September 1, 2008

Factors That Improve Online Experience

Looking for a church web site overhaul? Or do you know a pastor who needs to be looking for a site overhaul? IDEA has released a study titled Factors That Improve Online Experience. If your church web site sucks, this is a great place to begin brainstorming something new. They interview three different groups--nonprofit organizations and cities, web designers and firms, and the general public. And you wind up with some of these gems:

• Designers are overly optimistic about visitors' ability to maintain orientation.
• Good visual design and up-to-date information are critical.
• Visitors want information fast.
• Visitors point to the lack of breadth and depth of site content as causing an “Information Gap.”
• Visitors still need handholding.

Some of these seem like "Duh" statements, but you can get a deeper explanation with their executive summary, or the truly adventurous can download the full report.

Posted by Joshua Cody at 8:29 AM
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May 14, 2008

Jesus Did Polls Too

Last year at MinistryCOM, it was a delight to hear Shawn Wood's keynote titled "Brand Schizophrenia". Shawn is the experiences and creative communications pastor at Seacoast and a new author. And if that doesn't win most links in an opening blog entry here on Church Marketing Sucks, I don't know what does.

It was certainly not his main point of the day at MinistryCOM, but Shawn made a great observation about how Jesus was the first one to do a Zoomerang poll. In Matthew 16:13-16, Jesus asks his disciples what people are saying about him. He wanted to get a pulse for what everyone was thinking. "What are people saying about who the Son of Man is?" The disciples replied with some of the things they had been hearing. "Some think he is John the Baptizer, some say Elijah ... "

Thankfully, Jesus didn't let the polls or the pollsters have the final word. Although he cared about what people were thinking, he cared more that they were thinking rightly. The right answer, as we hear from Simon Peter, is that "You're the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the living God." Simon obviously checked the right box on his survey.

Surveys are a great way to get feedback on things that matter to you. They're also a great way for you to measure if the things that matter to you actually matter to the people you're polling.

Posted by Brad Abare at 6:52 AM
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March 31, 2008

Best Practices for Internet Ministry: Part 3

by David Bourgeois, Guest Blogger

This is the last of my three guest posts here at Church Marketing Sucks on the best practices for Internet ministry. In my first post, I explained how my research had shown that the churches and other ministries with successful web sites were the ones who had a deliberate planning process. My second post discussed the issue of using volunteers to develop and maintain your web site and how the most successful web ministries did not use volunteers to do this. In this post, I will discuss the last of my preliminary findings, which relates to keeping the site updated.

Internet Ministry Best Practice #3: a successful Internet ministry carefully decentralizes the responsibility for updating content.

Continue reading "Best Practices for Internet Ministry: Part 3"

Posted by Guest Blogger at 7:11 AM
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March 24, 2008

Best Practices for Internet Ministry: Part 2

by David Bourgeois, Guest Blogger

In this series I am previewing some preliminary results of my research into the best practices for Internet ministry. In my first post in this series, I suggested that churches and other ministries that have a deliberate planning process that includes the development of a mission statement for the web site, data collection and the development of a target user profile are the most successful. In continuing this research, I present my findings as they relate to the use of volunteers to develop a web ministry:

Internet Ministry Best Practice #2: a successful Internet ministry does not rely exclusively on volunteers to create or maintain their web site.

Continue reading "Best Practices for Internet Ministry: Part 2"

Posted by Guest Blogger at 5:03 PM
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March 17, 2008

Best Practices for Internet Ministry: Part 1

by David Bourgeois, Guest Blogger

For the past year I have been conducting a research project on what makes a successful Internet ministry (see the specifics here). The goal of the research is to understand how churches and other ministries are implementing their web presence and then to use the results to develop a framework for successful Internet ministry.

I have spent many hours interviewing church web ministry leaders to better understand the various decisions they have made and processes they have used. Over the past couple of months, as many of you may know, I have surveyed over 240 ministries (which includes 88 churches) to try to get some deeper insights into their web implementations. The folks here at Church Marketing Sucks have graciously allowed me to use this platform as a way to share some of my preliminary findings (in the form of "best practices") and to get feedback from you all. I will be presenting the full set of results at the Internet Ministry Conference later this year.

