Below is an excerpt from my column in the latest issue from Outreach Magazine on the research we did for the 100 Largest & Fastest Growing Churches. It's always a list that generates a lot of discussion-- some of it gets heated. This article (co-written with Lizette Beard from our LifeWay Research team) seeks to address some of the concerns people raise about the list.

I had the chance to interview some of the pastors of the churches on this list and will be posting them in the coming days. For now, check out the article (reproduced in part here), and feel free to dialog in the comment section here at the blog.

AS I SEE IT: ED STETZER

Is It All About Ego?
And Other Common Misconceptions

My team has a love-hate relationship with this project of researching the 100 Largest and 100 Fastest-Growing U.S. Churches. They love "discovering" growing churches and learning from the churches whose commitment to reach people lands them on the lists year after year. Their favorite part is interviewing church leaders, hearing the stories of transformed communities and individual life change. They can't get enough of that stuff.

Then there are the rough days when they can't get past the gatekeepers, whose job it is to protect pastors from research companies wanting to conduct surveys. Or when they can't find out who in the church actually knows the attendance numbers. Or they can't seem to get someone to grasp the criteria of attendance not membership, weekend not weekly. And then there is the rare but very rude staff member. Fortunately, my team is familiar with what it takes to handle a sometimes difficult personality, so they have strategies in place.

But what bothers them the most is the lack of understanding about what this project is--a couple of lists that are simply meant to tell the story of how churches throughout the country are reaching people.

As you read this issue, we ask you not to miss the stories behind the lists because the real-life examples of what God is doing in and through the local church are the best part (see Page 60). We believe pastors and leaders of churches of all sizes can learn from these churches. We have. Their examples of innovation, creativity and risk taking--all to reach people and then give God the glory--have inspired each of us personally.

As we take a look at some of these churches, we're also sharing some of the more common criticisms and comparing them to what we've heard from these churches. Unfortunately, we know telling the stories won't dissuade all the critics. But we've learned that criticism actually does our research team and Outreach a favor by driving up the buzz and keeping us on our toes.

What about conversion growth?

Aren't these megachurches just swapping sheep and drawing in church hoppers?

I can honestly say that most of the pastors we talked to in this study are strategically focused on reaching out to those disconnected from faith and church and helping them learn about God. They seek to connect them to the community of believers....

Mike Bodine, senior leader at Central Christian Church (No. 11 Largest, No. 31 Fastest-Growing), describes what God is doing through the personal relationships Central Christian attendees are building in Las Vegas.

"It's a term we call one life--that every person at Central should have at least one life they're praying for and building an intentional relationship with," he explains. "And then they should be prepared to journey with that person and invite them to come hear a life-changing message of radical grace."

Las Vegas is experiencing a renewed spiritual hunger, Bodine says. In one weekend, Central Christian baptized 1,200 people.

"These are real stories of real people pulling back from the brink of suicide. Marriages are being restored, families being put back together, and people are becoming productive in society."

What about mobilization for service?

Aren't people at these churches just sitting and soaking?

On the contrary, some of the churches we talked to have made weekends of service an annual or twice-a-year activity. We heard stories of churches cleaning up foreclosed neighborhoods, sponsoring health clinics and stocking community food pantries. As a result, communities are seeing no-strings-attached compassion--the Church being the Church. (See PutYourFaithInAction.com for more information.) And many, perhaps most, of these churches are strategically and tangibly demonstrating the love of Christ to people with needs and hurts.

Christ's Church of the Valley in Covina, Calif. ( No. 57 Fastest-Growing, see Page 69) learned that the largest homeless population in Los Angeles County is single moms and started an after-school program

"We take these single moms who are trying to work two or three jobs just to make ends meet, and we go in with our teams to local schools," Senior Pastor Jeff Vines says. "Our goal was to have an after-school program in every elementary school in San Gabriel Valley."

"So while people have made a commitment to the ministry, at the same time there is a renewed passion for service," Vines says. "They come in to use their gifts, their talents and their abilities to make a difference in the world."

What about the churches that will never make the list?

Isn't it true that many healthy, growing churches will never qualify to be listed on some Largest or Fastest-Growing list?

