Check it out:

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/08/16/beyond_city_limits?page=0,0

Mel

1. Which country has the Christian Church with the largest attendance in the world?

2. What’s the dominate historic religion of that country?

3. Which country has the Christian Church with the largest seating capacity in the world?

4. What’s the dominate historic religion of that country?

5. In which country is the world’s largest Buddhist University located?

6. Where is the world’s largest Muslim training center?

7. Which country has the world’s largest Jewish population?

8. Which country has the world’s eighth largest Hindi population?

9. Where is the world’s largest training center for Transcendental Meditation?

10. In the United States, which age group is most responsive to the gospel?

ANSWERS

1. Korea

2. Buddhism

3. Nigeria (Lagos)

4. Islam

5. United States (Boulder, Colorado)

6. United States (New York City)

7. United States

8. United States (#1 India, #2 Nepal, #3 Bangladesh, #4 Indonesia, #5 Sir Lanka, #6 Pakistan, #7 Malaysia, #8 US (1 million))

9. United States (Fairfield, Ohio)

10. Children and Teenagers (Nearly 75% of people who come to Christ do so by the age of 19)

Taken from “Mission in America” by Tom Clegg and Warren Bird (2007)

Mel

—–

By Cathy Lynn Grossman and Stephanie Steinberg
USA TODAY

“Bye-bye church. We’re busy.” That’s the message teens are giving churches today.

Only about one in four teens now participate in church youth groups, considered the hallmark of involvement; numbers have been flat since 1999. Other measures of religiosity — prayer, Bible reading and going to church — lag as well, according to Barna Group, a Ventura, Calif., evangelical research company. This all has churches canceling their summer teen camps and youth pastors looking worriedly toward the fall, when school-year youth groups kick in.

“Talking to God may be losing out to Facebook,” says Barna president David Kinnaman.

“Sweet 16 is not a sweet spot for churches. It’s the age teens typically drop out,” says Thom Rainer, president of LifeWay Christian Resources in Nashville, which found the turning point in a study of church dropouts. “A decade ago teens were coming to church youth group to play, coming for the entertainment, coming for the pizza. They’re not even coming for the pizza anymore. They say, ‘We don’t see the church as relevant, as meeting our needs or where we need to be today.’ ”

“I blame the parents,” who didn’t grow up in a church culture, says Jeremy Johnston, executive pastor at First Family Church in Overland Park, Kan.

His megachurch would routinely take 600 teens to summer church camp, he says, “and many would be forever changed by that experience. But this summer we don’t even have a camp.

“Remember, 80% of kids don’t have cars. Their parents could be lazy or the opposite — overstressed and overcommitted. If parents don’t go to church, kids don’t, either.”

Don’t forget the overcommitted teens themselves, the recession and growing competition from summer mission trips, says Rick Gage of Go-Tell Youth Camps, based in Duluth, Ga.

Registration fell 22% in 2009 but stabilized this summer with 2,000 middle- and high-school teens at five camps in four states. Attendance peaked in the late 1990s at 5,000 teens, Gage says.

Chris Palmer, youth pastor at Ironbridge Baptist Church in Chester, Va., says its youth group enrollment slid from 125 teens in 2008 to 35 last winter.

He pulled participation back up to 70 this year by letting teens know “real church, centered on Jesus Christ, is hard work,” Palmer says. “This involves the Marine Corps of Christianity. Once we communicate that, we see kids say, ‘Hey, I want to be involved in something that’s a little radical and exciting.’ ”

Rainer agrees. He says teens today want Scripture, they “don’t want superficiality. We need to tell them that if you are part of church life, you are part of something bigger. The church needs you, too.”

But first, they have to find the kids.

Sam Atkeson of Falls Church, Va., left his Episcopal church youth group not long after leaving middle school.

“I started to question if it was something I always wanted to do or if I just went because my friends did,” says Atkeson, now 18. “It just wasn’t really something I wanted to continue to do. My beliefs changed. I wouldn’t consider myself a Christian anymore.”

http://www.ncccusa.org/news/100204yearbook2010.html

New York, February 12, 2010 — The National Council of Churches’ 2010 Yearbook of American & Canadian Churches reports membership gains in the Catholic Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Assemblies of God, among others.

The 78th annual edition of the Yearbook also reports a continuing decline in membership of virtually all mainline denominations. And the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation’s second largest denomination and long a reliable generator of church growth, reported a decline in membership for the second year in a row, down 0.24 percent to 16,266,920.