Continue reading "Best Practices for Internet Ministry: Part 1"

Posted by Guest Blogger at 2:28 PM
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March 3, 2008

No Time Like the Present

Church marketing. It's a term that sends chills down the spines of some and puts warm fuzzies in the heart of this blog. Love it or hate it, it's something that is, and it's something that is going to be.

The New York Times reports on the U.S. Religion Landscape Survey that more than 25% of adults have left their childhood faith for either a different religion or no religion. People are switching congregations, denominations and faiths at an unprecedented rate in a culture of short attention spans and mass boredom.

Both the NYT article and the original survey provide too many insights to cover here--from a decline in Catholicism to guesses at why megachurches succeed and everything in between. It's incredibly insightful, and it could spur some great conversation about how to market your church. Maybe even a great staff read.

Either way, folks are moving around out there, and unless they know your church exists and what you believe, they won't be able to get on board. So go out there and market your church for the sake of the Church.

Posted by Joshua Cody at 7:27 AM
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November 15, 2007

Lessons In Not Sucking: Know Your Audience

This is part six in a series on Lessons In Not Sucking. Today we discuss the idea of knowing your audience. It's basic Communication 101, and I'm embarrassed to admit how many times I forget this stuff and just proceed as if I know how to communicate to everyone. Do you have additional wisdom to share? Speak up.

1. Create people playing cards.
Ad agencies do this all the time. Profile your audience (with real data/research) and then create posters or cards for a few of the people that represent the overall audience you've profiled. Hang these images of the people in front of your writers, designers, creators, etc., so that you always have those people in mind when you communicate.

2. Surveys and polls.
Conducting surveys and polls is as easy as SurveyMonkey.com or PollMonkey.com (which powers our poll in the right column). I also just heard about My Church Survey. These are handy examples of how easy it is to get feedback from groups of people. The more you know about who you are communicating with the better you get at communicating.

3. They audience is always right.
Often when I speak at events, I tell the story of Robert E. Lee, the famous Civil War General. He never sent a communiqué to his generals before first asking a private to read it. The private had to read the letter and then re-state in his own words what the call to action was. If the private didn’t get it right, Lee assumed it was his fault, not the private’s. Lee would re-write it as many times as necessary to be perfectly clear and start the cycle over again.

Continue reading "Lessons In Not Sucking: Know Your Audience"

Posted by Brad Abare at 7:36 AM
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June 5, 2007

Trust vs. Statistics

The last chapter of 2 Samuel reads somewhat like a page out of the book of Revelation. It's got everything a good chapter in Revelation has: judgment, death and an "angel hovering between earth and sky, sword drawn and about to strike Jerusalem."

The reason for all the death and hovering is because of a test God put to King David. "Once again God's anger blazed out against Israel. He tested David by telling him, 'Go and take a census of Israel and Judah.' So David gave orders to Joab and the army officers under him, 'Canvass all the tribes of Israel, from Dan to Beersheba, and get a count of the population. I want to know the number (24:1-2).'"

"But when it was all done, David was overwhelmed with guilt because he had counted the people, replacing trust with statistics. And David prayed to God, 'I have sinned badly in what I have just done. But now God forgive my guilt--I've been really stupid (24:10).'"

Continue reading "Trust vs. Statistics"

Posted by Brad Abare at 6:43 AM
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March 15, 2007

Yahoo! Real Estate and The Church

Yahoo! Real Estate's new tool, Neighborhood Profile, provides an interesting tool for an often overlooked necessity in the church--cross-cultural ministry. The tool lists factors such as average income, average family size, cost of living and more. Keep in mind it isn't a tool designed for ministry, but rather for real estate, so there are deficiencies. For example, unfortunately, it would be helpful to know a little more about race, age or job fields. I think from the strengths and weaknesses of this tool, we can make a few observations and draw a few principles:

• America is too big a place for real estate or churches--break it down, and begin ministering there.
• Being sensitive to your surroundings should not be an option but a necessity.
• This tool is incomplete, and nothing will ever be as effective as living as a community member before a church member.

Posted by Joshua Cody at 10:51 AM
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February 28, 2007

Megachurches are Desegregating Sunday Mornings

You can deride megachurches all you want, but new research shows that they're more racially diverse, finally beginning to overturn the assertion that Sunday morning is the most segregated hour of the week. In one-third of megachurches minorities make up 20% or more of the congregation. It's a small start, but a welcome one.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 6:34 AM
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February 2, 2007

Christians Lie with Data

"You can make up statistics for anything. 14% of all people know that."