Of course. I have been to some incredible churches and know great pastors who will never be on these lists. Not because they aren't reaching the lost, seeing life transformation or reaching out to their communities. I know churches that plant several churches a year. Since they give away people to the new plants, they barely "break even." Others are growing at a pace that eclipses (by percentage) those on these lists, but they don't yet meet the qualification for the Fastest-Growing list of at least 1,000 attendees. Still others are seeing steady growth, but they are in a geographic location or demographic situation where it's just harder and slower--but the ministry is still good, and it is blessed. There is nothing about these lists or this report that is ever meant to diminish or take away from the great work so many of these churches are doing. If a church doesn't make the list, I have to ask, "So what?"

Head over to Outreach Magazine to read the entire article. Feel free to give your thoughts in the comment section.

I need your help in finding anyone and everyone you know who is actively working to reach first generation immigrants in the U.S. and Canada. Please email them a link to this online survey, www.LifeWay.com/immigrantsurvey and ask them to tell us about the work they are doing. I'm looking for EVERYBODY working with immigrants: it can be someone working at the national level with a denomination, missionaries, church planters, or it can be a lay believer in a church who coordinates a small local ministry.

We have been working on this for several months and have connected with quite a few leaders, but we are discovering new groups everyday-- but, I would like to ask for some help to make sure we get the word out to as many churches, networks, and leaders among immigrants as possible.

The survey is at www.LifeWay.com/immigrantsurvey and is in English and 19 other languages. Individual surveys are confidential, so you can feel comfortable sharing this information with groups concerned about security issues. The North American Mission Board is sponsoring this project and they have offered to share the results and insights from this study with partnering leaders and organizations across the U.S. and Canada. Our hope is that the results will assist everyone in more effectively sharing the gospel and planting churches among the immigrant groups in our communities.

Please forward this link and blog post to as many people as you know who are connected to this type of work! And, feel free to post this on your blog, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Here is a picture of our team looking for your attendance numbers for the Outreach Magazine/LifeWay Research Special Report that will be published in Fall 2009. If you are a church currently running over 1000 on weekend worship, please fill out this form and fax it to our offices (FAX # is on the form). We would love to hear from you!

I just finished a meeting with one of our smartest LifeWay employees, Selma Wilson, who has a much better office than I have. (Just sayin'.)

When I came back to my office, I found this story which includes some research we recently completed on parenting.

We just released some new research on the beliefs of Southern Baptist pastors. Here are some excerpts from the story you can find here:

My research team is working on the 100 Largest and Fastest Growing church lists and we don't want to miss any churches. Finding them can be a challenge, particuarly the fastest growing.

What churches do you know of that have grown significantly in the past year (numerically or percentage wise)?

If your church has experienced significant growth in the past year or you know of a church that has, please email my team at research@top100churches.com (give us at least the church name, city, state, and pastor's name if you don't know anything else like a phone number or website address). My team will take it from there.

To motivate those of you in the know... if you are the first person to mention a church that 1) we don't already have on our list, 2) makes it to one of the top 100 churches, I'll send you a free book and thank you on the blog when they are published in Outreach Magazine comes out this fall.

Help us out! Tell us about the churches who are reaching people.

One of the big questions is this: is the 2007 SBC membership decline a "blip�? or a trend. The news story does not say. However, in my commentary, I imply it is.

Here is why.

As the graph below illustrates, the SBC has had a growing membership count for decades, but only marginal growth since 2000. From 2000 through 2006, the growth has been close to a plateau, registering .68, .58, .53, .42, .39, .02 and .22 percent respectively. You can graph those years pretty easily and see the trend. Not surprisingly, this year we declined.

Some have said this is the first membership decline ever. That is not true. There was one in 1998 and there have been others decades before. However, I believe this time is different. I believe that, unless we have a significant intervention, we have peaked, at least in regards to membership.

As this graph from my earlier post demonstrates, we saw a decline of 1.02% in 1998, much larger than the 0.24% decline in 2007. (Look closely at the graph below.) As argument goes, if we recovered then, we can do so now as well.

(for a full size version click here.)

Probably not (and I use that word "probably�? very intentionally).

