If a pastor wants to nudge people toward changes in their opinions, I suggest the bottom-up theory. There’s tremendous power to sustain the church if you start with a good nucleus and move out through groups.
—George Gallup, Jr.
I majored in religion at Princeton University and intended to go into the Episcopal clergy. Toward that end I worked one summer in a church in Galveston, Texas. It was a black church with a white rector for the first time in nearly one hundred years. My job was to help him run the summer Bible school, the baseball team, and similar activities.
It was a great experience. Indeed if I were yet to go into the ministry—and I sometimes still long for it—I would want to serve in such a setting. The rector I worked with was instrumental in breaking down racial barriers in the church.
While weighing the choice of ministry or survey research (my father’s field), I realized that research gave me much of what I was looking for in ministry: a way to help people. It could give voice to the voiceless and help churches of all denominations reach people better.
Some people say religion is a private, internal matter that can’t or shouldn’t be scrutinized by research. I disagree, and I conduct research into religion for three reasons.
One is sociological: The spiritual or religious element in American life is a key determinant in our behavior—in some respects more so than education, political affiliation, or age. If you want to understand society, you need to understand the religious dynamic.
Second is a practical reason: If ministers want to minister to people, they need to know what the challenges are, what they have to do. Surveys can help them focus their efforts.
Third is the religious reason. If there is a God looking over us, and I believe there is, then to bring us closer to God, we should do everything possible to examine the relationship between God and humankind.
Surveys show pastors and leaders the church’s levels of belief, knowledge, and practice, which can help pastors deepen beliefs, raise the level of practice and make it more meaningful, and reach new people.
The shape of American spirituality
Polls reveal at least one thing clearly about Americans’ spiritual life: spiritual experiences are very common.
In one survey we found that about 40 percent of Americans have had an unusual, life-changing experience. That brings up questions: What are the common elements of these experiences? What brought them about? How are they changing lives?
Often, emphasis in the church has been on “the day I found Christ.” I like to look at the day after—what do you do with this experience?
The early evidence indicates that lives are being changed by these experiences in a more ethical direction. Or for these people, life has more meaning. They are less fearful of death or more eager to reach out to others.
Thus it becomes important to examine this experience and determine how it can be encouraged—not in an artificial way but naturally, in settings that will allow these spiritual experiences to happen.
The polls have surprised me in several ways. I was surprised by the proportion who believe in a living Christ. I thought people would be thinking of Jesus Christ more in a historical perspective, but 64 percent express certainty that Christ rose from the dead and is a living presence. As a Christian, I find this very encouraging.
I’m amazed, however, at the low level of Bible knowledge. It’s shocking to see that in 1987 only 42 percent knew that Jesus was the one who delivered the Sermon on the Mount.
I’d have to say that people’s stated opinions don’t always translate into behavior, since religion does not appear to be creating a more loving society. Something is wrong with the way religion is being practiced. It doesn’t seem to be working in the broad sense.
In a survey we did for the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) called “Twenty-four Hours in the Spiritual Life of Americans,” we concluded that much of religion, unfortunately, is superficial—”feel-goodism.” Prayer becomes mostly petition, and the Bible is not approached in a meaningful way. People want the fruits of faith but not the obligations. They’re not willing to take up the cross. As Anglican bishop Michael Marshall puts it, “People are following their own agenda and not Christ’s.”
For example, church attendance is not a reliable predictor of behavior. There’s as much pilferage and dishonesty among the churched as among the unchurched. I’m afraid that applies pretty much across the board: religion per se is not really life changing. People cite it as important, for instance, in overcoming depression—but it doesn’t have primacy in determining behavior.
For CBN we asked a series of questions on whether people rely more on human reason or on an outside power, such as God, for moral guidance and for planning their future. More opted for human reason than for God, although less so among evangelicals. That shows that whatever people say about their beliefs, when they get right down to it, they are not totally prepared to trust God.
Highly committed Christians
In my research I have tried to learn more about committed Christians. That’s where the exciting discoveries are, not with the churchgoers or the people who say religion is important. You have to go deeper.
