Why should my church take a survey?
In our consulting with thousands of church leaders, we regularly field a few common questions:
This is why we developed the FaithLIFE Survey. We recommend churches take the survey as a starting point for new ministry directions and then re-take the survey after a few years. The FaithLIFE Survey will give you a strong indication of the impact your church ministries are making on the faith life of the congregation beyond Sunday morning. The FaithLIFE Survey will also give you tangible starting points in knowing where to focus your efforts in ministry for long-term impact.
- How do I know that my work or our church is making a long-term difference beyond Sunday morning?
- If we want to shift directions from being church-centric to being missional or home-centric, where to we begin?
This is why we developed the FaithLIFE Survey. We recommend churches take the survey as a starting point for new ministry directions and then re-take the survey after a few years. The FaithLIFE Survey will give you a strong indication of the impact your church ministries are making on the faith life of the congregation beyond Sunday morning. The FaithLIFE Survey will also give you tangible starting points in knowing where to focus your efforts in ministry for long-term impact.
How will the FaithLIFE Survey benefit my church?
The FLS will provide a lot of information that will be helpful for your church in planning programs, outreach, even indicators on what to teach. The FLS will give you a good picture of what faith practices are happening in the homes of your congregation, how your church is impacting these practices, and what you can do to assist people live out their faith 24/7.
Why should our church do the FaithLIFE Survey and not just develop our own?
We have done a lot of preliminary research to make the FLS a valuable tool in helping churches in their discipleship efforts. The FLS will assist you not only in gathering information, but we have also done a thorough job in building strong analysis of the information so that it is truly valuable to your leadership. There are many handy online survey builders out there these days, but as you probably already know, capturing the information is only part of the survey. Knowing how to frame the questions, what questions are important to ask, and how to interpret the answers are probably the more difficult aspect of building a church survey. The FLS has done this work and research for you. Assessing what is truly happening in homes today is not easy and requires a significant amount of research and consideration which is why we spent over a year of time developing the FLS in partnership with Dr. Jeffrey Shears of North Carolina AT&T.
What does the FaithLIFE Survey measure and how?
The FLS is designed to assess beliefs, attitudes and practices about faith and discipleship in your congregation. The FLS measures seven spiritual practices across four domains.
The spiritual practices are:
1. Prayer
2. Devotions/Bible reading
3. Worship
4. Service
5. Missions
6. Faith talk
7. Reading or listening to Christian books, articles, or sermons
The four domains of the FLS are:
1. Single with no residential children
2. Mom & Dad with no residential children
3. Single with residential children
4. Mom & Dad with residential children
In addition to this core part of the survey, the FLS also provides information on the following:
· basic demographic information of your congregation
· spiritual growth satisfaction responses
· where the congregation would like assistance in spiritual growth and practices
· significant spiritual influences on congregation
The spiritual practices are:
1. Prayer
2. Devotions/Bible reading
3. Worship
4. Service
5. Missions
6. Faith talk
7. Reading or listening to Christian books, articles, or sermons
The four domains of the FLS are:
1. Single with no residential children
2. Mom & Dad with no residential children
3. Single with residential children
4. Mom & Dad with residential children
In addition to this core part of the survey, the FLS also provides information on the following:
· basic demographic information of your congregation
· spiritual growth satisfaction responses
· where the congregation would like assistance in spiritual growth and practices
· significant spiritual influences on congregation
Where do I begin?
Send us an inquiry and we will be in touch with you to start the process. We will walk you through every step, beginning with registration. Once registration has been made, we are ready to begin the process with you. Your church will be given a code to take the survey online, however paper surveys are also provided (your church will have to input the data). Your congregation will be given a three week window to take the survey. When the survey is closed, you will be given a full report with graphs and charts providing detailed analysis of your congregations faith practices and attitudes. We will also be available for a telephone consultation with your leadership to walk through the report and how to make best use of the information.
A flowchart of the FaithLIFE Survey process is available by clicking here.
A flowchart of the FaithLIFE Survey process is available by clicking here.
What is the cost for my church?
We are in the midst of a national research project to collect information on faith-life in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Singapore, and South Africa. We are looking for as many churches to participate as possible, so there is no cost to participate in the survey. However, the greatest benefit to individual churches is to get a comprehensive report on their specific church. This report is available at a cost of $500 USD. The report includes:
- 50 PAGE REPORT of your congregation's response to the survey questions
- SUMMARY of the report findings
- KEY RECOMMENDATIONS for your church
- CONSULTATION with a Faith at Home representative and your church leadership team (2 hours)
- MINISTRY COACHING opportunities to work more deeply with the Faith at Home team
- 50 PAGE REPORT of your congregation's response to the survey questions
- SUMMARY of the report findings
- KEY RECOMMENDATIONS for your church
- CONSULTATION with a Faith at Home representative and your church leadership team (2 hours)
- MINISTRY COACHING opportunities to work more deeply with the Faith at Home team
