The Barna group defines “unchurched” as people who have not been to church within the past six months. By this definition they estimate that there are 100,000,000 unchurched persons in the USA.
I heard an illustration in church this morning that I found very interesting. I do not have details, just brief recollections and sketchy notes. A study by a Kentucky researcher who utilized a 5 point, likert survey measuring range of openness to the gospel from antagonistic (5); to very open (1), found that over one third of the unchurched are open or very open to the Christian faith. Even more interesting, almost all respondents indicated an openness to attending church if someone invited them. This was only marginally less true for the antagonistic than for the very open. The results were independent of factors such as ethnic background or geography. Again, the parameters of the research were not shared but it appears that the researcher made an attempt at utilizing valid research methods.
If the results of both research projects are representative of the American population, why aren’t we inviting more people to church?
