The Church and Evangelism

Robert Booth linked to an interesting study about outreach and evangelism on his blog.

The study was conducted by Ellison research and it offers some very revealing insights into outreach efforts by various church movements. One revealing fact from the study is that four out of ten pastors lack strong interest in increasing community outreach. God help us!

I found this quote very interesting:

...while churches frequently cite a lack of staff, facilities, people, and/or money as reasons for not being more involved in the community, increasing those things doesn’t necessarily lead to greater involvement. “In smaller churches, you often hear about limitations, and how things can be ‘once we grow,’” Sellers said. “But pastors in larger churches – which usually have more staff, more funds, larger facilities, and obviously more potential volunteers and lay leaders – still commonly name the lack of these resources as obstacles to being more involved in the community. Plus, they are much more likely to add to the mix a lack of time to accomplish everything. Having more resources at your disposal apparently doesn’t mean these obstacles are significantly reduced or removed.”

Click here to read the entire study.