With this issue, LEADERSHIP introduces this new column, a companion to “To Illustrate . . .” For seven years, readers have turned to “To Illustrate . . .” for stories and illustrations that communicate with impact, and they’ve given it high marks for its usefulness in their preaching.
However, increasingly, church leaders recognize the need for an additional persuasive tool: accurate, forceful statistics. Statistics that take the pulse of society, that support or dispel assumptions, that clarify what’s happening around us.
For each “To Verify . . .” column, the editors will select current statistics of greatest value to pastors, teachers, and other Christian communicators.
Fast Facts
Percentage of Americans earning less than $15,000 a year who say they have achieved the American Dream: 5
Percentage earning more than $50,000 a year who say this: 6
Percentage of American children living with just one parent, in 1960: 10
Percentage now: 24
Current total of U.S. AIDS patients: 63,726
Estimated number by the end of 1993: 450,000
Average cost of a religious hardcover book in 1977: $12.26
In 1987: $24.22
Percentage of college freshmen who said the goal of “developing a meaningful philosophy of life” is important, in 1967: 83
Percentage today: 39
Percentage of college freshmen who say “being well-off financially” is one of their top goals, today: 76
Percentage of Americans who do not believe in God: 1
Percentage of adults who attend church in a typical week, in Ireland: 87
Percentage in the U.S.: 41; in France: 12
Number of hours of leisure time each week for an American adult, in 1973: 26.2
Number of hours in 1987: 16.6
Percentage of married young adults without children who attend religious services almost every week: 27
Percentage of married young adults with children who attend religious services almost every week: 43
Percentage of unchurched teenagers who performed volunteer service last year: 16
Percentage of churched teenagers who did: 31
Rewards of Success
What do American high-achievers say is their most important reward? What drives them to accomplish?
Is it money? No, according to George Gallup, Jr., and Alee M. Gallup, authors of The Great American Success Story (Dow Jones-Irwin, 1986). Expensive possessions came in a distant tenth on a list of important rewards ranked by high-achievers.
Is it fame? Close; peer recognition was second.
But the key motivator for people who get things done is a sense of personal worth and self-respect.
The Unchurched
About 44 percent of U.S. adults are unchurched, neither belonging to a church nor visiting one in the last six months, except for holidays, weddings, or funerals. This finding came from a Gallup study, “The Unchurched American, 1988,” which also reported:
72 percent of these unchurched believe Jesus is the Son of God
63 percent believe the Bible is God’s Word
77 percent pray to God (41 percent daily)
Surprisingly, 58 percent of unchurched adults said they’re open to joining a church if they found the right one. Yet in the past year, only 38 percent were invited to one.
SOURCES – American Dream: Roper Organization, reported in Harper’s, 8/88. Single-parent families: New York Times, 1/28/88, reported in Youthworker Update, 3/88. AIDS: Government statistics, reported in the Washington Post and New York Times, 6/5/88. Book costs: Publisher’s Weekly, reported in Context, 5/15/88. College freshmen: American Council on Education survey of 290,000 college freshmen, reported in Group, 5/88. Belief in God: 100% American by Daniel Weiss (Poseidon Press, forthcoming), reported in Good Housekeeping, 10/88. Church attendance: Gallup Report by Norman Webb and Robert Wybrow (Sphere Books, Ltd., 1982). Leisure time: Survey by Louis Harris and Associates, Inc., commissioned by Philip Morris Companies, Inc. Reported in the Chicago Tribune, 3/16/88. Young marrieds’ church attendance: Princeton Religion Research Center’s PRRC Emerging Trends, 4/88. Teenagers’ service: PRRC Emerging Trends, 5/88.
Leadership Winter 1989 p. 81
Copyright © 1989 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