Thom Rainer explained:

Although we pray God will bring revival and change, the trajectory is not positive. If current trends don't change, it seems we are about to enter a period of declining membership.

Why does Thom Rainer say such a thing?

Well, he has seen this:

Click here for a full sized version.

Cliff Tharp prepared it for us on Thursday. As the graph in percent change above demonstrates, our year-to-year growth has been in a constant trended decline, not for one year, but for decades--this is not a one year blip, this is a 50 year trend.

Tim Keller and I talked about his new book, The Reason for God, and some recently released research (see here).

You can listen to the podcast here and read the story here. Here are some excerpts from the story released today:

I made mistake of telling all 2600 of you that I would post some resources here yesterday. Well, in the meantime, our new evangelism research was released and then some very important news for my denomination was released. Please forgive the delay and I will have it posted before you leave the conference tomorrow night.

Click here for the news release.

Here is my commentary:

The End of the Beginning?

This chart has brought solace to many Southern Baptists for a long time:

(for a full size version click here.)

It shouldn't, really.

We just released some new evangelism research. You can find the full story here. Here are some excerpts from the article.

Unchurched adults interested in finding a congregation aren't nearly as likely to visit one in person as a church member who is shopping for a new congregation. That means effective evangelism must begin outside the sanctuary in relationships between Christians and unbelievers, according to research from several recent studies from LifeWay Research...

"The location of our evangelism needs to shift if we want to reach the unchurched and not just move sheep around," said Ed Stetzer, director of LifeWay Research. "At LifeWay Research we want to encourage churches to grow through conversion. To do that, they must not rely only of the unchurched visiting our churches. Church switchers are primarily the ones who visit churches. The unchurched stay home...

LifeWay Research recently completed a study of small churches. We have not released the data yet, but Brad Waggoner recently shared some early analysis from the study. He shared at Impact 2008 the biggest challenges reported by small churches:

We just released a new research project.

Unchurched prefer cathedrals to contemporary church designs
by Tobin Perry

People who don't go to church may be turned off by a recent trend toward more utilitarian church buildings. By a nearly 2-to-1 ratio over any other option, unchurched Americans prefer churches that look more like a medieval cathedral than what most think of as a more contemporary church building.

The findings come from a recent survey conducted by LifeWay Research for the Cornerstone Knowledge Network (CKN), a group of church-focused facilities development firms. The online survey included 1,684 unchurched adults - defined as those who had not attended a church, mosque or synagogue in the past six months except for religious holidays or special events.

"Despite billions being spent on church buildings, there was an overall decline in church attendance in the 1990s," according to Jim Couchenour, director of marketing and ministry services for Cogun, Inc., a founding member of CKN. "This led CKN to ask, 'As church builders what can we do to help church leaders be more intentional about reaching people who don't go to church?'"...

Stetzer suggested that the unchurched may prefer the more aesthetically pleasing look of the Gothic cathedral because it speaks to a connectedness to the past. Young unchurched people were particularly drawn to the Gothic look...

Stetzer noted that despite these survey results, most of the churches that look like a cathedral are in decline. Just because someone has a preference for the aesthetically pleasing, Gothic churches doesn't mean they'll visit the church if that's the only connection point they have to the congregation, he said.

"Buildings don't reach people, people do," Stetzer said...

Read the whole story here.

The Christian Post has the story here.

Some of the more insightful posts on the research:

From Ministry Today.

North American Churches

Chris Turner

We need two workers at the Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting in Indianapolis, Indiana to assist the LifeWay Research team. We are looking for two energetic seminary students to work (for pay) Monday and Tuesday, June 9 and 10. One would work the hours of 9-5 and one is needed the hours of 10-8. Email research@lifeway.com for directions how to proceed if interested. You must be SBC and cannot have been anywhere near anything sinful in the last 6 months.

Today, the LifeWay Communications Department put out their weekly "Lifelines," which is our employee newsletter at LifeWay. Since I am in the office today, I had a chance to see the issue. It is not available on-line, but this is the actual text (no April Fools "trick," just a little "treat").

Doing their jobs well, the communication folks edited my answers. But, since the newsletter came out today, and in the spirit of April Fools Day fun, I have added the original text back in underline/italic at the beginning or end of each question.

