{"id":13264,"date":"2012-02-08T08:14:21","date_gmt":"2012-02-08T14:14:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/?p=13264"},"modified":"2012-02-08T08:18:02","modified_gmt":"2012-02-08T14:18:02","slug":"facts-on-growth-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2012\/02\/08\/facts-on-growth-2010\/","title":{"rendered":"Facts on Growth: 2010"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Why do U.S. congregations grow? \u00a0\u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/faithcommunitiestoday.org\/sites\/faithcommunitiestoday.org\/files\/FACTs%20on%20Growth%202010.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Facts on Growth: 2010<\/a>\u201d is a \u00a0study by the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/faithcommunitiestoday.org\/facts-growth-2010\" target=\"_blank\">Cooperative Congregational Studies Partnership<\/a>\u00a0and it\u00a0has some interesting findings:<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Churches in the southern part of the U.S. are more likely to grow \u2013 not only because of immigration, but because the population is more religious.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Young congregations \u2013 those founded since 1992 \u2013 are more likely to grow.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Young congregations \u2013 those with many younger members \u2013 are more likely to grow.\u00a0(BTW, people 34 and younger are 48% of the US population but only 33% of US congregations. People 50 and older are 31% of the US population but 43% of congregations.)<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Growth is less likely in white, European-American congregations, more likely if the congregation is majority Latino, Asian, or Black.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Congregations that use a language other than English in worship are more likely to grow than English-only worshippers. (I\u2019m not sure Latin counts here.)<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Growth is much more likely among conservative Protestant denominations\/groups and least likely among mainline Protestant denominations\/groups, with Catholics in between (and benefitting from immigration).<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Surprisingly, both very conservative and very liberal congregations have higher growth rates. Moderate liberals are growing the least. Perhaps growth at the end points correlates with the finding that congregations with a clear sense of mission and identity are more likely to grow.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 More conflict within a congregation makes it less likely to grow, and vice versa.<\/p>\n<p><em>Pray Tell<\/em> readers will be interested in the data on worship:<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Worship described by participants as \u201cjoyful,\u201d \u201cinnovative,\u201d and \u201cinspirational\u201d is tied to congregational growth, as are \u201cthought provoking\u201d and \u201cfilled with a sense of God\u2019s presence,\u201d but less so. A sense of being \u201creverent\u201d was not related to growth at all.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Use of electric guitars and bass is strongly tied to growth.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Use of drums and percussion, and visual projection, are associated with growth.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Congregations involving children in worship are more likely to grow.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Congregations that have \u201cchanged a lot\u201d in their worship format in the last 5 years are more likely to grow.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Having prayer and meditation groups is tied to increased attendance at worship.<\/p>\n<p>See the <em>Catholic News Service<\/em>\u00a0report <a href=\"http:\/\/www.uscatholic.org\/news\/2012\/02\/new-study-examines-factors-spur-growth-us-congregations\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A sense of being \u201creverent\u201d was not related to growth at all. But use of electric guitars, bass, drums and percussion, and visual projection is strongly tied to growth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[357],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-demographics-and-sociology"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Facts on Growth: 2010 - Home<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2012\/02\/08\/facts-on-growth-2010\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Facts on Growth: 2010 - Home\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A sense of being \u201creverent\u201d was not related to growth at all. 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