As promised, I wanted to provide some commentary to the initial study posted on January 14.
While I’ll offer more related posts later, I wish to begin by stating we must do more up-to-date and better research.
If you have not downloaded the report and the corresponding Power Point presentation, you can check it out here and here.
The Data Presented is Several Years Old
Though I know this information is dated, it is a place for us to start in strategy development. We need to begin with what we have. While beating the drum for the most gospel needy areas, I also wanted to cause within you a healthy discontent. . . . I wanted you to say: This is good stuff, but not good enough!
Some of you are already saying, “we have got to do better.” I even received an email this week of someone who did his own study in his area, updating my report. MAY HIS TRIBE INCREASE!
It takes a great deal of time, energy, and resources to conduct such large-scale research. The data on Canada is good–only four years old! Unfortunately, the data on the U.S. is a decade in age. Kudos to Outreach Canada! Keep up the great work!
The good news for the U.S. is the Association of Statisticians of Religious Bodies is scheduled to conduct (this year) the next Religious Congregations Membership Study. I am very thankful for this study, and looking forward to knowing the findings which will “provide the most comprehensive profile of religious affiliation available for the United States.”
While I hope the data will be made available very quickly, I do not want to get my hopes up too high. My guess is by the time the research is conducted and data collected, analyzed, and published, it will be a year or two before the world sees it–at best.
When it comes to a healthy understanding of our contexts, Evangelicals must not be ten years behind reality. Our lack of information is a stewardship issue that affects Kingdom advancement.
While it seems we have good information guiding our missionary strategies among other peoples across the world, we need to do a much better job in the United States and Canada.
The Definition of Evangelical is too Loose
As a social scientist, I’m comfortable with the definition used in the original study. More importantly, however, as a Kingdom citizen, I am not. Many of the groups labeled “Evangelical” in the study are not very missional (and I would even question the “evangelical” in the theology of some of those groups).
Because of this broad defintion, the percentages reported in the presentation are more grim than they appear.
We Do Not Know Who is Living in Our Neighborhoods
Let me give you one example of what I’m trying to communicate to you.
In 2008, I presented a paper to the Evangelical Missiological Society titled “In Through the Back Door: Reaching the Majority World Through North America.” The original paper with the extensive appendices can be downloaded here and was later published (without appendicies) in Missions from the Majority World: Progress, Challenges, and Case Studies,edited by Enoch Wan and Michael Pocock.
The paper can be summarized as: Many of the world’s unreached people groups (UPGs) reside in North America; and the North American Church needs to identify, understand, and develop appropriate global strategies for working with those UPGs to reach the Majority World with the Good News of God’s love.
Findings included:
- There are numerous Unreached People Groups (UPGs) living in North America.
- There are numerous people groups living in North America who by virtue of their geographical location, have been removed from official UPGs listings.
- There are hundreds of people groups living in North America with an unknown evangelical percentage, especially in Canada and the United States.
- There are many discrepancies between the best databases as related to North America.
Evangelicals Need an Efficient Way to Do and Share Research Findings
This matter is easier said (or blogged about) than done. The United States is the third largest country in the world (in population), behind China and India. It takes a great deal of time to study 300+ million people. But with 26% of our population consisting of Evangelicals, surely there are enough like-minded people out there who can partner together for the Kingdom, and periodically do localized research and share such findings.
Again, easier said than done.
What do you think?