{"id":317,"date":"2014-08-27T10:43:42","date_gmt":"2014-08-27T10:43:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/sitenews\/2014\/08\/27\/survey-of-adventist-opinions-attitudes-and-siritual-life-patterns-coming-to-local-churches\/"},"modified":"2014-08-27T10:43:42","modified_gmt":"2014-08-27T10:43:42","slug":"survey-of-adventist-opinions-attitudes-and-siritual-life-patterns-coming-to-local-churches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/survey-of-adventist-opinions-attitudes-and-siritual-life-patterns-coming-to-local-churches\/","title":{"rendered":"Survey of Adventist \u2018Opinions, Attitudes and Spiritual Life Patterns\u2019 Coming to Local Churches"},"content":{"rendered":"

24 February 2012 Silver Spring, Maryland, United States<\/strong><\/span> [Elizabeth Lechleitner\/ANN]\u00a0More than 60 percent of Seventh-day Adventists worldwide are women. Less than 40 percent of American Adventists study their Bible once a week.<\/p>\n

Regularly cited at Adventist board meetings and business sessions, these and other so-called church statistics are not actually known to be factual. Many familiar \u201cfacts\u201d might better be classified as \u201canecdotes, hunches and instincts,\u201d says Adventist researcher David Trim.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Trim, who directs the world church\u2019s Office of Archives, Statistics and Research, wants to see anecdotal evidence replaced by \u201cactual data.\u201d Beginning this year, his office will oversee a major research project to survey the opinions, attitudes and spiritual life patterns of Adventist pastors, church members, institutional employees and college and university professors worldwide.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to know what is actually happening in the church, not just what we\u2019d like to be happening,\u201d Trim says. That knowledge can equip church leaders to use money and resources more judiciously and effectively, he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re doing this because we want to do ministry and mission better. We want to be better stewards of what God has given to us, and we want to be more effective in discipling and winning souls,\u201d Trim says.
It wasn\u2019t until last year that top church officials first voted to establish an ongoing budget for Adventist research meant to inform the church\u2019s strategic plan. Previously, Adventist research was conducted sporadically, with limited focus and funding, and almost exclusively in North America, Trim says.<\/p>\n

This time around, the plan is for a \u201crigorous\u201d survey carried out in each of the church\u2019s 13 world divisions, Trim says. Using the new research budget, his office has contracted with research teams at Adventist universities in North America, South America, Inter-Amerca, Europe, Africa, Southeast Asia and Australia. Each team has demonstrated research \u201cexpertise and experience,\u201d Trim says. While much of the anonymous polling will take place this year, some surveys may continue into early 2013, with full results due back at world church headquarters by June of 2013.<\/p>\n

Survey questions will go beyond age, gender, ethnicity and other statistics-based research to ask about attitudes and opinions on spiritual life, fundamental beliefs and values, church leadership, Adventist institutions and fellow members, among other topics.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Adventist Church is committed to a strategic planning process that provides direction based on a body of evidence,\u201d says Michael L. Ryan, a world church general vice president and vice-chair of the church\u2019s Strategic Planning and Budgeting Committee.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll strategic planning is really only for one reason: How do we better advance the mission?\u201d Ryan says<\/p>\n

How beneficial the results are depends largely upon whether Adventists worldwide fully engage in the survey, Trim says. There\u2019s no way to track survey results back to individual respondents, so researchers are hoping members will feel confident in giving honest answers — \u201cnot what you think we\u2019d like to hear,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe understand that people will not always be doing what we wish they were doing. We understand that people are not necessarily believing what we want them to believe. And we understand that often they won\u2019t be feeling very happy with us,\u201d Trim says. \u201cThere\u2019s going to be what will be perceived as bad news. But we want to know this so we can do a better job.\u201d<\/p>\n

In some cases, survey results might spur church leaders to launch programs that would \u201cmodify our behavior and practices,\u201d Trim says. Other results may prompt better communication between leaders and members.
\u201cIf people are unhappy with an area that\u2019s fundamental to our faith, then we can educate and explain to members why this is essential,\u201d Trim says.<\/p>\n

While he expects that much of the research will be published by Adventist scholars, Trim says some of it will remain confidential.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy hope is that in fact we would not only get answers to really important questions, but — as a side product — we would also increase the research capacity of the church,\u201d Trim says.<\/p>\n

Many Adventist researchers have demonstrated that they can produce \u201cgood, rigorous research,\u201d and Trim is keen to see them given \u201ctime and space\u201d to benefit the church.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think at times we have made decisions based on who can give the best speech at a [church business meeting]. Somebody who gets up and has a burden on his heart and says, \u2018Brethren, I feel we should do thus and so,\u2019 and he\u2019s eloquent, he\u2019s impassioned, and he uses all the right Adventist buzzwords and everybody says, \u2018Amen, vote the money.\u2019 And often nobody asks, \u2018Is this really reflecting a need wider than this one person\u2019s perception?\u2019\u201d Trim says.<\/p>\n

More and better Adventist research will equip leadership to use church money and resources in the best possible way rather than the most immediately appealing way, Trim says.<\/p>\n

He also hopes the church\u2019s growing commitment to research will help boost member confidence in Adventist leadership. They\u2019ll know that research is steering leadership toward better informed decision-making and, ultimately, better methods of spreading the Adventist hope.<\/p>\n

Church leaders expect the first wave of surveys to begin by the end of April. [ted<\/em>NEWS]<\/p>\n

\n

ted<\/em>NEWS Staff: Miroslav Pujic, director; Deana Stojkovic, editor
119 St Peter’s Street, St Albans, Herts, AL1 3EY, England
E-mail:\u00a0tednews@ted-adventist.org
Website: www.ted-adventist.org<\/p>\n

ted<\/em>NEWS is an information bulletin issued by the\u00a0communication department of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the\u00a0Trans-European Division.\u00a0
You are free to re-print any portion of the bulletin\u00a0without need for\u00a0special permission. However, we kindly request that you\u00a0identify\u00a0ted<\/em>NEWS\u00a0whenever you publish these materials.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

24 February 2012 Silver Spring, Maryland, United States<\/strong><\/span> [Elizabeth Lechleitner\/ANN]\u00a0More than 60 percent of Seventh-day Adventists worldwide are women. Less than 40 percent of American Adventists study their Bible once a week.<\/p>\n

Regularly cited at Adventist board meetings and business sessions, these and other so-called church statistics are not actually known to be factual. Many familiar \u201cfacts\u201d might better be classified as \u201canecdotes, hunches and instincts,\u201d says Adventist researcher David Trim.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,1577],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-organisational-updates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}