We use a list of ten questions that deeply committed people of all denominations would agree to—the divinity of Christ, believing one’s faith should grow, trying to put faith into action on behalf of others. These are the givens, the basics. We have people respond to each of these on a four-point scale: agree strongly, agree somewhat, disagree somewhat, or disagree strongly. Taking all the people who “agree strongly” on the ten questions, we arrive at about 10 percent of the American population. On that basis we have labeled them the highly spiritually committed.
Then we looked at those people in terms of how often they volunteer, how happy they are, how tolerant they are, and so on. These highly committed people are much more concerned about the betterment of society. They’re more tolerant of other people, more involved in charitable activities. And they’re far, far happier than the rest.
These factors are especially interesting sociologically, since these people tend to be in what we call downscale or lower socioeconomic groups.
Downscale people typically are less involved in charitable activities because they have less time, less tolerant because their level of formal education is lower, and less happy for obvious reasons. These highly spiritually committed people, though, go against the grain for their socioeconomic group. They are a breed apart, the truly spiritually mature.
If the numbers of these people can be increased, they will have a disproportionately powerful impact on society.
With people like these, the church will change from the bottom up. It’s not primarily going to be pronouncements, conferences, strategies from the top; it’s going to be people on the grassroots level bonding together and inspiring the church. I think it will trickle up.
(On the whole, it may be both from the top down and from the bottom up. The most fervently committed persons are generally from the downscale groups, but the influence of these highly committed Christians moves back up into other groups.)
Changes
Since I’ve been conducting research, I’ve witnessed a number of major changes in the church. The fifties were a boom period. There was a lot of church building, religious book sales were going up, and church attendance and membership were higher than today. People were placing great importance on religion.
However, it’s difficult to comment about commitment levels because only recently have we started to develop scales that measure deep commitment. On the whole, 1950 was far different from now in terms of surface indicators, but commitment is harder to gauge.
In terms of church involvement, there has been measurable change. Back in the late fifties, a much higher proportion of people said religion was very important in their lives—about eight out of ten. In the mid-eighties it was down to five or six in ten. The big drop came mostly in the mid-sixties to the mid-seventies.
Religious interest still seems to be growing. When we polled for CBN in 1987 on the question “Are you more interested in religious and spiritual matters than you were five years ago?” the majority said definitely yes. Bible studies and prayer-fellowship groups have grown. So increased interest is not necessarily seen in attendance or membership—that’s been remarkably flat—but it is seen in other religious activity.
The highly publicized evangelical surge of the late seventies was a great surge of interest in and awareness of evangelicals. In terms of numbers, however, there hasn’t been any great growth in the proportion of evangelicals as far as we can tell. But evangelicals have been more vocal, more active, more visible, giving the perception that there’s been a huge surge in the movement.
Our sense that church life is significantly different now from what it was in the fifties is not just nostalgia. In the fifties the intensity of life was always present—the sorrow and human problems and all—but there’s a whole new complex of issues now, such as the drug issue. The pastor is called on for a much more active role in dealing with problems like divorce or alcoholism or pornography or other sex-related problems like disease and unwanted pregnancies.
In addition, people’s confidence in the church has changed during the latter part of this period. We started a regular measurement of confidence in religion in 1973. Nothing much changed in fourteen years, but then confidence started to turn down, and it has taken quite a slide since then.
I think part of it—and this is speculation—was the discomfort over the relationship between religion and politics. And then, of course, the trend downward was accelerated by the televangelism scandals of 1987. They gave a black eye to organized religion as a whole. Frankly, all the squabbling and the chastising of one another has not enhanced religion’s image one bit. Maybe some of it has been necessary, but it doesn’t sit well with the public. The damage may be only short-term, but I suspect it’s going to be difficult to recover from fully.
The bottom-up theory
Futurists say change is coming about at an accelerated rate. Things that once took centuries to change now change in a matter of decades or years. Technology certainly seems to be exploding.
But public attitudes usually change much more slowly. Public opinion doesn’t change quickly without profound developments or events. For example, the Tet Offensive rapidly turned public opinion against the Vietnam War. People felt the war was unwinnable after that.
