{"id":838817,"date":"2024-10-28T05:00:04","date_gmt":"2024-10-28T10:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/?p=838817"},"modified":"2024-10-25T13:11:31","modified_gmt":"2024-10-25T18:11:31","slug":"churches-are-still-relevant-but-not-trustworthy-an-unexpected-new-perception-gap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/churches-are-still-relevant-but-not-trustworthy-an-unexpected-new-perception-gap\/","title":{"rendered":"Churches Are Still Relevant But Not Trustworthy: An Unexpected, New Perception Gap"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How do the unchurched really feel about the American church? Do these feelings differ from those who regularly attend church? The Church Answers Research team just completed a new, significant study to answer these questions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We surveyed 604 people in the United States from a variety of backgrounds. We asked the same questions of two groups.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Those who attend church regularly.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Those who do not attend church regularly.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">After comparing the two groups, we found new, surprising insights of the unchurched.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>The unchurched believe churches are generally good for their communities.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Both the churched and unchurched believe churches are generally good for their communities, with almost 6 out of 10 unchurched people agreeing or strongly agreeing. The general perspective of churches is far more positive than negative among the unchurched. Pastors and church leaders should not assume a pessimistic or negative attitude from those who are not regular in church. Indeed, there is reason for optimism.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But there is also a significant problem. A new perception gap has emerged among the unchurched.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>The unchurched believe churches are still relevant but not trustworthy.<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A major surprise emerged in the data: <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Non-attendees view the church as more relevant today than churchgoers! <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We had to recheck this data several times because it was counter to many common assumptions. Here is what we found.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Among the churched, 40% agree or strongly agree that the church is largely irrelevant today, while only 27% of the unchurched believe the church is largely irrelevant.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"466\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-838822\" src=\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/ChurchesAreLargelyIrrelevantToday-768x466.jpg\" alt=\"Churches Are Largely Irrelevant Today\" srcset=\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/ChurchesAreLargelyIrrelevantToday-768x466.jpg 768w, https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/ChurchesAreLargelyIrrelevantToday-1024x622.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/ChurchesAreLargelyIrrelevantToday-400x243.jpg 400w, https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/ChurchesAreLargelyIrrelevantToday-650x395.jpg 650w, https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/ChurchesAreLargelyIrrelevantToday-1200x728.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/ChurchesAreLargelyIrrelevantToday.jpg 1532w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But the issue of trust was a different story. Attendees generally trust their churches (81%) and pastors (76%), while trust levels were lower among non-attendees with churches (30%) and pastors (35%).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The dichotomy is fascinating.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Churched people: I trust the church but believe it\u2019s irrelevant today.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Unchurched people: The church is still relevant but not trustworthy.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The unchurched seem to believe the concept and ideals of churches are helpful to communities, but the actual churches and current leaders cannot be trusted. They like the idea of the church from a distance but would rather not get close because of trust issues.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The churched seem to believe their churches and leaders are trustworthy because they are close to them. At the same time, a significant portion of them don\u2019t think their church is relevant to others.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Why might this dichotomy exist between the two groups? We believe two major reasons are insularity and scandals.<\/span><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ol>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Insularity<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: Only 1% of churches have an ongoing evangelism emphasis. How have churches grown in the last twenty-five years? For most, it was not due to evangelistic efforts and conversion growth. It was not due to biological growth. <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/the-real-story-behind-transfer-growth-and-churches-a-twenty-five-year-analysis\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Transfer growth has driven most of it<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. As a result, churches are full of people who are long-time believers, with few new believers among them.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Scandals<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: Since the unchurched are not hearing from the churched, headlines and media reports sway their perceptions. Again, these perceptions are not necessarily negative (they believe churches are good for communities and think they are relevant today). The unchurched simply do not have a <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">personal<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> connection with churched people that helps build trust.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The perception problems of churches are both self-imposed and self-inflicted.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Churches have a <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">self-imposed<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> perception problem not shared with the unchurched: \u201cWe\u2019re irrelevant!\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Churches have a <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">self-inflicted<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> perception problem swaying the perceptions of the unchurched: \u201cWe have scandals and cannot be trusted.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Facts are our friends: While biblical doctrine will always offend some, the bulk of church perception problems are self-imposed, self-inflicted, and largely fixable.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/new-surprising-insights-how-the-unchurched-really-feel-about-the-american-church\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><b>Click here to download the entire report for FREE!<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How do the unchurched really feel about the American church? Do these feelings differ from those who regularly attend church? The Church Answers Research team just completed a new, significant study to answer these questions.\u00a0 We surveyed 604 people in the United States from a variety of backgrounds. We asked the same questions of two&#8230;","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":838819,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"publish_to_discourse":"0","publish_post_category":"1","wpdc_auto_publish_overridden":"","wpdc_topic_tags":"","wpdc_pin_topic":"","wpdc_pin_until":"","discourse_post_id":"","discourse_permalink":"","wpdc_publishing_response":"","wpdc_publishing_error":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,183,184,179,175,186,14796,180,176],"tags":[19158,19712,19710,19711,84],"class_list":["post-838817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-church-answers","category-communications","category-discipleship","category-first-impressions","category-grow","category-health-and-metrics","category-monday-wednesday-featured","category-outreach-and-evangelism","category-revitalize","tag-churches","tag-perception-gap","tag-relevant","tag-trustworthy","tag-unchurched"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Churches Are Still Relevant But Not Trustworthy: An Unexpected, New Perception Gap | Church Answers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"How do the unchurched really feel about the American church? 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Do these feelings differ from those who regularly attend church? The Church Answers Research team just completed a new, significant study to answer these questions. We surveyed 604 people in the United States from a variety of backgrounds. We asked the same questions of two groups. Those who attend church regularly. Those who do not attend church regularly. 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