Those are some of my favorite words from the philosopher Homer J. Simpson, and they're painfully true. Christianity Today posted the story "Evangelicals Behaving Badly with Statistics" that explores the shock-enducing stat that only 4% of today's youth will be evangelicals as adults. Compared to 34% of evangelical adults today this number would mean the American church virtually collapsing in a generation.

Continue reading "Christians Lie with Data"

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 9:19 AM
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December 12, 2006

Dear Pastor College Student Essay Contest

Hey college students, Outreach magazine and Kyros Entertainment are teaming up to offer a essay contest. It's a chance to tell pastors why churches are missing the boat when it comes to your age group. Prizes include publication in Outreach magazine and "cash prizes". Check out the details and submit your essay (deadline January 15, 2007).

College students who can write should also know that you can be a guest blogger for us. We don't offer "cash prizes," but we do have the word 'sucks' in our title. That counts for something, right?

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 10:33 AM
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September 28, 2006

Do It Yourself Market Research for Churches

by David Zimmerman, Guest Blogger

Sometimes the best things in life don't cost any money. This is a fact that is very easily overlooked in the realm of church marketing. From fliers and mailers to complete demographic surveys--there is a lot of money you can spend in marketing your church.

Let's face it, to market your church effectively you are going to have to spend some money--but I think I'm preaching to the choir on this blog. There is a potential hazard down this road, however, and it is overlooking the simple, inexpensive ways to find out about our market. One of the most effective and least expensive things I've ever done to learn about my church's market is simply going around the neighborhood and asking people questions.

Continue reading "Do It Yourself Market Research for Churches"

Posted by Guest Blogger at 6:06 PM
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August 8, 2006

Church Attrition

Earlier this year we did a series on church growth which hinted (or at least the comments did) at an idea Bob Franquiz of Calvary Fellowship in Florida elaborates on: attrition.

Every church experiences attrition to one degree or another. People die, people backslide, people get upset, and people move. It's the natural reality of ministry. ...

The national average for attrition runs at about 15%. In a big city, that number could be as high as 25% to 30%.

I'm not sure where Franquiz gets the numbers, but if you're losing 15% per year, that means you need to gain 15% per year just to stay where you're at. It adds a tricky little dynamic to the church growth question.

Franquiz chooses to look on the bright side: "We are probably reaching a lot more people than any of us realize!"

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 7:27 AM
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August 4, 2006

Fastest Growing U.S. Churches in 2006

We know how much you love lists ranking churches, so how about the top 100 Fastest Growing U.S. Churches in 2006? Outreach magazine offers the list, compiled from a Church Growth Today study.

Some interesting facts about this list:

• 52 of the 100 churches are new to the list (they didn't appear on the 2005 list).
  
• Texas is the state with the most growing churches at 19. California, Florida and Georgia are tie for second with eight. (Apparently church growth only happens in warm climates. Wimps.)
  
• The oldest church on the list is 165 years old; the youngest church is 3 years old.
  
• You can also check out the top 25 churches plotted out on a Google map.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 6:50 AM
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August 2, 2006

Man Law for Churches

Bob Franquiz of Calvary Fellowship in Florida is proposing Man Law for Christians, including the inaugural law that men shouldn't have to hold hands with other men while praying. It's reminiscent of (and more entertaining than) the Why Do Men Hate Church discussion.

He follows up that manly post with an announcement that his wife is pregnant. [In your best Duffman voice:] Oh yeah!

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 6:47 AM
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Greg Boyd, Megachurch Anomaly

Woodland Hills Church in Maplewood, Minn. and its pastor, Greg Boyd, are getting loads of attention from the New York Times article, "Disowning Conservative Politics, Evangelical Pastor Rattles Flock" (registration required). The article covers Boyd's controversial sermon series, "The Cross and the Sword," which argued that Christians should have little to do with politics and typical Republican alliances on issues like abortion, homosexuality and war.

"I am sorry to tell you that America is not the light of the world and the hope of the world," said Boyd. "The light of the world and the hope of the world is Jesus Christ."

