Survey: Pastors Would Use Surprise Income to Build and Evangelize
by Allie Martin and Jody Brown
May 4, 2006
(AgapePress) - - A new survey shows what pastors nationwide would do if their church received an unexpected financial windfall.The research was conducted for Facts & Trends magazine -- a publication of LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention -- and sought to clarify the overall budget and spending priorities of clergy and lay people. According to a survey conducted by Ellison Research, 31 percent of the more than 500 Protestant pastors surveyed said they would build, expand, or update their church's buildings and facilities. That preference was even more pronounced among Southern Baptist pastors, 43 percent of whom said they would spend the unexpected financial boon on facilities.
Sixteen percent of all pastors said they would use the windfall to increase community evangelism activities. Paying off debt (12 percent) and adding staff (10 percent) were also among the priorities expressed. Only one percent indicated they would use the windfall to increase the salaries or benefits for staff members.
In a companion survey of almost 1,200 Protestant lay people, the top three priorities for spending a windfall would be paying off debt (18 percent), increasing social programs (18 percent), and building, expanding, or updating church facilities (17 percent).
Dr. Thom Rainer, president of LifeWay Christian Resources, says the surveys show the need for a balanced perspective on what it means to be a church.
"It seems as if the research that we have done, which is published in the latest issue [May/June 2006] of Facts & Trends, is something that confirms that we can lose our focus when we start focusing on that which matters but which should be more peripheral than the main things, such as evangelism," Rainer notes.
The Facts & Trends article is written by Ron Sellers, president of Ellison Research. He observes that the findings may make it appear that evangelism, missions, and outreach are a higher priority for clergy than for their congregations. "[But] in reality, both put a fairly high priority on evangelism," he writes. "They just have different priorities for where the evangelism should take place."
Dr. Rainer offers a different perspective. "More than half of all members of churches in America will meet their Savior face to face without ever having shared Christ with anyone," he says. "On the leadership issue, 53 percent of pastors have not shared Christ, by their own admission, in the last six months."
The LifeWay leader admits he may be oversimplifying things, but offers this observation. "It seems to me, when someone [asks]: 'What's wrong with the evangelistic health of our churches?' -- I can give a simple response: We're not doing it."