Unlike our staff at the LifeWay building, you get to read the rest of the story... grin.

This morning, I preached at Highlands Fellowship in Abingdon, VA. I plan to write more about the church and its pastor, Jimmie Davidson, in the coming days. That post will deal with their remarkable global strategy.

First, in this post, a little about the church.

Highlands Fellowship was part of a study that LifeWay Research did last year called "Standout Churches."

In order to be in the "Standout Church" survey, a church had to have:

A minimum of 26 baptisms for 10 consecutive years (1996-2005)
A membership to baptism ratio of no more than 20 to 1 each of these ten years
A minimum of 5% growth in worship attendance overall (2005 compared to 1996)

Highlands Fellowship is one 22 (of 43,000 churches examined) that met the Standout Church criteria. Nineteen (of the 22 churches invited) participated in the study. You can read more about it here. The PowerPoint from the study is here.

You can listen to Jimmy in an interview about that study here.

The church is multisite so, late last night, I spoke to a camera in an empty room with 1000 seats. The "High Def" recording was then delivered to three locations (in Johnson City, Bristol, and Abingdon) early this morning. (And, no, I do not look any better in High Def.)

Then, this morning, I preached live at Abingdon and that message was "beamed" to several other venues with different worship styles.

Their web page listed their Abingdon venues as follows:

The church has about 3000 attendees on a weekend in all these different venues and locations.

Jimmy is a great guy with a remarkable gift for encouragement.

But, that is most remarkable is how they are mobilizing their church in a small town to be involved globally... more on that soon.

I received gracious personal letters from both Paul Crouch and Dwain Miller regarding the incorrect citation of LifeWay Research's study of "Private Prayer Language" on a recent TBN program. They were responding to the letter I mentioned in an earlier post. They have apologized and removed the incorrect information from their site. We at LifeWay Research are grateful and consider this issue settled.

USAToday provides a story in today's paper and on-line here. It is also on the their front page on the internet and is the most commented upon story.

The USAToday article focused on the views of the unchurched in a few key areas. The story is attracting a slew of comments in their feedback section.

The good folks at our LifeWay communications office have just released our story on the research here.

Our focus is more on the opportunities for people to share their faith:

Open to friends

Despite their negative opinions about the institutional church, most unchurched people are open to discussing spiritual matters with a friend. The research showed that:

--78 percent of those surveyed said they would be willing to listen to someone who wanted to talk about their Christian beliefs. The number rose to 89 percent among adults 18-29 years of age.

--Only 28 percent of adults 30 years and older said they think Christians they know talk to them too much about their beliefs.

--78 percent of adults 30 years and older said they would enjoy an honest conversation with a friend about religious and spiritual beliefs, even if they disagreed with the friend.

"Even though the unchurched have a confused view of God and a negative view of the church, they are overwhelmingly open to someone sharing about their Christian faith," Stetzer said. "We think religion is a topic that is off-limits in polite conversation, but unchurched people say they would enjoy conversations about spiritual matters."

From Scott McConnell:

"Eighty-nine percent of these unchurched people say they have close friends who are Christians," he said. "We don't have to search for the unchurched folks around us; we actually know them. It's really a matter of starting conversations about spiritual matters with the unchurched people we know.

And one final thought from the article:

Stetzer explained, "There will always be the stumbling block of the cross. Yet our study shows that many are tripping over the church before they hear the message of the cross."

We also have some interesting data contrasting the views between the younger and older unchurched. You can download the findings here.

This difference between age groups will also be the focus of my Catalyst Monthly column coming out soon.

Finally, we have more data that we have not released that will be shared in a new book called The Younger Unchurched and Churches that Reach Them. The book will be based on this and other research done at NAMB's Center for Missional Research and LifeWay Research and will be co-authored by Richie Stanley, research director from the North American Mission Board, and me.

More soon...

Update 1:

Lots of interesting dialogue over at USAToday (at 500 comments as of right now). Here is the graph they produced from our data.

The story is currently the most emailed story in the whole publication and in the two ten for "most read," "most commented," and "most recommended."

Why? Because I think it strikes a chord.

