The Petra Zone

According to a Barna study released in April:

1. Nearly 50% of the adult population attends religious services
(imagine if those guys would invite one friend, then everyone would go)

2. Fewer than one out of every five adults firmly believes that a congregational church is a critical element in their spiritual growth and just as few strongly contend that participation in some type of community of faith is required for them to achieve their full potential.

3. Only 17% of adults said that �a person�s faith is meant to be developed mainly by involvement in a local church.� Even the most devoted church-going groups � such as evangelicals and born again Christians � generally dismissed that notion: only one-third of all evangelicals and one out of five non-evangelical born again adults endorsed the concept. Only one out of every four adults who possesses a biblical worldview (25%) agreed with the centrality of a local church in a person�s spiritual growth.

4. Just as few adults (18%) firmly embraced the idea that spiritual maturity requires involvement in a community of faith. The subgroup that showed the greatest devotion to spiritual growth through belonging to a faith community � Revolutionaries � is, ironically, the group often accused of seeking to grow independent of community ties. Adults who possess a biblical worldview were twice as likely as those who do not have such a perspective to acknowledge the importance of community in spiritual growth. Even so, only one-third of those who see life through a biblical lens embrace the necessity of growth in the company of other believers.

The local church needs to get real, get in touch with it's environment, and change the world. THEN people will buy Christian music.

I don't always trust statistics to be accurate, especially religion statistics. Why: 1. It is not possible for staticians to survey every single person/adult on the planet, and 2. Not everyone surveyed will be honest. So how does Barna know for sure this information is true?

Barna isn't the only one doing studies. Multiple people like Josh McDowell, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Billy Graham School of Missions compile the same data, and it is all close.

People are not generally going to fabricate things when given a chance to voice their opinion on whats wrong with religion, Christianity, politics, etc. Whether you believe the truth in numbers is irrelevant. A scientific, controlled poll is going to represent the public. A religious pole is even more reliable, as the churches and ministries themselves have data given to them by members, attendess, etc. If a majority of Christians want to lie for a poll, saying that they do not believe in Christ, the great commission, or like Christian publications, then we are in much worse shape than the data suggests.

Dr, Thom S. Rainer, founding dean of the Billy Graham School of Missions did a study of unchurched people, asking them why they are, and what it would take to get them to attend and/or believe in Christ. You should get his books. It is a good lesson in sociology as much as it is a call to missions in the USA.