The Catholic Church, the nation’s largest at more than 68 million members, also reported a slight membership loss in 2009 but rebounded this year with a robust growth of 1.49 percent.

The Latter-day Saints grew 1.71 percent to 5,873,408 members and the Assemblies of God grew 1.27 percent to 2,863,265 members, according to figures reported in the 2010 Yearbook.

Other churches that continued to post membership gains in 2010 are Jehovah’s Witnesses, up 2 percent to 1,092,169 members, and Church of God (Cleveland, Tenn.), up 1.76 percent to 1,053,642 members.

Churches reporting the highest membership losses are the Presbyterian Church (USA), down 3.28 percent to 2,941,412; American Baptist Churches in the USA, down 2 percent to 1,358,351; and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, down 1.92 percent to 4,709,956 members.

Membership figures reported in the 2010 Yearbook were collected by the churches in 2008 and reported to the Yearbook in 2009.

However, eleven of the 25 largest churches did not report updated figures: the Church of God in Christ; the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc.; the National Baptist Convention of America, Inc.; the African Methodist Episcopal Church; the National Missionary Baptist Convention of America; the Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc.; Churches of Christ; Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America; Pentecostal Assemblies of the World, Inc.; Baptist Bible Fellowship International; and Christian Churches and Churches of Christ.

The Rev. Dr. Eileen W. Lindner, editor of the annual Yearbook since 1998, noted that many observers have attributed accelerated membership decline of some churches to “an increasing secularization of American postmodern society, and its disproportionate impact on liberal religious groups.”

But Lindner advised caution in assessing the causes of decline. “American society as a whole has not experienced the kind and rate of secularization so clearly demonstrated during the last quarter century in Western Europe. Indeed, American church membership trends have defied gravity particularly where the Pentecostal experience is included.”

In addition, the largest plurality of immigrants to the U.S. in the last 50 years have been Christian in their religious affiliation, Lindner notes.
“In an era in which we have come to expect the inevitable advance of secularism in the U.S., the influx of robust Christian communities among new immigrants once again amends the topographical map.”

More study is needed to determine the potential changes in the American landscape “occasioned by the in-migration of new immigrant churches over the last forty years,” Lindner writes. But the impacts of the new immigration on the faith community have been profound.

Church financial trends are also reported in the Yearbook. The financial reporting in the 2010 Yearbook is based on the financial income reports of the 64 churches reporting. The almost 45 million members of these churches contributed almost $36 billion, showing a decrease in the total income to the churches of $26 million.

The 2010 Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches reports on 227 national church bodies. Statistics in the yearbook reflect “continued high overall church participation, and account for the religious affiliation of over 163 million Americans,” the editor reports.

The Yearbook also includes a directory of 234 U.S. local and regional ecumenical bodies with program and contact information and provides listings of theological seminaries and bible schools, religious periodicals and guides to religious research including church archive listings.
Information in the Yearbook is kept up to date in two regular electronic updates each year. Access to this Internet data is provided through a unique passcode printed inside the back cover.

Total church membership reported in the 2010 Yearbook is 147,384,631 members, up 0.49 percent over 2009.

The top 25 churches reported in the 2010 Yearbook are in order of size:

1. The Catholic Church, 68,115,001 members, up 1.49 percent.

2. Southern Baptist Convention,16,228,438 members, down 0.24percent.

3. The United Methodist Church, 7,853,987 members, down 0.98 percent.

4. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 5,974,041 members, up 1.71 percent.

5. The Church of God in Christ, 5,499,875 members, no membership updates reported.

6. National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Inc, 5,000,000 members, no membership updates reported.

7. Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, 4,633,887 members, down1.62 percent.

8. National Baptist Convention of America, Inc., 3,500,000 members, no membership updates reported.

9. Assemblies of God (ranked 10 last year), 2,899,702 members, up 1.27 percent.

10. Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) 1(ranked 9 last year), 2,844,952 members, down 3.28 percent.

11. African Methodist Episcopal Church, 2,500,000 members, no membership updates reported.

11. National Missionary Baptist Convention of America, 2,500,000 members, no membership updates reported.

11. Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc. 2,500,000 members, no membership updates reported.

14. The Lutheran Church– Missouri Synod (LCMS), 2,337,349 members, down 1.92 percent.

15. The Episcopal Church, 2,057,292 members, down 2.81 percent.

16. Churches of Christ, 1,639,495 members, no membership updates reported.

17. Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, 1,500,000 members, no membership updates reported.

