By the numbers
So I've been playing with some numbers about my community. I was curious to see what the population of people attending church was in our county - and more importantly, who wasn't attending church. If you hang out in church enough, listen to the local CCM radio station and hang out at the local Christian bookstore, you might start believing that a majority of the population went to church. Unfortunately, I'm not too sure that is the case.
Now I know, there are places that I can go and for a small (and sometimes not so small) fee find this information...but truth be told, I'm cheep. So, after looking at the Census data and several other sites, here are my numbers:
As of 2000 - the population of DeKalb county was 88,969. At that time, 55% of the population claimed that they attended church (I wonder about this number. The data suggested that our church was at 129 - a number that seems to be slightly inflated to me!) Assuming that number is true - they survey claimed that 39,705 people did not attend any church (by church, they meant a faith community - not necessarily Christian). I then looked at the faith communities that were only Evangelical (pulling out non-Christian, mainline protestant, Roman Catholic and Orthodox). Only 16,074 attended an Evangelical church - or to put it another way, 72,895 (82%) did not attend an Evangelical church.
Ok - quick disclaimer: I pulled out those other churches for a reason. First - non-Christian churches are what they say - non-Christian - theses are people who definitely have not heard and responded to the gospel - a basic definition of the lost. I removed the other traditional "Christian" denominations because only a minority of the attenders tend to have had a "born again" experience. When it all comes down to it, I tend to lean Evangelical - I believe that you must be born again (John 3:3) I know that some have in those traditions, but many have not - so I pulled them out.
Even with the churches that I have pulled out, the numbers are staggering. The problem is that the numbers are dated. 2000 was ten years ago and a lot can happen in 10 years (remember y2k?) So what do things look like today? Most of the Census numbers for 2010 won't be available for at least a year, so we will have to take an educated guess. According to Google, the estimated population of DeKalb county in 2008 was 106,321. According to most research, the average church size in the US is 186 (link). So it would make sense that a reasonable estimate would be to take the number of churches in DeKalb county and multiply it by 186 to figure out the amount of people who attend church. Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to figure out how many churches there are in DeKalb county (all areas that I checked were incomplete - fyi to any local churches reading this - how easy is it for people to find information about you? Have you googled yourself lately?) So I did the next best thing, I pulled out the Daily Chronicle's religious section and counted the churches on their "Church" page using the previous 2000 matrix. There were 24 - and some major churches missing (I'm looking at you Christ Community, Glad Tidings, First Baptist Sycamore, Sycamore Baptist, Crossroads! This is free advertising guys!) So lets double it to 50. Some of those 50 are large, but some are very small - so I think 186 is a fair number. That would put an estimate of 9300 people county wide attending an Evangelical type church - or about 97,000 people who are not in church (91%). Could it be true that the churches in DeKalb are decreasing?
Even if my math is off, even if the average church size is larger in our county (personally, I would bet it is smaller), and even if we should double the number of churches, one thing is clear. We have a lot of work to do.
Now I know, there are places that I can go and for a small (and sometimes not so small) fee find this information...but truth be told, I'm cheep. So, after looking at the Census data and several other sites, here are my numbers:
As of 2000 - the population of DeKalb county was 88,969. At that time, 55% of the population claimed that they attended church (I wonder about this number. The data suggested that our church was at 129 - a number that seems to be slightly inflated to me!) Assuming that number is true - they survey claimed that 39,705 people did not attend any church (by church, they meant a faith community - not necessarily Christian). I then looked at the faith communities that were only Evangelical (pulling out non-Christian, mainline protestant, Roman Catholic and Orthodox). Only 16,074 attended an Evangelical church - or to put it another way, 72,895 (82%) did not attend an Evangelical church.
Ok - quick disclaimer: I pulled out those other churches for a reason. First - non-Christian churches are what they say - non-Christian - theses are people who definitely have not heard and responded to the gospel - a basic definition of the lost. I removed the other traditional "Christian" denominations because only a minority of the attenders tend to have had a "born again" experience. When it all comes down to it, I tend to lean Evangelical - I believe that you must be born again (John 3:3) I know that some have in those traditions, but many have not - so I pulled them out.
Even with the churches that I have pulled out, the numbers are staggering. The problem is that the numbers are dated. 2000 was ten years ago and a lot can happen in 10 years (remember y2k?) So what do things look like today? Most of the Census numbers for 2010 won't be available for at least a year, so we will have to take an educated guess. According to Google, the estimated population of DeKalb county in 2008 was 106,321. According to most research, the average church size in the US is 186 (link). So it would make sense that a reasonable estimate would be to take the number of churches in DeKalb county and multiply it by 186 to figure out the amount of people who attend church. Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to figure out how many churches there are in DeKalb county (all areas that I checked were incomplete - fyi to any local churches reading this - how easy is it for people to find information about you? Have you googled yourself lately?) So I did the next best thing, I pulled out the Daily Chronicle's religious section and counted the churches on their "Church" page using the previous 2000 matrix. There were 24 - and some major churches missing (I'm looking at you Christ Community, Glad Tidings, First Baptist Sycamore, Sycamore Baptist, Crossroads! This is free advertising guys!) So lets double it to 50. Some of those 50 are large, but some are very small - so I think 186 is a fair number. That would put an estimate of 9300 people county wide attending an Evangelical type church - or about 97,000 people who are not in church (91%). Could it be true that the churches in DeKalb are decreasing?
Even if my math is off, even if the average church size is larger in our county (personally, I would bet it is smaller), and even if we should double the number of churches, one thing is clear. We have a lot of work to do.
