New study shows most US Evangelicals are satisfied with their church

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – A new study has found that US evangelicals are mostly satisfied with their churches; 38% of those polled would not change a single one of the 14 categories of church life studied, Church Leaders reports.

Conducted jointly by Infinity Concepts and Grey Matter Research, the study is entitled “The Congregational Scorecard: What Evangelicals Want in a Church.”

The study polled 1,000 evangelical Protestants and found that: 85 percent are satisfied with the length of sermons and services; 68 percent are satisfied with the amount of political involvement and/or political messages;77 percent are satisfied with the number of women in church leadership, including 78 percent of women; and 74 percent are satisfied with the level of racial and ethnic diversity in their church, Church Leaders reports.

At the same time, the study showed that some 80 percent of evangelicals would like changes to at least one category studied: 11 percent would like more political involvement or political messages; 22 percent would prefer less; 30 percent would like more in-depth teaching; 32 percent would like a different type of music; 38 percent would like more community outreach; 27 percent would like more focus on evangelism; and 23 percent want more diversity, Church Leaders reports.

“One of the big takeaways for me is that there’s this negative stereotype of church as having lengthy, boring sermons in the middle of lengthy, boring services,” Grey Matter Research President Ron Sellers told Baptist Press. “Pastors constantly hear complaints from people, or ‘experts’ telling them how to do church ‘better.’ I hope pastors get to see that, by and large, these negative stereotypes aren’t true. Evangelicals are mostly quite satisfied with their church.”

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