64% of Australians Don't Know Who Adventist's Are. And That's Tragic.
Life is busy at the moment. So blogging isn’t something I do a whole lot of these days. In fact, I recently posted an update on my FB page letting people know not to expect anymore blogs or podcasts for a while.
But then, the AUC released the SDA Church Perception Study - a report compiled by McCrindle Research - on how the general public in Australia and New Zealand perceive the SDA Church. And let’s just say, the results were so relevant to post-church mission, I couldn’t resist the urge to write a responce.
You can download the full report in the link above. Below I share 5 reactions.
1. I have a love-hate relationship with church surveys.
On the hate bit: The truth is, if you ran a church perception survey at any point in human history you are unlikely to receive glowing reviews for the church. The church has always been counter-cultural. It has always been a thorn on the side of empire. It has always been a threat to the stability of social conventions. “Jesus is king” has always been, and will forever be, a seditious narrative. So, I don’t believe for a moment that church perception surveys filled with praise from the general public should be a goal or an aim for believers.
On the love bit: Nevertheless, when the unfavorable opinion is based on people not knowing who we are or what story we are telling the world, there’s a problem. In other words, I don’t mind being hated by the world so long as I am hated for the right reasons. For example, Jesus was hated for being a friend of sinners, for eating and dining with rejects, for proclaiming a message of love and inclusion so potent that it destabalised the religio-social scaffolds of his day. Likewise, early Christians were ridiculed for rescuing babies from dumps, for celebrating communion, for rejecting class warfare, for resisting emperor worship, and for seeing all people regardless of gender, economic class, or nationality as “one in Christ Jesus”. If people hate the church for these reasons, fair enough! But if people dislike us for being irrelevant and out of touch… well, thats on us.
And sadly, when it comes to how the general public perceives Adventist’s in Australia and NZ, thats basically what you get. Here are the 3 stats that stood out to me the most:
Most people are not open to attending religious programs.
Most people have no idea who SDA’s are and what we believe.
Most people don’t think our church is relevant in the 21st century.
Again, I’m not chasing public praise. I don’t mind if people think we’re weird.
What does bother me though, is when no one knows who we are, what story we have to tell, and how relevant it is for our world today.
And when I see that we, as the church, spend 90% of our energy running religious services every weekend that are having virtualy zero impact in our emerging secular, post-church society, I have to admit, my eye lid starts to twitch a bit.
2. We clearly live in a secular, post-church society.
At the start of the survey we see the following question: “What religion do you currently practice or identify with?”
For Australia, the highest number is “None” at 35%.
When we consider that many people who identify as Cathoclics tend to be “cultural Catholics” and many who identify as Christian today do so for political and cultural reasons as well, it becomes clear that the vast majority of our neighbors in Australia are post-church. They don’t go to church. Their parents and peers don’t go to church. And their kids have next to no idea what a church is or does.
But, what if we had a super good preacher, excellent music, and put on a fantastic service each weekend? In fact, what if we went digital and hosted church services online? Would they be open to attending then?
Nope.
I think this is honestly where we have to do our deepest and most painful soul searching as a church.
If most Autralians do not attend church programs and are not interested in attending church programs, then why do we invest so much time, resources, and energy into running them?
Don’t misunderstand me. I am not saying that the church should not gather to worship, pray, fellowship etc. The Bible clearly commands this.
But is there a simpler way to do it?
A way that is smaller, more mobile, and less exhausting so that we can re-invest our talent and energy into getting to know our post-church neighbors without the constant demands of rehearsing, rostering, and executing the weekend program?
I’m not trying to start any wars here. But its a relevant question that deserves honest exploration.
3. Most Australians and NZ’s have no idea who SDA’s are. We are, by and large, an irrelevant subculture of Christianity.
According to the survey, “Almost half of Australian’s and NZ’s are unfamiliar with the [SDA] church."
When asked, “Do you know of a local SDA church in your suburb or town?” 77% said “No”.
Later on, we find that 34% of Australians never heard of the SDA church while another 30% think of it as just another denomination among the many. Taken in totality, thats a whopping 64% of Aussies who do not know who Adventist’s are, and that is tragic.