Continue reading "Greg Boyd, Megachurch Anomaly"

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 6:20 AM
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May 17, 2006

Wall Street Journal on Church Tech

We'll go from west coast to east coast today as the Wall Street Journal covers technology in churches. The piece focuses on churches trying new methods, like MySpace and Flickr (sounds like our web 2.0 series). A few of the good quotes include:

"It's a way for us to say, 'Hey, come and see,'" said Father Gray [of Boston's Church of the Advent, who created a MySpace profile for his parish]. "It gets our name out there. It puts us on the mental map, the emotional map." ...

"We're called to get the word out," said Bobby Gruenewald, new campus development leader at LifeChurch.tv, a group of evangelical churches in Oklahoma, Texas and Arizona. "We want to engage people where they're at. If MySpace is where they are, that's where we want to be." ...

Technology is a tool that Christians should "redeem" for religious use, said Mark Batterson, lead pastor of National Community Church, which holds its services in movie theaters in Washington, D.C. "In the 15th century, Guttenberg used the printing press to make copies of the Bible," he said. "The church needs to find creative ways to help get some great content into these iPods."

Oh, and some guy named Brad Abare is quoted, too.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 8:29 AM
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May 16, 2006

L.A. Times on Church Marketing

The L.A. Times covered church marketing and technology today in an article called "God's Call Comes by Cellphone". A few interesting quotes include:

"We dare not change the Gospel. But the method of delivery? We better change it for each new generation." -Mark Beeson of Granger Community Church

"You can sit in an ivory tower and whine all you want about 'This isn't the way it was done in 1500.' We're here to help people. If there's a tool out there that can help us reach them, why wouldn't we use it?" -George Barna of The Barna Group

Of course not everyone is thrilled with churches blindly embracing technology. Andrew Careaga, a youth pastor, blogger and author of e-Ministry: Connecting with the Net Generation, worries about spirituality becoming just another item to check off the to-do list: "a five-second spiritual fix, you've seen the verse of the day and you're done."

"Technology always seems to be a Faustian bargain. It encroaches on our ability to unconnect with the world and connect with God."

Continue reading "L.A. Times on Church Marketing"

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 3:47 PM
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February 10, 2006

Revamping Seniors Ministry

Changes in ministries to seniors are coming fast, especially as senior citizens aren't thinking of themselves as seniors. Last week we heard about teaching seniors how to play Xbox, but there's always more. An article in the Shreveport Times talks about the new ways seniors are being involved in congregations, often depending on whether they're healthy and active, active but having health problems, or ailing.

Continue reading "Revamping Seniors Ministry"

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 7:29 AM
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February 6, 2006

Mega-Churches Double

Speaking of mega-churches, they've doubled in the last five years. There are now 1,210 churches with weekly attendance over 2,000. More info than you wanted to know about mega-churches is now available: get the overview or go for the hardcore data.

Some interesting facts include:

• 52% of mega-churches have between 2,000-3,000 people. Only 16% have over 5,000.
  
• Only 5% of mega-churches have seating for more than 3,000, which results in 52% of mega-churches offering four or more services over two or three days.
  
• One-third of mega-churches were founded before 1940; 15% have been founded in the last 15 years.
  
• 56% of mega-churches are intentionally trying to be multi-ethnic. On average, 19% of the attenders were not of the majority racial group, so their efforts seem to be working.
  
• 96% have a web site (what are the other 4% thinking?); 77% have mailed newsletters or fliers; 75% have done radio/TV/newspaper advertising; 41% have contacted people who recently moved to the area.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 1:17 PM
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December 22, 2005

Jesus, CEO

The Economist is talking about Jesus, CEO. I'm a bit too busy to read the article myself, but you can check it out and let us know what you think. Jordon Cooper thought the piece portrayed Willow Creek as "soul-less." Cuz that's what we need--more soul-less church marketing.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 6:03 AM
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December 3, 2005

CFCC Church Marketing Report

You can score a free 8-page Church Marketing Report over at the Center for Church Communication. And yes, we are a part of the Center for Church Communication, so yes, we are tooting our own horn. But you get a free report out of the deal, so what's the problem?

