celebration! I submit that those who choose the lone ranger approach to celebration do so because they have never experienced the awesome moving of the Holy Spirit that is heightened by corporate praise and worship. I regret that for them. If their reasoning has anything to do with bad press concerning the organized church, I pity them. It is God's Holy Spirit that urges us to participate with other believers in concerted prayer and praise. If the fervent prayer of one righteous man avails much, imagine how potent for the kingdom of God the righteous prayers of 1000 people bonded together in concerted prayer would avail! Being unconventional for the sake of being unconventional is not really unconventioinal...in the South it's called being contrary. Jesus said, "Come unto me ALL who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Sounds to me like a call to meeting.
jessephillips....1man - why can't you be a Christian and vote for Obama?
Please tell me this is a rhetorical question.
In my opinion and observations, I really think that people are tired of the commercial gospel being preached at churches, pastors only permitting one point of view in their churches because of personal and selfish interest, and the pyramid authority system that is active in most churches. I have seem the evil all these things can cause and how it can ruin a person, a family, and a community. At the end of it all, in churches, a pastor's word is considered more valuable than a members words. How else is the apostasy going to enter the world if not through blindly and faithfully following men and women who we trust and have sold out to. No one would expect a pastor would lead you and the congregation into wrongfulness, especially not for money and power, right?
If it sounds good, smells good, and it looks good, then it most be good...right?
We need to be aware and study the word with a true passion to seek and learn what God wants us to know. Not just saying that "I am open minded" but actually being open minded. Many of us depend and trust so much in our leaders and what they teach, but at the end of it all judgement is individual. I have been noticing all the techniques many leaders and preachers have been using recently in order to manipulate and brainwash church members and it is sad to say, but as a young person going on nine years of leadership in God's will, I have seen tons of wrong coming from Christian leadership. I know churches are not perfect, but shouldn't the church be striving to be perfect?
I just want Jesus to return ASAP, pronto! It's too chaotic here already with all this Apostasy, church politics, hate, favoritism, greed, commercialism, etc... That's another list of reasons why churches are going to decrease in numbers.
A.S. - AMEN! I hope that we can soon throw-off more of our unbiblical ideas about what the Church is!
I wonder if all this focus on buildings and impersonal programs has enabled us to become inauthentic, hypocritical, avoiding difficult topics and explanations of our faith, and left us without a convenient forum for practicing love toward each other - and many other things, perhaps.
And, perhaps, allowed people to think they are Christians who really are not (thus giving the rest a bad name)
1man - why can't you be a Christian and vote for Obama?
We're to not to be "forsaking the assembling of ourselves together" but the nature of that assembly is mostly undefined, leaving us with the liberty to use whatever form is expedient, culturally appropriate, and personally comfortable. Fortunately in the U.S. we have a plethora of forms available to worship our Lord. "In essentials, unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity." Augustine of Hippo
Remember that the true church is not a building or a recognized place.
It is where true believers gather, under the authority of Jesus Christ, to worship in Spirit and be fed in Spirit. This can happen wherever the Holy Spirit is.
Where two or three are gathered together by the name of Christ, God is in the midst of them. That is church.
As time changes, the pattern of worship will change. Those churches who are holding to
the old traditions will vanish within a few years. Traditions are deeply rooted in the old
denominations, and even among the Pentecostal denominations. Since all these denominations
are like secular corporations in the way they operate, when a revival takes place, then old
systems of operations will vanish. There will be more home churches, churches in big and
small halls, and the church building architecture will have a new format like sport stadiums,
and the believers will come to worship wearing clothings like attending a sport event.
I now have my answer to who the "christians" are that are supporting Obama, thank you for the info.