17. Pentecostal Assemblies of the World, Inc., 1,500,000 members, no membership updates reported.

19. The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, 1,400,000 members, members, no membership updates reported.

20. American Baptist Churches in the U.S.A., 1,331,127 members, down 2.00 percent.

21. Baptist Bible Fellowship International (ranked 22 last year), 1,200,000 members, no membership updates reported.

22. Jehovah’s Witnesses (ranked 23 last year) 1,114,009members, up 2.00 percent.

23. United Church of Christ (ranked 22 last year), 1,111,691 members, down 2.93 percent.

24. Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee), (ranked 25 last year), 1,072,169 members, up 1.76 percent.

25. Christian Churches and Churches of Christ (ranked 24 last year), 1,071,616 members, no membership updates reported.
________________________________________
NCC News contact: Philip E. Jenks, 212-870-2228 (office), 646-853-4212 (cell) , pjenks@ncccusa.org

In Part 3 of the book (Who we are as Individuals) the author states that “The only safe generalization about Americans today is that ‘how they look’ is no longer an indication of ‘how they act’.”

The has used ‘psychographic analysis’ to segment Americans into five statistically distinctive categories.

Here are the five segments of Americans from Luntz:

1. Thirty percent of Americans are “Relationship People”. This is the largest segment of the American population, it’s also the youngest. To them, relationships can mean friends, family, or spouse. Their whole idea of the good life is to be with someone all the time. They get their satisfaction out of interacting with other people. They don’t care as much about jobs or careers. They are generally satisfied with their life today, but very nervous about tomorrow. They don’t save; they spend, and they enjoy spending on other people as much, if not more than, on themselves.

2. Twenty-five percent of Americans are “Spiritual People”. This is the oldest and most female-oriented of the five segments. What unites them, in addition to the importance of religion and prayer, are the principles of simplicity and efficiency. They don’t need or want to spend money to be happy. They have older cars and TV sets; they don’t have TiVo or satellite radio. They’re not just late adopters, they’re non-adopters because stuff doesn’t matter to them. If Relationship People are the loudest group, Spiritual People are the quietest. They tend to do things in their spare time that don’t require other people, such as reading and listening to music. They appreciate the outdoors (they are environmentalists) and they have a respect for natural beauty.

3. Eighteen percent of Americans are “Health People”. They’re younger than average, more male than female, and they’re the segment most likely to participate than to observe. You won’t just meet this segment at the gym or on the basketball or tennis court – you’ll find them shopping at Whole Foods and having a snack at Jamba Juice. They’re similar to the Spiritual segment in their desire to be outdoors, but they’re parallel to the Relationship segment in their desire to be with others. They are the most physically active of all the groups and put a lesser emphasis on career and financial success.

4. Twelve percent of Americans are “Control People”. These people can be very unpleasant to be around. For them, it’s not about money; it’s about more time and less hassle. They have everything planned out. Their intensity is similar to the Health segment, but while the Healthy are engaged in physical activity, Control People are engaged in mental or intellectual activity. Control People want to be doing something other than what they’re doing; they think today is awful, but tomorrow is going to be great. This is the flip side, demographically, of the Spiritual segment in that these people are almost exclusively under 50 and more male than female. They’re the mirror image in another way: Stuff matters. Their stereo is high-end, and their TV screen is huge. In fact, everything is bigger; they want the newest and the best of everything. They’re willing to spend money, and they work longer hours than the other segments to be able to afford it.

5. Eleven percent of Americans are “Financial Security People”. The fastest-growing segment, these people are always unhappy and dissatisfied, and in the current economic mess, they’re downright miserable. They judge themselves by how other people judge them. Their reputations mean more to them than they do for any other segment. They’re the opposite of self-satisfied; they’re almost self-loathing. They have a ton of material goods, but they buy things to make a status statement rather than to enjoy them. They tend to be older and wealthier than average, although you’ll find plenty of people in their 30s in this segment. They own; they don’t rent or lease because they want whatever it is to belong to them – and they’re dissatisfied when they can’t have everything they want when they want it.

An additional four percent of Americans don’t fall neatly into any of these five categories.

Now let’s think about our churches and communities.

• How do the people in our church fit into these categories?
• What about our communities? How do our church activities address their orientation?
• How do our messages help each category become more Christ like?
• Do we provide ways for them to process their faith with similar people?