The report was compiled from an online survey of over 500 churches taken this past summer and has some juicy details, including:

• 76% of churches aren't documenting or tracking the results of their marketing.
• 63% of churches said marketing and promoting their church was important or extremely important.
• 80% of churches spend less than $10,000 on marketing and promotions each year.
• 59% of churches were dissatisfied or ambivalent about their web sites.

It's not Barna material by any means, but it is some interesting stuff.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 1:40 PM
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November 4, 2005

More on Mega-Churches

Ah, yet another article on mega-churches, this time from Minneapolis-St. Paul Magazine (that's where I live!). The Twin Cities are actually a breeding ground for mega-churches. According to the article we have 26 mega-churches, and Minnesota has six of the nation's seven ELCA mega-churches, and Minneapolis is home to the largest Lutheran congregation in the world (though I don't know why that surprises anyone—this is Minnesota).

So we've got a lot of mega-churches. Anyway, the article covers the usual mega-church ground, but it also has a few interesting comments on church marketing, including the idea that brand loyalty among denominations is dead.

But even more interesting is the sidebar piece stuck at the bottom about Greg Boyd, author and pastor of yet another mega-church in the Twin Cities. But Boyd isn't interested in business or marketing tactics. He focuses not on attracting people, but challenging them:

"The danger of any church, but especially megachurches, is that by giving people what they need and want, you reinforce the consumer mindset and Christianity becomes like a McDonald's or Burger King. Where can I go to get the most for the least? The kingdom has to confront that. That's the antithesis of living in a Christ-like mode."

That's definitely a challenge and an interesting debate. But what's also interesting is how Boyd practices what he preaches: Last year Boyd preached a series of sermons challenging the militarism and triumphalism that swept this country after 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq. The series resulted in about 1,000 people leaving the church and a 20% drop in offerings.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 9:37 AM
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November 1, 2005

Hey Look, a Mega-Church!

You've got to love how the press continually rediscovers this odd concept of mega-churches. And they've been doing it for 30 years.

A couple interesting articles from last week on mega-churches, including an overview on Willow Creek's 30th anniversary and an interview with pastor Bill Hybels.

Another article looks at Crossroads Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. Finally we have an overview of mega-churches in Metro Detroit, which includes details on Catholic churches super-sizing to deal with a shortage of priests, and Mormon churches that split when they reach 600 members.

All cool stories of different things churches are doing, though I wish journalists would stop looking at mega-churches with wide-eyed wonder. This isn't a new concept.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 10:15 AM
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October 26, 2005

Denominational Church Marketing

Two recent newspaper articles in the Des Moines Register and the Washington Times (though the Times doesn't seem to be loading) talk about the marketing efforts of church denominations. The United Church of Christ and their Still Speaking campaign gets most of the attention, but the United Methodist Church is also attracting attention with their "Open hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors" campaign.

Both campaigns are seeing success:

• The UCC spent $1.7 million on the Still Speaking campaign and have seen visits to their web site soar from 35,000 per month to 500,000 per month last December when their controversial ad aired. So far they've had 5 million visits to their web site since the campaign started, and 521,000 have searched for a church in their area. This year they plan to spend $3 million on their Advent campaign.
• The United Methodist Church has seen first-time attendance rise 14% since 2001. They launched a new $2 million national cable TV campaign in September and plan to spend $28 million on advertising by 2008.

It's cool to see denominations stepping in and doing advertising where local churches can't always afford to.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 7:30 AM
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October 20, 2005

Church Marketing Quotes

Check out the Austin American-Statesman for yours truly. Brad and I were quoted in an article about church marketing, though we definitely didn't have the best quotes.

Mac Richard of Lake Hills Church in Austin, Texas had a nice one:

"The world calls it marketing. The Bible calls it evangelism."

The Rev. Larry Hollon, CEO of communications for the Nashville, Tenn.-based United Methodist Church:

"This is not a matter of choosing to do communications or to do ministry. It is including communications in the ministry of the church as it is right to do."

And Scott Evans, the founder and president of Outreach:

"Ten to 15 years ago, churches were asking, 'Should we be doing it?' Now they're realizing that they have to do it."

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 8:45 AM
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October 18, 2005

Jakob Nielsen Familiar with Church Marketing?