If a pastor wants to nudge people toward changes in their opinions, I suggest the bottom-up theory. Certainly pastors are key players in bringing about change—they set the tone—but leadership can also come from people in cell groups who are praying and seeking God’s will. Maybe it’s naive to say this, but I think change can come quickly if pastors concentrate on getting groups together with good leaders. There’s tremendous power to sustain the church if you start with a good nucleus and move out through groups.
Although attitudes normally change very slowly, some changes can be made rather quickly when the Holy Spirit is at work.
The ministry of polling
One way that local pastors can encourage accelerated change in their churches is to formally and informally poll the congregation, even every year, to find out what’s happening. What are the priorities? Where do people see improvement made in the church? Is your outreach plan working? Things like these can be monitored.
I first realized that polling can be a ministry when I worked in the Galveston church. I thought, These are remarkable people, but how do you give them a voice? One way was through surveys. It’s wonderful to give people a voice.
Through formal and informal surveys, people get to talk about their church, their way of life, their country. Giving them that chance says, “I care enough about you to want to know what you think and feel.”
Often it will take a pastor years to take a read on the parish: What are people doing about their faith? Do they know how to pray? Does the Bible have any meaning for them? Do they share their faith? What do they believe about God?
Finding this information informally consumes time, and you still can’t be sure of your conclusions. Maybe mine is too mechanistic an approach, but I want to know exactly where people are in these areas, so I would validate my informal reading of the congregation’s pulse with a formal poll. Often the pastor is surrounded by active people who are the hard workers, and they may give the impression things are better than they are. Or they spend their time with particularly troubled people and assume things are worse than they are.
Of course, surveys have their limitations. To borrow from the political world, surveys are a good way to inform, but a leader is to lead, not follow public opinion. Still, a leader will want to listen carefully; a survey is the parishioners talking to their pastor. A leader would be committing a great error not to be attentive to what people need and want.
Future peering
As I attempt to look into the future, I foresee a host of challenges for the church.
Sex-related issues—artificial insemination, abortion, premarital and extramarital sex, homosexuality—will be enormously important. The sexual revolution was so profound that I don’t think the pendulum will ever swing back all the way to the Victorian frame of mind.
We will still need to talk a lot about abstinence. Our society’s emphasis has been that you should be totally free; if you restrict yourself sexually, you might somehow harm your psyche. Because of this, it’s important for churches to emphasize restraint.
Another issue, without question, is the moral dilemma surrounding gene splitting. Other problems are divorce, drug and alcohol use, and child abuse. In some of these immediate problems, close to the church’s door, we can step in and make a big difference.
The continuing breakdown in ethics and morality worries me. Materialism is one of our root problems in this country. We’re an addicted society—if not to drugs, then to overeating, to sex, to money, to cars, to owning. There’s far too much emphasis on having rather than being.
Ironically, surveys show that people’s hearts seem to be in the right place. People say they put personal aspects of their lives ahead of material aspects. They put the family ahead of possessions and getting ahead of the world, and that’s encouraging. But I think we’re overwhelmed with the allurement of and attachment to “the good things of life.” The church has a big challenge in fighting that continuing battle.
But I also see many encouraging trends.
One is the great respect for education. Whether they pursue it or not, most people seem to put a high premium on education.
Another is our tradition of volunteerism. The proportion of people involved in volunteerism is growing, and volunteerism is important to the stability of our society.
Third and the most important is the spiritual dimension of Americans. It is seen in volunteerism, much of which is religiously motivated. If somehow the importance of religion were to decline in this country, our country would be badly hurt.
The spiritual resilience of our country—it’s still there even though culture seems to be winning out over religion in many ways—gives me hope. I think there are enough people spiritually on fire to bring about change.
My wife and I attended the International Conference for Itinerant Evangelists in Amsterdam, led by Billy Graham. To see those evangelists, ten thousand strong, from all over the globe, joining in praise to God was one of the most moving events in our lives. The courage and commitment of those people are remarkable. In fact we learned that three of the participants were martyred upon returning to their countries—just for having attended the conference.
Based on what I see in those who are highly committed, we have great reason to hope.
Copyright © 1995 by Christianity Today