One thing that becomes clear is that each category looks at life, faith, and the world through different lenses or frames. Do we help them see Christ without distortion?

by Morten T. Hansen

Harvard Business Press, 2009

“good collaboration amplifies strength, but poor collaboration is worse than no collaboration at all.” (page iv)

Collaboration Traps: How Smart People Get it Wrong (pages 11-14)

1. Collaborating in hostile territory – where competition and independence are the culture.
2. Over-collaborating — thinking more is always better.
3. Over-shooting the potential value – thinking it will produce more than it will.
4. Underestimating the costs – how difficult it is to change cultures.
5. Misdiagnosing the problem – falsely looking only at surface issues.
6. Implementing the wrong solution – caused by #5.

Disciplined Collaboration (pages 14-15)

Defined:  Getting people to work together across departments, programs or functions.

Disciplined Collaboration: Three Steps (pages 15-18, 50-63)

Step 1: Evaluate opportunities for collaboration – “Will we gain a great upside by collaborating?”. Collaboration is a means to an end, not the end.

Step 2: Spot barriers to collaboration – “What are the barriers blocking people from collaborating well?”

1)   The not-invented-here barrier (people are unwilling to reach out to others)

• Insular culture – Communication mainly inside a group
• Status gap – Don’t want to cross status lines
• Self-reliance – Should fix your own problems
• Fear – Do not want to reveal problems

2)   The hoarding barrier (people are unwilling to provide help)

• Competition – Competition with colleagues and units
• Narrow incentives – rewards for own goals
• Too busy – No time to help others
• Fear – Loss of power if sharing knowledge

3)   The search barrier (people are not able to find what they are looking for)

• Company size – Big companies face search problems
• Physical distance – Distance makes search difficult
• Information overload – Too much information worsens the search
• Poverty of networks – Lack of links undermines search

4)   The transfer barrier (people are not able to work with people they don’t know well)

• Tacit knowledge – Difficult knowledge to transfer
• No common frame – Don’t know how to work together
• Weak ties – No strong relations to ease transfer

All four barriers need to be low before effective collaboration can really take place. Each one is enough to stop people from collaborating well.

Step 3: Tailor solutions to tear down barriers.

Three strategies to tear down barriers:

1)   Unification strategy – craft compelling common goals, articulate a strong value of cross-company teamwork, and talk the talk of collaboration to send strong signals that lift people’s sights beyond narrow interests and toward a common goal.

2)   People strategy – get the right people to collaborate on the right projects. People who simultaneously focus on the performance of their unit and across boundaries.

3)   Network strategy – collaboration runs more through interpersonal networks and less through formal hierarchies.

The best of Two Worlds – Decentralized and Collaboration (page 19)

Barrier Assessment (Page 64)

Solutions to achieving collaboration

1. Unify People – Create a Unifying Goal (pages 74-82)

Criterion 1: The goal must create a common fate

Criterion 2: The goal must be simple and concrete

How President Kennedy went from the main objective of demonstrating U.S. world leadership to landing a man on the moon.

Criterion 3: The Goal must stir passion

Criterion 4: The goal must put competition on the outside

2. Cultivate two-dimensional leaders (Leaders who deliver results in their own job and deliver results by collaborating across the organization (Pages 95-114)

3. Build Nimble Networks (Pages 117-123)

Collaborative organizations run on networks, those informal working relationships among people that cut across formal lines of reporting.

Six Network Rules (pages 123-136)

Network Rule #1: Build outward, Not inward.

Network Rule #2: Build Diversity, Not size

Network Rule #3: Build weak ties, Not strong ones

Network Rule #4: Use bridges, Not familiar faces

Network Rule #5: Swarm the target, Do Not go it alone

Network Rule #6: Switch to strong ties, Do Not rely on weak ones

In the LDR Church Development Process we talk about the changes in organization and how this impacts the church.

Organization is just a way to help people to work more effectively together. My Friend, Josh Hebert, sent me link to a video by Dan Pink on “The Surprising science of Motivation.”

Career analyst Dan Pink examines the puzzle of motivation, starting with a fact that social scientists know but most managers don’t: Traditional rewards aren’t always as effective as we think. Listen for illuminating stories — and maybe, a way forward.

It is about 18 minutes long, but definitely worth watching

http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html

It is totally about the business world, but illustrates the differences in motivation used by 21st Century companies.

