You’ve heard the stat – 72% (or sometimes it’s as high as 85%) of people who come to Christ, do so before the age of 18.
It’s a powerful number, and it fuels a powerful story. Invest in children’s ministry; invest in youth ministry. Of course, there is also the downside – once people get past 18, it is much harder, and we are much less fruitful in reaching them. This is precisely the take Tony Payne takes in his review article of the research that Tim Sims has been doing.
But is it true? Maybe yes and maybe no.
It is true when considered overall, and the positive conclusions are important.
But, like all statistics, it needs to be understood to be used properly. So here goes.
What if we asked a slightly different -and better – question: what percentage of people not from Christian families come to Christ over the age of 18? Why is this a better question? Because we have reason to hope that those from Christian families will grow up in Christ. Sure, good children’s and youth ministries make a significant contribution, but in order to be making significant kingdom progress, it is unchurched people that we need to reach.
Mike Fleischmann, in a DMin project at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, asked exactly this question, and found some very surprising results in a US context. Although people from an unchurched background made up only 28% of the church population, fully 57% of them came to Christ between the ages of 21 and 50. You can read his write up here. In other words, adult conversion were more common from unchurched people than child or youth conversions – a very different shape to the story.
I wonder if a similar pattern might be the case in Australia? And if so, what conclusions should we draw from this?
Does Fleischmann’s study also answer the question: What percentage of people not from Christian families come to Christ _under_ the age of 18 or 21?
I feel like this would also help get a clearer picture.
Hi Andrew.
Thanks for the link to the article.
You might not have meant to imply this, but your second paragraph makes it seem that my ‘precise take’ on the Sims research was the standard line that we should invest in youth and children’s ministry because that’s where we see conversions etc.
I’d just like to clarify for your readers that this is not at all the conclusion I come to in the article.
Tony
Tony,
thanks for your comment.
Although your article does say that the 2 implications you draw from the research are “Firstly, these figures underscore the importance of a strong youth ministry” and “the second and more significant implication of this part of the Research Project is that we must face up to our failure to find new adult converts/attenders” (see also the hard question “To ask why Sydney Anglicans are seeing only a small number of adult converts.)
Don’t get me wrong – I certainly agree with the first conclusion; and the second may be true. It’s just that it also might not be true – if Sydney follows the pattern that Fleischmann identifies.
I’m just asking the question, do we have any data on this? Because if it is the case that (as per Fleischmann) 50+% of converts from unchurched backgrounds are from the adult population, it changes the story quite a bit.
Thanks for the clarification, Andrew, although I confess that I’m struggling to follow your point. (Maybe it’s just Friday night, and the brain is weary.)
In any case, if the burden of what you’re saying is that we need to get out there and reach unchurched people, then I heartily agree! I hope that my article (especially the four concluding reflections) also encourages us in that direction.
Warm regards, Tony
Hi Andrew,
50% of not-very-much is still not-very-much. I think Tim’s research (and Tony’s article) gells pretty well with comments you made yourself a few weeks back at the “Fresh” conference, where you noted that the diocese had barely grown at all over the last 15 years, and that it would be a real struggle just to “keep pace” over the next 30.
cheers,
Craig
Hi Andrew
A barrier at reaching out to adults which hasn’t been mentioned in the two articles is “culture”. Christians who have been Christians for many, many years can be perceived by non-Christians as being part of a very different culture to those who live around them – especially if they were raised in Christian families. It can act as a repellent. And that’s before the non-Christians even make it to a church service.
Am I sounding like 57% of the 28%?
Kind regards
Kate
Hi Andrew,
Your comment has prompted me to consider surveying our church and asking them to write on the card when they think they trusted Christ for the first time and if they are from a church going family of origin.
Thanks for posing the question.
Warmly,
Dominic
Andrew or Tony,
Do you have a reference for Tim Sims’ research?
Thanks,
John
@Craig,
I guess I’m wondering about a relative point, rather than an absolute one.
That is, it may be that amongst unchurched people, we’re not doing very well in absolute terms (my point at Fresh Look at Mission), but that in relative terms, what little fruit we do see is primarily amongst adults, rather than kids or youth.
The reason I think that might be important is that – as Tony’s article repeats – the standard line is that we do better with kids and youth. And the danger of that is we can become a little complacent there, and at the same time, a little pessimistic about reaching out to people once they start work.
If the Australian experience matches the research of Fleischmann, it would change these expectations a little relative to each other.
Of course, the absolute point that you and Tony (and I) have made still stands – we need to reach more and more unchurched people!
Another interesting stat would be what percentage of people from christian families fall away, or remain christian when they are 40?
Also you need to understand the methodology of the statistics and what they are actually saying.If you you survey a group of people older than 18 years, they were all 18 once. They won’t all have been 50 though. So in a group of people, the average age for any one-off event is more likely to be
at the start of life than the end of it. Moreover the people who are surveyed are likely to be of all different ages, not just people who have lived 80 years.
Also, it is sometimes hard to quantify when people became a christian, or even if they came from a christian family. Without going into the deets of my own story, I could argue that I came from either a christian and non christian family, and that I became a christian before or after 18.