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Christianity Today, January, 2012

Briefing

Go Figure

Recent stats on health, giving, and church life.

Compiled by Ted Olsen | posted 1/24/2012 09:34AM

Comments (4)

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Health

62%: Adults ages 45 to 84 who attend religious services or other organized religious activities weekly are more likely to be obese than those who never participate. (Another study found a 46% greater risk of obesity.)

Source: TheArda.com

Giving

Donations to missions groups

Change between 2008 and 2009

International: 5.8%

Domestic: -2.7%

Short- term: -4.3%

Change between 2009 and 2010

International: -1.9%

Domestic: -1.7%

Short-term: 13.4%

Source: ECFA State of Giving

Church Life

8% Evangelical churches that have non-English or bilingual worship services.

Evangelical churches that say they want to be racially and culturally diverse:

2% Strongly disagree

6% Disagree

30% Strongly agree

23% Neutral

39% Agree

Source: Faith Communities Today (2010)

Related Elsewhere:

See our past "Go Figure" postings from December 2011, November 2011, October 2011, September 2011, August 2011, July 2011, June 2011, May 2011, April 2011, February 2011, January 2011, December 2010, and earlier issues.

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Go Figure, January 2012, Vol. 56, No. 1, Page 10

Comments (4)

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Annie

January 25, 2012 7:20pm

What does that first statistic even mean? 62% of churchgoers are obese? Churchgoers are 62% more obese than non-churchgoers? And what conclusion are we supposed to draw from the missions-giving stats? That things fluctuate? And then the mis-spelling of ECFA. CT usually has much better editing.

alison

January 25, 2012 4:32pm

It is ECFA, not EFCA.

Allen

January 25, 2012 9:10am

Note to JT - Regarding "the heading for giving should acknowledge that this is based on E-Free churches". EFCA is not synonymous with E-Free churches, it is the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability. This organization no doubt includes E-Free as a part of the broad spectrum of churches and organizations that are audited and have financial accountability to the EFCA.

January 24, 2012 10:55am

I think CT should filter out the garbage stats reporting. Arda's article is titled "Obesity rising: Religion and food can be unhealthy combination." I would think age and location are relevant covariates. For example, do older people attend church at a higher rate than young people? Are they also more often overweight? Same thing for living in the south. Also, the heading for giving should acknowledge that this is based on E-Free churches.

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