The survey results discovered the following:

• On 17 indicators of religious belief and behavior examined in the research there were statistically significant differences between churches of 100 or fewer adult attenders and churches of 1000 or more adult attenders. The only item tested in which there was not a distinction was whether the church attender had prayed during the past week.
• On all 9 of the belief statements tested, attenders of large churches were more likely than those engaged in a small or mid-sized congregation to give an orthodox biblical response – e.g., the Bible is totally accurate in all the principles it teaches, Satan is not merely symbolic but exists, Jesus led a sinless life, God is the all-knowing, all-powerful creator of the world who still rules the universe, etc.
• On seven of the eight behavioral measures, attenders of large churches were substantially more likely than those of small churches to be active. (These included behaviors such as attending church in the past week, reading the Bible in the past week, volunteering at their church in the past week, etc.) The average difference related to these seven behaviors was 17 percentage points.
• There were significant differences on six of the ten demographic attributes examined. Specifically, larger churches were more likely to have college graduates (a 22 percentage point difference between those who attend churches of 100 adults or less and those who attend congregations with 1000 or more adults), affluent attenders, and children under 18 living in their home. Adults attending Protestant mega-churches were also more likely to be registered to vote and to be registered as a Republican (a 16-point gap compared to adults attending churches of up to 100 adults). Those who attend small churches were more likely to home-school their children.
• Young adults were somewhat more likely to attend mega-churches than to affiliate with a congregation of any other size. In contrast, adults in their sixties or older were less likely to attend a church of 500 or more attenders than to regularly participate in a smaller church.
• Overall, the profile of demographics, beliefs and religious behaviors was strikingly similar between congregations of 500 to 999 adult attenders and that of congregations drawing 1000 or more adults. Similarly, congregations with fewer than 50 adults were generally similar regarding most indicators to congregations with 50 to 100 attenders.
• The point at which congregational belief profiles were mostly likely to diverge was when churches reached the 200-adult range. Those who attend churches of 1000 or more adults are significantly different from the congregations of those attending churches of as many as 200 adults in relation to six out of the 10 belief statements explored.
• The religious beliefs and behaviors of people who attend house churches, which average about 20 adults in attendance, are more similar to the results for large conventional churches (i.e., more than 500 adults) than they are to the outcomes among those who attend small conventional churches (i.e., less than 50 adults).
• Despite the substantial attention focused on Protestant mega-churches, such congregations draw about 9% of adults who frequent a Protestant church. In contrast, 41% of adults attending a Protestant church associate with a congregation of 100 or fewer adults. An additional 23% can be found at churches of 101 to 200 adults, 18% associate with bodies of 201 to 499 adults, and 9% can be found in churches of 500 to 999 adults.

Because the study did not examine the point in life or the church at which a particular theological perspective was embraced by respondents, the research results do not mean that larger churches are more likely to provide congregants with conservative biblical views. The research also discovered that the patterns are different among Catholic adults, who are more likely to attend mega-churches than are their Protestant counterparts.

Religious Beliefs of Protestants, by Congregational Size
(N=1,334)

* these are descriptions of the actual survey questions, not the wording of the questions actually used in the research.
** Adult attendance on an average weekend

About the Research

This report is based upon telephone interviews conducted by The Barna Group among three nationwide random samples of adults. In the course of the 3,014 interviews conducted, each churched respondent who attends a Protestant church was asked to estimate the number of adults who attend their primary church on a typical weekend. These surveys were conducted between January 2007 and November 2008. The range of sampling error associated with the total sample of adults is between ±0.8 and ±1.8 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. The estimated sampling error for each of the segments related to church attendance ranged from ±2.3 to ±9.1 percentage points. These allowances do not include other types of error (known as non-sampling error) that can occur in surveys, such as errors arising from question wording, question sequencing, and the recording of responses.

“Born again Christians” were defined as people who said they had made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that was still important in their life today and who also indicated they believed that when they die they will go to Heaven because they had confessed their sins and had accepted Jesus Christ as their savior. Respondents were not asked to describe themselves as “born again.”

“Evangelicals” meet the born again criteria (described above) plus seven other conditions. Those include saying their faith is very important in their life today; believing they have a personal responsibility to share their religious beliefs about Christ with non-Christians; believing that Satan exists; believing that eternal salvation is possible only through grace, not works; believing that Jesus Christ lived a sinless life on earth; asserting that the Bible is accurate in all that it teaches; and describing God as the all-knowing, all-powerful, perfect deity who created the universe and still rules it today. Being classified as an evangelical is not dependent upon church attendance or the denominational affiliation of the church attended. Respondents were not asked to describe themselves as “evangelical.”

