With Corporate Approach, Evangelistic Churches Prosper, Study Finds

October 2, 2000

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Florida’s most evangelical churches are growing faster and building larger endowments than their counterparts by coupling modern marketing techniques with old-world proselytism, a University of Florida study has found.

The study by researchers in the UF geography department found that the most evangelistic churches in the Florida Baptist Convention, part of the Southern Baptist Convention, had 4.4 times as many members as other churches in the Florida convention. The study also found that attendance at evangelistic churches had grown an average of 40 percent in the past two years, compared with essentially flat growth for the other churches. The evangelistic churches also had assets averaging $3.49 million, more than three times other churches’ assets totaling on average just $719,000.

The disparity reflects a trend toward larger churches that meld advertising and demographics research with word-of-mouth advertising and other traditional membership-building techniques, said Travis Bradshaw, who recently completed his dissertation in UF’s geography department.

“Increasingly, church is big business,” Bradshaw said.

The study used statistical techniques to analyze public and previously confidential data gathered from the 1995-1998 Uniform Church Letter — a yearly survey the Southern Baptist Convention sends to every Baptist church in the country — as well as an 80-question survey developed by Bradshaw and a research colleague, Donald Turner.

Bradshaw selected the most evangelistic churches by determining which among the 2,442 churches in the Florida convention had the highest number of converts, or the highest number of annual baptisms compared with annual memberships. He wound up focusing on 150 churches that averaged more than 70 baptisms per year, whereas the average for all the churches was 12 annual baptisms. With an average of 1,588 members, compared with 362 members for other churches, the evangelistic churches were far larger than their counterparts, the study found. The study also found that while evangelistic churches have more money than their counterparts, they also have more debt, averaging $562,131 in money owed versus other churches’ $65,237. Evangelistic churches donated more to charity, giving $117,018 compared with $22,139 for other churches.

The study points to the growth of evangelical “megachurches” as a leading factor in the dominance of evangelical denominations.

“Because of the trend from small to large, churches increasingly are becoming more businesslike and are looking to geographers, demographers, sociologists, political pollsters and marketing experts to target potential Christians,” the study says.

One example of such a business like approach is how leaders of new evangelistic churches pick a site, Bradshaw said. Like owners of chain restaurants, they often do extensive background studies of a community’s demographics and layout — and the other churches in the area. “Businesses and churches both determine customer profiles, analyze the demographic structures of regions, evaluate competitive facilities and so on,” Bradshaw said.

Larger, more conveniently located churches also may be more appealing to modern churchgoers who want a variety of services, Bradshaw said. “Larger churches simply have the people and the resources to provide a variety of ministries and services,” he said.

Attracting new members to church isn’t all business, however. The study found, for example, that the longer the pastor’s tenure at church, the more success the church had in recruiting new members. The study also found that pastors of churches with more than 100 members tended to have graduate degrees. Also, while evangelistic churches advertise rather heavily in television, radio and other media, the study found no significant connection between the advertising and new converts. More important factors appeared to be the pastor’s charisma and the congregation’s efforts in reaching out, Bradshaw said.

“Religion is just like business: Word of mouth is the best advertisement,” he said.

Ed Malecki, a UF professor of geography and Bradshaw’s adviser, said larger churches also may have an intrinsic advantage. “Maybe it’s simply that the large churches tend to get larger, at the expense of the small ones — and that small churches can’t afford to stretch themselves too thin in an attempt to compete,” he said.