According to George Barna, nationally-known researcher of the Barna Research Group, 70 percent of pastors say more than half of their congregation have a Biblical world view, yet only five percent of regular church attendees actually have a Biblical world view.

Barna addressed South Carolina Baptists and other denominational leaders in a “Leading your Church Forward” seminar in Columbia on Oct. 16.  In addition to educating those attending the conference on the current world views – including deism, postmodernism, pantheism and New Age, among others – Barna also shared some sobering facts gleaned through current research data.

“Our data reflects that most of the people in your churches do not have a Biblical world view.  What are you doing to promote it,” Barna challenged.

To illustrate, Barna posed the question “what would stewardship look like from a Biblical world view?”  Despite educational efforts, Barna research reports that the average household gives less than two percent of its income to the church and 75 percent of church goers do not know what stewardship means.  While most agree they are not giving enough to the church, they also think “other people” are the problem with stewardship concerns. 

Sherry Amason, who works with multi-housing ministries and is a member of Northside Church in West Columbia, said she could apply a lot of the information she learned at the conference to her work.  “Barna’s point that the reason it is so hard to work and minister with adults is because those adults received ‘spiritual babysitting’ as kids hit home with me.  I can tell you that it is challenging to penetrate the world views of adults.  It requires God’s transformation in their lives.”  

Citing Barna findings that a person’s moral foundations are in place by age nine and that two-thirds of all believers in the United States have made their faith commitment by age 18, Adult Ministry Group Associate Director Jim Simpson emphasized the importance of a church’s childrens ministry.  “According to Barna’s latest research, while most parents say they are responsible for the spiritual development of their children, they struggle with how to provide it.  Churches who want to lay a strong moral foundation for children need to develop new methods for equipping parents to do that, rather than creating a dependant relationship for parents on the church for the spiritual development of their children,” Simpson said.

For his part, Barna said the church should seek to simultaneously engage and transcend the culture.  “We can’t be focused on ourselves – we must be focused on the Kingdom,” Barna said.

The Barna Research Group has been conducting intensive analysis of cultural trends and the Christian church for almost 20 years.  In addition to books and other resources, the Group publishes some statistical analyses and views of interest to churches through its website at www.barna.org.