A column of current statistics selected especially for Christian communicators
Amount advertisers spent, per citizen, to present products to the U.S. in 1987: $451
Average percentage of after-tax income given by U.S. Protestants to their churches, in 1968: 3.05
Average percentage given in 1985: 2.79
Percentage of Americans whose biggest fear is public speaking: 26
Number of chemical reactions occurring in the brain each second: 100,000
Percentage of Americans who keep their New Year’s resolution for one month: 55
Who keep it for six months: 40. Who keep it for two years: 19
Chances of your being killed by terrorists overseas: 1 in 650,000
Chances of your being killed by Americans in Baltimore: 1 in 4,000
Chances of your being aborted if you are in the womb of an American woman: 1 in 3.3
Average number of hours men spent each week on household tasks, in 1965: 4.6. Today: 9.8
Weekly hours put in by women, in 1965: 27. Today: 19.5
In daytime soap operas, percentage of sexual references to partners who are not married or not married to each other: 94
Percentage of the earth’s population that has heard the name Jesus Christ: 75
Percentage of U.S. families that are single-parent families: 23
Percentage of American preschool teachers, administrators, parents, and child-development specialists who said the most important thing for a child to learn in preschool is “self-reliance and self-confidence”: 34
Percentage who said “sympathy, empathy, and concern for others”: 5
America’s Most Trusted
In what institution do Americans have the most confidence? Newspapers? Congress? The Supreme Court?
Nope. The church.
In a survey by the Princeton Religion Research Center, 59 percent of those polled expressed “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the church, putting it at the top of a list of ten institutions, including: the military (58 percent), banks (49 percent), Congress (35 percent), television (27 percent), and big business (25 percent).
Maybe that’s why every week 41 percent of Americans-nearly 100 million people-attend church.
– Reported in Emerging Trends, 11/88
Favorite Home Activities
When men and women are home together, they don’t necessarily want to do the same things, according to separate 1989 surveys by Spiegel, Inc., and by R. H. Bruskin Market Research. At the top of women’s favorite home activities is “spending time with family,” chosen by 65 percent of respondents. Men, on the other hand, ranked “making love” as their favorite home pursuit (64 percent).
Other favorites of women: listening to music (47 percent), making love (46 percent), reading (37 percent), and self-pampering (31 percent).
Other men’s favorites: spending time with family (56 percent), listening to music (34 percent), making home more beautiful (23 percent), and reading (23 percent).
– Reported in USA Today
Long-Tenured Pastors
Pastors stay longer in their vocation than workers in almost any other profession, according to recent data from the Monthly Labor Review (10/88). The median tenure for “clerics” is 15.8 years, giving them a longevity far beyond elementary school teachers (12.4 years), physicians (10.7 years), lawyers (10.1), or sales clerks (3.1).
– Reported in U.S. News & World Report, 1/23/89
SOURCES – Advertising: Starch INRA Hooper, Inc., reported in U.S. News & World Report, 3/20/89. Giving: empty tomb, inc., reported by the Associated Press, Wheaton (IL) Daily Herald, 10/22/88. Speaking fears: The Roper Organization, reported in Psychology Today, 3/89. Brain reactions: Hippocrates, 5-6/89. New Year’s resolutions: John C. Norcross, ct. al.; and Addictive Behaviors; reported in U.S. News & World Report, 1/16/89. Killing fields: What Are the Chances? by Bernard Siskin (Crown, 1989); USA Today, 1/26/89. Chores: Americans’ Use of Time Project, Survey Research Center, University of Maryland and, for 1965, Survey Research Center, University of Michigan; reported in American Demographics, 12/88. Soap-opera sex: Psychology Today, 10/88. Evangelized: International Bulletin of Missionary Research, 7/88, reported in Mennonite World Conference brochure, 2-3/89. Single-parent families: Good Housekeeping, 9/88, reported in Single Adult Ministries Journal, 1/89. Preschool essentials: World Monitor, 4/89.
97 FALL QUARTER Leadership/ 89
Copyright © 1989 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