The Barna Group, Ltd. (which includes its research division, The Barna Research Group) is a private, non-partisan, for-profit organization that conducts primary research on a wide range of issues and products, produces resources pertaining to cultural change, leadership and spiritual development, and facilitates the healthy spiritual growth of leaders, children, families and Christian ministries. Located in Ventura, California, Barna has been conducting and analyzing primary research to understand cultural trends related to values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors since 1984. If you would like to receive free e-mail notification of the release of each new, bi-monthly update on the latest research findings from The Barna Group, you may subscribe to this free service at the Barna website (www.barna.org). Additional research-based resources, both free and at discounted prices, are also available through that website.

© The Barna Group, Ltd, 2009. ]]> http://www.ldrteam.com/blog/how-faith-varies-by-church-size/feed/ 1 http://www.ldrteam.com/blog/10-things-about-senior-pastors-of-large-churches/ http://www.ldrteam.com/blog/10-things-about-senior-pastors-of-large-churches/#comments Tue, 14 Jul 2009 16:24:48 +0000 Mel http://www.ldrteam.com/blog/?p=253 Leadership Network recently conducted a survey of 232 pastors of churches with an average weekend worship attendance of at least 2,000. The following ten statements are taken from a full-length report.

http://www.pursuantgroup.com/leadnet/advance/jul09s1a.htm
1. They think of themselves more as teachers and directional leaders than as pastors.

Sure, their business cards may say pastor and their congregants may call them Pastor Smith — but when these leaders are asked which phrase best describes how they see themselves and their role, the phrase “pastor, shepherd or spiritual guide” ranks a distant fourth.

Which words do today’s senior leaders resonate with? When presented with nine options, more than 80% select “preacher/teacher.” Half choose the term “directional leader,” and slightly more than a third select the word “visionary.”

2. Preaching tops the list of things they do best.

Jesus spent a lot of time healing people, but only 1% of senior pastors surveyed say visiting members, the sick and shut in is something they personally do best. Only 7% say they’re great at converting others to the faith, and only 10% identify pastoral counseling and spiritual direction as an area of significant strength. These results may seem problematic, but with a high value on lay involvement and an average reported staff of 55, it’s likely that others at the church excel in these areas.

So where do senior pastors believe their strengths lie? Seventy nine percent say they’re best at “preaching” followed by “thinking about and promoting a vision and goals for the future.”

3. They haven’t always worked in churches.

Although most attended church regularly at the age of 16, 42% of them spent five or more years working in another field before entering the pastorate. The most popular prior career choice? Business. Meanwhile, a third of senior pastors’ spouses work both outside the home and outside the church.

4. Being an extrovert isn’t mandatory.

Yes, their role demands that they be comfortable standing on a platform and speaking in front of large crowds. But nearly half of them say they’re somewhat or very introverted.

5. Family stays at the top of mind when it comes to prayers.

In a 53-hour work week, megachurch senior pastors spend a full 19 hours in and preparing for preaching, teaching and worship, 9 hours in meetings–and 5 hours in intentional prayer and meditation.

When they pray, who do they pray for? Their family (94%) and  themselves (84%) primarily, followed by church staff (76%) and other individuals at church (64%). Almost two-thirds say they seldom pray for political leaders and roughly 20% say they never do. Similarly, only 19% regularly pray for their neighbors.

6. They usually like the people they work with.

Megachurch pastors report low levels of conflict in their churches, and high levels of satisfaction with the individuals they work with. Only 5% of pastors report being “somewhat dissatisfied” with the church board; the remaining 95% of pastors gave satisfactory ratings. Worship directors got the lowest rating of “very dissatisfied” but only among a mere 2% of the pastors surveyed.

7. They believe their top gift is leadership.

According to our survey, the spiritual gifts most often possessed by large-church senior pastors are leadership (77%) and teaching (67%), distantly followed by exhortation (21%).

8. They are actively involved in sports.

When asked “in which of these areas outside your church community would you describe yourself as ‘currently active’,” the most common answer was not a school-related activity, a social service or hobby group; it was a parachurch group (37%), followed by a sports league (34%) and denominational activities (32%). As was found to be the case in Leadership Network’s recent executive pastor survey, the top non-church involvement for senior pastors in large churches is sports leagues. In fact “sports” is also the most frequently mentioned way megachurch pastors say they maintain their sanity during crazy or stressful moments of ministry.

