This set of results has four parts.

Part A provides an overview of the congregation in terms of age, education level, marital status, and the length of time the people have been attending. It includes some tables and graphs on how often they attend worship, their involvement in small groups, what they most value in the congregation and how close to God they feel in church services. There are some further tables and graphs on their views of the Bible, Eucharist or Holy Communion, speaking in tongues, and whether the people feel they have had a decisive moment of faith commitment.

Part B provides information about how the church rates on seven aspects of vitality. These seven aspects have been chosen by the National Church Life Survey researchers as providing some ways of measuring the vitality of congregation. They do not claim they represent every aspect of vitality, but do represent a range, as churches seek to draw new people in, as they help people to feel a sense of belonging and grow in faith, and as they ‘live’ the Christian faith in daily life through wider community involvement and through sharing their faith with other people.

Part C contains further information about the congregation in terms of those characteristics the research team has found relate to these particular measures of vitality. For example, congregations which have high percentages of newcomers generally have the following characteristics:
1.          A younger age profile
2.          Attenders who invite others to church
3.          Contemporary styles of music and worship
4.          Attenders who feel they are growing in their faith
5.          Encouragement for involvement and ownership of the life of the church
6.          Leaders who listen to attenders and help them discover their gifts and skills
7.          Leaders who have an outward focus.
Each print-out contains the figures indicating the extent to which each congregation has these characteristics in comparison with all congregations who completed the survey.

Part D contains further detail on several aspects of congregational life which are important in the measures of vitality: the vision and commitment of the congregation, participation in decision making, the degree of conflict in the congregation, leadership roles and style, and training for mission and ministry and for encouraging the use of gifts among the attenders.

Shaping the Future

With the congregational printouts, the National Church Life Survey team has sent its most recent book (1997): Shaping the Future. The book explains the thinking, the theory and the results on which these printouts have been based.
While there has been much discussion of ‘church growth’ over the last three decades, much of it has centred on growth in numbers of church attenders on Sunday mornings. The NCLS team argues that this is only one indicator of the vitality of a congregation and others are also important. They note, for example, that growth in numbers of attenders can come in several ways: as people switch or transfer from other churches, as people who have not been to church before begin coming, or as people who used to come to church occasionally come more often. The team has found that congregations who are welcoming and involving people who have no background in church involvement are different in significant ways from other churches that are growing in numbers.
They argue that church life is not just about people ‘coming in’, but about people growing in faith within the congregation, and people living their faith through their activities outside the church. While it is very difficult to measures some of these aspects, there are at least some crude measures which will alert congregations to these important aspects of vitality.
The book continues with a thorough examination of those characteristics of congregations which were found to relate to the seven measures of vitality. This research used the full potential of the 1991 congregational database as it looked at each of the 4000 participating congregations as a unit, based on the aggregate responses of each attender who completed the survey. The researchers controlled for the denominational tradition and for context in this analysis. Thus, they could say with confidence that the characteristics which relate to vitality can be found across denominations, and across different types of context such as rural and urban, white collar and blue collar locations. Only the unique breadth of their database, in terms of denominations and situations, could provide them with the accuracy and detail of these results. Their findings have world-wide significance, confirming the hunches of some other church consultants, and contradicting the ideas of others.
The researchers deal with some of the myths that have developed from overseas research. For example, many people think that large congregations are more likely to have greater vitality. The team found that large churches find it easier to retain young adults but, in most other respects, size makes very little difference. Newcomers are just as likely to be found in smaller churches as larger churches. Attenders are just as likely to report a sense of belonging or growth in faith in small churches as in large ones.
Informality in the worship style has a definite and quite strong relationship to numerical growth. In fact, the style and dress of the worship leader itself was found to relate to many aspects of vitality. Satisfaction with the music style relates very strongly to the sense of belonging, and to growth in faith. The use of contemporary music, however, definitely relates to the numbers of newcomers in a congregation, the retention of young adults, and to numerical growth.
Leadership, both lay and clerical, is a very important factor in the vitality of congregations. Where the leader had a vision for growth to which the attenders were committed, there was a strong tendency for there to be more newcomers, greater numerical growth, a strong sense of belonging, the attenders more involved in the community, greater sharing of faith by the attenders, and stronger reports of growth in faith.
It made no difference whether the leader was old or young, how many years they had been involved in ministry or how many years in the current congregation. It was important that leaders were outwardly focussed in their roles, seen as inspiring and as offering direction, but, at the same time, listening to their congregations and using the gifts within them.
A basic and important result of the research is that internal factors in the life of the congregation count. Context does matter. In some places, it is hard to raise the level of vitality of a congregation. In other places, it is much easier. But context is not a determining factor. In most places, greater vitality is possible.
Congregations will find the research encouraging as it shows that there is always the possibility of growth in vitality. The detailed feedback on their own congregational life will provide the initial indicators of areas of strength and weakness. The book provides full and detailed accounts of why and how these areas of strength and weakness make a difference. Through careful and prayerful reflection, this material will help many congregations to ‘shape their futures’.

Philip Hughes

For more information on the National Church Life Survey, contact the office:           
PO Box A2178, Sydney South, 1235.
Tel: (02) 9285-4594.
Information about the Catholic Church Life Survey which ran in parallel with the National Church Life Survey will be available soon. For more information, contact the Pastoral Research Projects Office, PO Box 1209, Clayton South, 3179.