Recently, we did a church-wide survey to get an idea of who attends our church, how they found Revolution, how involved they are and how clear our steps as a church are. I got the idea from Luke Simmons and found it to be incredibly enlightening. It is one thing to say you are reaching a certain demographic or talk about diversity and how many people have taken a next step (and how clear that next step is), it is another thing to read it in hard numbers.
After reading through the results, I’m excited to see how things change and compare over the next year(s).
Some of the things we asked about were age, how long they have attended Revolution, if they had attended a church before Revolution, their ethnicity, stage of life and what next steps they had taken at Revolution.
Here are some of the things we learned:
- We are reaching a younger crowd. We have said before that our target demographic is 20 – 40 year old men and currently, 75% of our church is under the age of 45. I was excited about this number for two reasons. One, it means we are reaching our goal of men who are under 40, but also to see the percentage of those over 45 was also exciting. Many younger churches lament not having older adults in their church who are mature and able to provide some stability and mentorship and to see 25% of our church being over 45 was exciting. Our church is also 46% male and 54% female. My guess has always been close to 50/50 and I hope that always continues. On top of that, 32% of our church is single.
- We are reaching people who haven’t attended church. 29% of those who attend Revolution did not attend a church for 3 years prior to coming to Revolution. I would love to see this number go up over the coming year and #3 tells me there is a chance it will.
- People are reaching out. In the past year 82% of Revolution has invited someone who does not attend church anywhere to join them at Revolution. In fact, 36% have invited at least 4+ people in the past year! This was one of the most exciting numbers on the whole survey to me.
- People are taking their next steps and getting connected. Over 50% of those who attend Revolution have attended a newcomer’s lunch, and over 57% are on a serving team. This is good but I would love to see this number grow. Serving means ownership and a sense of belonging. As well, 92% of our church is plugged into a missional community. I am soaking that in and loving what that means. Care, community, discipleship, living on mission in community, accountability in life.
- Clarity for guests. For those who have attended less than 5 times, 60% of them know what the next step for them is and they are interested in taking it. I think this is huge because often people want to take a next step but don’t know what it is. However, 18% of our guests are interested in taking the next step but don’t know what it is. This gives us something to get better at and making sure that next steps are clear all the time, not just in seasons.
While this was our first year and have only guesses to compare it to, doing this in coming years will be incredibly helpful. It is nice to see what is clear and unclear about our church, what we are doing well and areas we need to make stronger. All in all, well worthwhile.
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