I thought it was rather interesting in Jakob Nielsen's Top 10 Blog Design Mistakes (check out our take) that he gave an example from the world of church marketing.

Under his section on Nondescript Posting Titles he offers examples of good and bad headlines. Under the good headlines he includes "Ice cream trucks as church marketing," which sounds awfully familiar. The story was in the USA Today, so I suppose we shouldn't be surprised. But it is cool to see more people aware of church marketing.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 8:59 AM
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August 30, 2005

Why People Leave Church

People leave church for the stupidest reasons. Nearly three-quarters of people left U.K. churches because of a "disagreement on a range of issues, from the way the organ is played to the content of the sermon." It's the little things like the choir robes or the building design or the flowers that cause silly arguments and people end up leaving.

I'm sure it's a cumulative effect and it has more to do with our inability to solve conflict than anything, but it's still sad.

And if silly things like that cause our own people to leave, what's going to make visitors want to stay?

Update: I knew this story sounded familiar, and today I placed it: The Baptist Press recently covered the book Why Churches Die: Diagnosing Lethal Poisons in the Body of Christ. The book basically comes to the same sad conclusion: people leave church for stupid reasons. Only in this book it's not just people leaving, it's churches dying.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 7:34 AM
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August 24, 2005

Business Savvy Pastors in High Demand

A recent article reports that pastors and church leaders with business and marketing backgrounds are in high demand. And more church leaders have those skills since 2 in 3 seminarians are over 30, giving them time to have business experience. Plus of men in seminary, the most common educational background was technical science, including business, communications, and computer science.

Churches are seeing the need and value for marketing, and seeking it out, whether it's on-staff expertise or outside experts.

Too bad not everybody gets it.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 9:37 PM
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August 22, 2005

Hey Look, Church Marketing!

USA Today covered church marketing yesterday with the headline, "God is cool." The story covers the growing trend of churches doing marketing, including the following techniques:

• An ice cream truck passing out free treats in the neighborhood (New Life Christian Church in Centreville, Va.)
• Mass-produced TV ads with localized tag lines (Mountain Christian Church in Joppa, Md.)
• 3,000 water bottles and 5,000 Frisbees with a church logo and contact info—and it works: "Ten percent of regular attendees say they learned about the church from a Frisbee." (LifePointe Christian Church in Charlotte, N.C.)
• Free coffee and laptops available for use (Granger Community Church near South Bend, Ind.)
• The United Methodist Church's 4-week $4 million TV campaign.

Continue reading "Hey Look, Church Marketing!"

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 6:27 AM
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August 4, 2005

No Return

Yesterday I met with the president and his management team from a Bible college here in Southern California. They had initiated the meeting a month ago to discuss "marketing." Even though this is what I do for a living, I am always encouraged when organizations (especially those of the Christian persuasion), come to realize that often the biggest thing stopping themselves from doing things right is themselves.

I won't bore you with all the details of the meeting, but one thing did stand out as I contextualize this for church marketing. We spent a significant amount of time discussing their campaign tracking systems, and the data they track. One of the discoveries was that they do not track why people say no. In other words, if a potential student requests information, comes to a preview day, or expresses any amount of interest in attending the college, they are only tracked for how they heard about the school. They are never followed up with to track why they decided not to pursue their original interest.

Continue reading "No Return"

Posted by Brad Abare at 6:15 AM
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August 3, 2005

The Growth of Black Churches in the U.K.

A BBC article on black worshippers in the U.K. says that people of African or Caribbean origin make up 2% of the U.K. population, but account for 7% of church goers. In London, they account for a whopping two-thirds of church goers (the BBC neglects to tell us what percentage of the London population they make up, though an Encarta article gives 1996 data that blacks make up about 6% of the London population—that's probably outdated, but at least it's something).

Did you catch that? London's black population comprises 6% of the total population and 67% of the church going population. While most churches in England are declining, black churches are growing, mainly thanks to immigrants with a vibrant faith.

"Christianity in Africa is big in terms of lots of people going to church," says pastor Jonathan Oloyede, founder of Glory House that's grown from 45 members in 1992 to 3,000 today. "Another factor is we have a strong, very vibrant ministry that is an outreach to the family and young families, so church is not just something you attend, it's part of your life."

Lessons to learn from churches that are obviously working.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 4:51 AM
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