Faith By Numbers March 11, 2009
Posted by Dan R. Dick in Critical Thinking, Religion in the U.S., Research.Tags: Church Leadership, Church membership
7 comments
When I was a kid, I used to love paint-by-number sets. Paint-by-number was the perfect solution for someone like me with absolutely no artistic ability whatsoever. There was a picture presented in ink outline and in each section of the outline was a number that corresponded to a color paint. Faithfully following the number should have resulted in a passable replica of the original, except for one thing: there was never the right amount of paint. See, there was an identical amount of a dozen different colors of paint, but each picture required colors in different quantities. A forest picture would rip through the green, but leave enought red to paint a fire truck. A ship at sea would exhaust all the green, brown and blue, but leave enough pink and yellow to add a flock of flamingos. There was a fundamental flaw in the design — picture by picture, all colors are not equal. The same rule applies to the church. When analyzing shifts and trends in congregational dynamics, a percent is not just a percent, because not all percents are equal. Stay with me and this will all become clear.