Be sure to read more than just the USAToday story-- their focus was on the attitudes of the unchurched toward the church. That attitude is, admittedly, bad. But be sure to read the rest of the story here, which tells the good news about the openness of the unchurched to a personal witness.

Update 2:

The very capaple people from LifeWay's communication department have provided some helpful graphics here. You can download high-res, color, and black and white graphics.

Here are they web versions of the graphics:

Now that we are back from the holidays, we start the new blog year with research. In this case, it is denominational research.

LifeWay Research released an analysis in Facts and Trends tracking certain age groups and their attendance at Southern Baptist Convention meetings.

The report is an analysis of age / attendance numbers and a graph of two demographic groups. These numbers are collected each year and we graphed them. (We will post some other graphs of the data later.)

Thom Rainer (and Danny Akin) have weighed in here. Later today, we will share some new graphs that give additional information. Tomorrow, I will share some feedback from Jimmy Draper on the subject. If you would like to enter into the dialogue, feel free to do so in the comments. Perhaps Thom Rainer's quotation referring to Morris Chapman would be a good place to start:

Morris Chapman stood before an audience of state convention executives and state Baptist paper editors in February 2002 and said that the SBC stands at a crossroads. It is facing the choice of becoming a group of committed churches that impact the world with the gospel or relegating itself to becoming an ineffective regional denomination.

We're six years down the road. Which road are we choosing?

What do you think? Which road are we choosing?

Update 1:

Here are two more charts.

The first looks at the age groups from 1990-2007.

The second looks at the groups since 2000.

I believe that this provides two things that we can infer from these numbers:

1. The trend is accelerating.
2. The "Younger Leader" emphasis did not lead to a change in the trend.

Later, I will post some thoughts from Jimmy Draper.

Feel free to continue the dialogue below-- some very interesting comments.

Update 2:

We have posted a PowerPoint with more details and graphs here.

In these graphs, you will see that the middle category has remained relatively constant. We cannot know for sure, but perhaps the former young leaders were moving up in age, but were not being replaced as they did.

Of course, it is important to keep in mind that we are looking at percentages, not numbers-- the numbers are down much more than the percentages. In other words, if you looked at the actual numbers of younger leaders attending each year, the trend line would be much "steeper."

We have also included the male / female percent. It has remained relatively stable.

Update 3:

You can find many interesting and challenging comments in the comment stream.

Here is one from Jimmy Draper, who started the "Younger Leader Initiative," seeking to involve more young pastors:

The graph above shows what we all know to be true. Our convention is being more and more represented with older people and less and less with younger people participating. I have a deep conviction that my real task in life is to pass on to my children and grandchildren values, convictions, loyalty to the Gospel, and support for what God is doing through Southern Baptists. That is difficult at best... and impossible if we make no effort at all. I recognized about 5 years or so ago that if we did not invite and urge the participation of our younger ministers and laymen we were going to lose that battle and the SBC would soon be something far different and far less effective than it has been.

That is why I began the emphasis on the younger minister and layman. This coming generation is one of the sharpest I have ever seen. They have a heart for the world, for the gospel, for the church and for sacrificial ministry in difficult places. Most of them have not grown up in church the way I did and do not see the value and importance of our cooperative efforts as a convention unless we show them. Rather than condemning them for their disinterest, it is our task to appeal to their tremendous passion and energy and bring them into the ministries and leadership of our convention.

Many of us are afraid to do this. As we get older we can fall into a trap of feeling that we have all the wisdom, creativity and passion necessary. We often feel threatened by younger ministers with their new and/or different ideas. My generation must embrace these younger ministers or we will cease to exist as a SBC. I deeply believe that the SBC is the greatest, God-given strategy for complete ministry in the world today. If that is true, then we have to enlist the younger people to be involved or the convention dies when we do. I received a lot of criticism for beginning this emphasis on the younger generation, but I believe it is imperative to engage them and bring them into the significant workings of our convention .