9. They find worship at their church helpful for personal spiritual growth.

One might think that working at a church could hinder full engagement in the worship experience, however 41% of pastors surveyed said that worship services were extremely helpful for them. On the flip-side, only 27% of senior pastors report finding small groups extremely helpful to their spiritual growth, and 11% went on record to say they’re not very helpful at all. Personal time with God still tops the list with 79% saying that reading the Bible, prayer or solitude is “extremely helpful” to spiritual growth. This finding also parallels the responses of executive pastors.

10. They’re not thinking about quitting.

In today’s world, people tend to switch careers a lot. But what about pastors? Just under half of large church senior pastors surveyed admit they’ve thought about leaving their church to enter a different occupation in the last five years, although on the upside, most say it’s only “once in a while.” Furthermore, when asked about their plans to retire, on average senior pastors expect to be in their position for 17 more years (until age 68) – on top of the 15 they’ve already put into their role.

[I highly recommend the “Leadership Network Advance e-Newsletter” which you can subscribe to at http://www.leadnet.org]

While no more than 5% of Americans shared the passions of the youth rebellion of the 1960′s, still the civil rights, environmental and peace movements of that decade have left a deep imprint on emerging ways of thinking. Since the 1960′s the nation has changed dramatically. In terms of politics and economics, it has become more conservative. At the same time, the culture has become less conservative and more diverse. The anti-establishment sentiments of the 1960′s have seeped into every aspect of popular culture. In fact, much of conservative politics today is built on these sentiments!

It is much harder today to pigeonhole individuals as either “liberal” or “conservative.” A more accurate map of American attitudes includes these three segments:

1. Traditionalists make up about 29% of the population (about 56 million adults) and are declining in number. They long for a return to a simpler, old-fashioned way of life. They tend to be suspicious of change. They are often religious and idealize the small-town America of a century ago.  Individuals who are retired, from low-income households, belong to labor unions and vote with the Christian right-wing are more likely to fall into this category.

2. Modernists include 47% of the population, a stable number totaling about 88 million adults. This is the main stream of American life today. These people place high value on personal success, consumerism, materialism, science and technology. They are conservative on economics, but not on social issues. They tend to like the world as it is and believe that history is on the right track. More men than women fall into this category, as do most of the influential people in our society; scientists, military commanders, politicians, writers and media producers.

3. Cutural Creatives is the term being used to identify the new, emerging segment, which is currently about 24% of the population (about 45 million adults) and the only one of the three groups which is growing. This segment is more altruistic, more global in its perspective, and more interested in having unique experiences than in acquiring possessions. They are  found in all generations-age is not an indicator. About 60% are women and they are more likely to live on the West Coast. Most live in middle and upper-middle income households and are more likely than the other segments to have a college education. They are information junkies, appreciate a good story, and seek to understand the big picture. They buy more books and magazines, listen to more radio and less TV than average. They buy lots of personal growth experiences such as spiritual retreats and workshops on stress or relationships. They provide the core market for vegetarian, natural, organic, gourmet and ethnic foods, as well as alternative health care.   This segment is less likely than modernists to be technologically oriented, but they are on the leading edge of cultural change, writing books and articles, and participating in the arts.

In the early 1980′s, future studies by Alvin Toeffler, John Naisbitt and Marilyn Ferguson all predicted the emergence of this new viewpoint as a significant percentage of the population. Now it has become a reality which marketing firms and the public media cannot ignore. One indicator of  this change-the far greater availability of vegetarian food in restaurants than even 10 or 20 years ago.

Some important questions for the Adventist Church: Our public evangelism appeals largely to the Traditionalist mind. We have never really learned to evangelize the mainstream Modernist sector. Now, we are confronted with this new segment. How will we learn to evangelize the Cultural Creatives?

Should we learn to evangelize the Modernists or simply abandon them? How will we deal with these segments within the Church? Is there room for Modernist and Cultural Creative congregations alongside our largely Traditionalist congregations? Can the Adventist message be proclaimed and understood only within the Traditionalist mind set, or is it larger than these human perspectives and capable of cross-cultural transmission?

Trend Analysis Report (2000) Source: The Integral Culture Study by Paul H. Ray, American Lives, Inc.

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