Now let’s put this into perspective. We live in a post-church society which means most people don’t know anything about any Christian denomination.
I met a guy about a year and a half ago at a local workout park. When I told him I was a pastor, he asked me what church. I asked him if he was familiar with Pentecostals, Wesleyans, Methodists etc. ( I wanted to gauge what his knowledge of Christian culture was). He gave me a blank look and shook his head. “Never heard of them,” he replied.
A few months ago a young tow truck driver came to my rescue (my car ran out of petrol on the way to the petrol station). I told him I was a pastor. He had never heard the word. He even asked me to repeat it again because he couldn’t pronounce it.
This reminded me of the millennial Sydney doctor I met who had never heard of pastors either. I told him I was kind of like a chaplain, but I worked in churches not hospitals. He replied, “whats a chaplain?”
Aparently he had seen them in the hospital when he worked in emergency. But he had no idea what they did and never bothered to ask.
In this secular context, our church as a whole tends to get swallowed up into all the others. In the end, nothing we have to say seems to have any significance to the lives of contemporary Australian generations.
Now what does this mean? Does it mean we need better marketing campaigns? Better branding, signage, and logos?
The simplest answer is: not really.
I mean, as a denomination we have already done some pretty remarkable work with modernising our branding. I still recall when the new branding kicked in around 6 or 7 years ago (ish?) and thinking - hey, this is well done! I don’t have to be embarassed with outdated fonts and logos anymore!
But the reality is, the above stats of people not knowing who we are, are results that have continued through the years following all our re-branding work. So good as it might be, branding alone isn’t the answer here.
So what is the answer? I don’t think I have the full picture myself, but here is a good place to start: We as Adventist’s have to accept that whenever society changes, the anxieties people experience change as well. And as anxieties change, the questions people are asking change with them.
I believe the reason so many people don’t know who we are or what we believe is because we Adventists are still answering questions people were asking in 1930. We focus on religio-centric topics like:
Law vs grace
What day the Sabbath is
The day/year principle
Daniel 2
The investigative judgment
Now don’t get me wrong. I believe all the above. I have even written books on the stuff. But the way we engage these conversations is so outdated, only already-religious-folk like us find them relevant.
Most people today could care less about what day the Sabbath is, creation vs evolution, what the true church is, why so many denominations exist, etc. Simply put, these are NOT questions emerging secular generations are anxious about. And no amount of new signage, color schemes, or fonts are going to change the fact that most of our churches spend most of their time answering questions emerging generations simply aren’t asking.
New generations have questions revolving around social issues, oppression and marginalization, justice and equity, economics, affordable housing, ecology, and so on. That some dude in a weird hat (pope) whose church I never attended and whose name I can’t pronounce changed the Sabbath to Sunday thousands of years ago is meaningless to generations that have grown up with next to zero religious context.
If we want to be a relevant church, I believe the best place to begin is by listening to our neighbours, understanding their anxieties, and offering a message of hope that speaks directly to their anxieties, not ours.
4. Young people are still searching and still open!
But there is good news! According to the survey, secular generations are still open to attending activities put on by SDA’s. The difference between activities and events is simple. Events are religious programs and services. Activities are more social in nature. Take a look:
If secular people are open to attending community service and social activities, then the most missional shift our churches can make is to re-orient energy from endless religious programming toward community service projects and social events where we can connect with and get to know our neighbours well.
If this means we do less church programs so that we can do more social and community activities, then let’s do it!
5. Final thoughts…
Some of you reading might be thinking, “Yes! I agree! But how?”
If that is you, I have good news. There are two projects currently in motion. One is called The R3 Network: a church plant in Perth, WA that is reimagining the local SDA church for mission in post-church cities. And the best part: It has an entire online school that teaches you how to gather, empower, and launch missional communities for post-church mission wherever you are.
If that sounds like something you have been searching for, access the free course on our website at www.ther3network.com
The second project is The Mission Collective: an online post-modern evangelism school hosted by yours truly. This school teaches students how to be effective missionaries in our contemporary, secular age. For more info, click the button below.
I hope these resources are instrumental in moving our church from simply talking about the issues, to actively participating in change.
Together, we can birth an Adventism. Redesigned.
