ALPHARETTA, Ga. (BP)–Say you’re at First Baptist Church in a fast-growing town and need to know the area’s changing demographics to better plan the church’s outreach and various ministries. How would you start?
Or perhaps you’re at Faith Community Church and want to preach a four-week sermons series on some of today’s toughest, most sensitive topics: abortion, pornography, homosexuality, divorce. Where would you begin your research?
Where would you find research on planting new churches, refocusing declining churches through evangelism, reaching young adults through conversion growth or best practices for evangelizing children?
The North American Mission Board -– even going back to its predecessor, the Home Mission Board -— has always operated a research division. But NAMB’s new Center for Missional Research (CMR) has revamped and expanded its operations in Alpharetta, Ga., over the last year to become more interactive and proactive in providing research data to the Southern Baptist Convention’s 43,000-plus churches.
“In addition to being the keeper of information, we also wanted to develop research to make churches more effective in evangelism, church planting and in sending missionaries,” Ed Stetzer, CMR director and missiologist, said. “That is NAMB’s passion and challenge today.
“CMR’s focus is on serving our churches, pastors and Christian leaders throughout the Southern Baptist Convention,” Stetzer said. “We want our leaders to be able to make strategic missional decisions because of the CMR’s enhanced ability to research North American cultures, analyze ministry effectiveness of churches and understand the communities where churches minister.”
To meet these needs, the center offers research tools, new research and resources at no cost to SBC churches and church planters. For example, CMR just completed the largest-ever analysis of church planting survivability and health -– finding statistically significant factors related to more successful efforts.
Stetzer said the word “missional” was included in the official name of the new research center because “we want to help make SBC churches think and act like missionaries.”
The CMR’s website — www.missionalresearch.info or www.namb.net/cmr — is organized into three broad categories: Knowing Church, Knowing Culture and Knowing Community.
Knowing Community includes a demographic profile with traffic flow reports that can tell a church where to buy billboard space, for instance. It includes local population statistics and trends broken down by age, gender, ethnic group, household income, education, consumer habits, recreational activities and personal values. About 70 pages long, the study also has 30 thematic maps reflecting yet even more data.
Stetzer said some 250 churches a month request and download the center’s Knowing Community data –- a package valued at $200 — which is available free to all Southern Baptist churches. It’s usually delivered via e-mail within 48 hours after an order.
And if you’re that pastor needing quick, thorough SBC research for upcoming sermons, the CMR’s website includes more than 1,600 immediately downloadable PowerPoint presentations on a myriad of subjects.
For instance, the Knowing Church section includes a Church Fact File, where pastors can download information on such topics as baptism, belief, evangelism or church planting.
The Knowing Culture pages include information on cultural and moral issues, ranging from abortion to pornography.
A frequent visitor to CMR’s website is Jim Gatliff, associate director of missions for Hunt Baptist Association in Greenville, Texas, just northeast of Dallas.
“We use the center’s research and demographic data for church planting,” Gatliff said. “It helps us find locations for new works.” By merely plugging in addresses and zip codes, Gatliff said he can identify 30 potential locations for planting a new church.
“It’s by far the best thing available out there,” he said. “Certain parts of the community demographic data are extremely helpful. Actually, it’s invaluable. It doesn’t take the place of doing door-to-door surveys, but it prepares you for door-to-door by giving you better information before you get out there. It gets vital information for planning and doing missions into your hands.”
During a recent national launch, the Center for Missional Research also rolled out another database -– People Groups -– which breaks down people groups living in a given state and city by nationality, language spoken at home and ancestry. Searches can be conducted based on state, city or zip code. People Groups, at www.peoplegroups.info, is jointly sponsored by NAMB and the International Mission Board.
The CMR will commission some 20 separate research projects during 2007, all designed to help churches carry out more effective ministries, Stetzer said. These projects include research on such topics as churches that are effectively reaching 18- to-24-year-olds; conversions from other world religions; and best church planting practices.
One forthcoming project is a study of more than 300 churches that have experienced significant evangelistic revitalization after a protracted period of decline, Stetzer said. This CMR research is slated to be released in May through the B&H Publishing Group of the SBC’s LifeWay Christian Resources.
Last year’s CMR research resulted in reports such as “The Rise of House Churches and Alternative Faith Communities”; “How the Unchurched View Southern Baptists”; and “Disturbing Trends in Baptisms.”
The CMR staff of seven soon will add a director of research innovations and initiatives to oversee research and development.
The North American Mission Board is the Southern Baptist Convention entity which, in cooperation with state conventions, assists SBC churches in reaching the United States, Canada and their territories with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The board oversees the work of more than 5,000 missionaries who are supported through the Cooperative Program and the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions.
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