This coming generation has new, fresh ideas of how to communicate the Gospel, how to do missions in new and expanding ways, how to do church. They use every possible means of modern technology in communicating their messages. They reach into the unreached areas of our society. They are not afraid of living austere lifestyles in order to connect with a lost world and thus have won the right to witness to them. They just do it differently than most of us do it. But, why should that frighten us? We utilized the expanding advances in science and inventions to increase the ability to travel and minister. My grandfather traveled by train to his speaking engagements. He could only go a short distance in a reasonable amount of time. I was recently in 8 states in less than a week, using modern air travel. Am I wrong to use something my grandfather did not use? Is it wrong for me to travel like that to do ministry while serving as pastor of a local church? I now use email, internet and modern technology in my ministry. Is that wrong since my father and grandfather did not do it? Of course not. Neither is our way of "doing church�? the only way. If it were, the New Testament would have given us instructions as to how to do it. It does not tell us that...but it does tell us that we must pass on what God has given us to our children and grandchildren. We are not doing well at that.

I am excited that across the convention now we have younger individuals in their 20s and 30s being used on boards of trustees, elected officers of state conventions, etc. I believe we are beginning to address this issue, but we have a long way to go. We need to be reminded that change is not optional, it is inevitable. We can not stop it, thus our only hope is to manage change and not be victimized by it! Praise God for the younger leaders who are emerging in our convention. Rather than condemning them, let's embrace them, thank God for them and work with them as partners in ministry.

Are their dangers in this? Absolutely. With youth comes immaturity. Remember when we were younger and did some of the unusual things we did. Immaturity has its own sets of problems. We are seeing some of the younger individuals exercise their liberty and their new found channels of communication in an inappropriate way. We have always had youth who used their youthfulness to further their own agendas and who attacked the status quo. I suppose we all did that to one degree or another. We must not spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about those who are not making a positive and constructive contribution to the ministry of the SBC. There are others out there that represent the very best in character, passion, convictions and energies. Let's help them grow and become involved. That is our assignment.

Read again Paul's admonishment in 2 Tim. 2:1-2.

We must do it!

At LifeWay Research, we recognize that research is often a part of discussions and debates. That will always be the case.

However, it is important that the research be accurately cited. This week, on the Trinity Broadcasting Network, it was not.

Last week a program aired, which can be seen in its entirety here, including some inaccurate information regarding LifeWay Research's recent study on the issue of "speaking in tongues."

This statement, from Pastor Dwain Miller of Cross Life Church in El Doreado, Arkansas, is not accurate:

"LifeWay... this past summer... did a survey... and they reported that 51% of Southern Baptist pastors believe in speaking in tongues as one of the gifts... The truth is that there are more than half, I believe, of Southern Baptist pastors, anonymously surveyed... said they practice a private prayer language... but they were anonymous about it."

I am assuming that Pastor Miller has taken the percent answering the survey question about belief (see the actual question below) and confused it with a claim of practice.

They are not the same thing.

Here is the correct information (click here for the original article):

Private prayer language

The survey asked Protestant pastors, SBC pastors, and laity their beliefs about private prayer language using this question wording: "Do you believe that the Holy Spirit gives some people the gift of a special language to pray to God privately? Some people refer to this as a Private Prayer Language or the 'private use of tongues.'�?

Fifty percent of Southern Baptist pastors answered "Yes,�? 43 percent said "No,�? and 7 percent responded "Don't know.�?

Non-SBC pastors are more likely to believe that the Holy Spirit gives some people a private prayer language than Southern Baptist pastors. Sixty-six percent of non-SBC pastors responded "Yes,�? 32 percent responded "No,�? and 3 percent responded "Don't know.�?

Protestant pastors (Southern Baptists and non-SBC) are more likely to believe the Holy Spirit gives some people a private prayer language (63 percent) than Protestant laity (51 percent).

Of the Protestant laity surveyed, 15 percent responded "Don't know�? when asked if they believe in the gift of private prayer language. Of the Protestant pastors, only 3 percent are unsure.

Later today, I will be calling Pastor Dwain Miller of Cross Life Church in El Doreado, Arkansas to inform him that he has an incorrect perception of our research. As a brother in Christ, I know that he will want to know the correct information. Furthermore, I will be writing the program host and TBN leadership asking that they edit the incorrect information from the program so that people are not confused by the inaccurate statement.