What’s a Congregation Worth?

Comments

1. 1
   Mark M says:
   April 1, 2011 at 1:20 pm

   This is a really significant post. Sadly, Rob Bell’s issue will get more attention. The value a church is to a community has never really been explored to this extent. I sure hope the study finds churches on average, offer more than the 2009 half a million estimate.

   If it does not, we may need to ask if Love Is Really Winning.
2. 2
   Andy Holt says:
   April 1, 2011 at 2:22 pm

   I hope Karen Spears Zacharias sees this.
3. 3
   Pat Pope says:
   April 1, 2011 at 2:24 pm

   Saw it, but it will be more useful if churches can actually provide hard facts to substantiate their numbers vs. anecdotal evidence. I think it would be a worthy project for churches to undertake in order to quantify what they do. It will offer credibility to those interested in hard facts to back up the spiritual impact that we claim to make on our communities. It would also serve as a wake-up call to churches if they found that maybe they’re not doing as good a job as they think.
4. 4
   Pat Pope says:
   April 1, 2011 at 2:25 pm

   @Andy, it ties in directly with her post on churches’ tax exempt status. Yet another reason for quantifying what we do.
5. 5
   Tim says:
   April 1, 2011 at 9:39 pm

   How much of this is also true of communal places of worship among the Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, and even Unitarian communities? Is this specific to Christianity?
6. 6
   Jason Lee says:
   April 2, 2011 at 6:32 am

   Isn’t this contingent upon to what degree alcoholism and smoking are prevalent in the locale? In one locale, churches could really reduce costs associated with these social ills. In another locale with fewer problems, the tax revenue from a bunch of businesses with trees out front may do better … at least economically.

   Also, sadly, studies are pretty mixed as far as the impact of religious participation/churches on local crime rates. I’ve seen a few high-quality studies that show crime rates to be higher in counties/neighborhoods with more churches…especially conservative churches. We don’t know enough about this yet.
7. 7
   Phil says:
   April 2, 2011 at 9:35 am

   My first thought was that this post must be some sort of spoof or satire! When we feel the need to quantify the value of the church to the community, something has gone terribly wrong.

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