Thanks Barna
Activity That Does Not Concern Churches

In fact, the survey found some disturbing results concerning the priorities of pastors in how they measure spiritual health.

Stewardship is rarely deemed a meaningful measure of church vitality. Church budgets are typically set based on the assumption that the average congregant will give 2% to 3% of their income to the ministry. Consequently, the fact that only 6% of born again adults tithe is not seen as an indicator of lukewarm commitment.

Evangelism is not a priority in most churches, so the fact that most churched adults do not verbally share the gospel in a given year is not deemed problematic. Only one out of every eight churches bother to evaluate how many of their congregants are sharing their faith in Christ with non-believers.

When pastors described their notion of significant, faith-driven life change, the vast majority (more than four out five) focused on salvation but ignored issues related to lifestyle or spiritual maturity. The fact that the lifestyle of most churched adults is essentially indistinguishable from that of unchurched people is not a concern for most churches; whether or not people have accepted Jesus Christ as their savior is the sole or primary indicator of “life transformation,” regardless of whether their life after such a decision produces spiritual fruit.

Churches are prone to looking for indicators of serving people within the church more often than seeking signs that needy people outside the church are being cared for. In fact, for every two churches that consider the congregation’s breadth of ministry to people not connected to the church to be an indicator of spiritual health, there are five churches that focus on the amount of “in-reach” activity undertaken.

Pastors are nine times more likely to seek reactions to their sermon than they are to assess the congregation’s reactions to visitors.

Perhaps most alarming of all, pastors were 21 times more likely to evaluate whether people showed up (i.e., attendance) than to determine whether people experienced the presence of God during their time at the church.

"But how can people call for help if they don't know who to trust? And how can the know who to trust if they haven't heard of the One who can be trusted? And how can they hear if nobody tells them? And how is anyone going to tell them, unless someone is sent to do it?" Romans 10












"Whom shall I send?"
"Who will go for us?" Isaiah 6












Can you use us?
We'll go.

If the church won't teach them who will?

The final break-through to fellowship does not occur, because, though they have fellowship with one another as believers and as devout people, they do not have fellowship as the undevout, as sinners. The pious fellowship permits no one to be a sinner. So everybody must conceal his sin from himself and from the fellowship. We dare not be sinners. Many Christians are unthinkably horrified when a real sinner is suddenly discovered among the righteous. So we remain alone with our sin, living in lies and hypocrisy. The fact is that we are sinners! Pg 110. Life Together




Pseudo-communities. These are where people pretend to live community. Everybody is polite and obeys the rules and regulations. They speak in platitudes and generalities. But underlying it all is an immense fear of conflict, a fear of letting out eh monsters. If people start truly to listen to each other and to get involved, speaking from their guts, their anger and fears may rise up and they might start hitting each other over the head with frying pans. There are so many pent-up emotions contained in their hearts that if these were to start surfacing, God knows what might happen! It would be chaos. But from the chaos, healing would come…and it is then that the miracle of community can happen! Pg. 33. Community and Growth