SC-Part4-10MATHSCI_SC-Part4-10MATHSCI 6/25/13 2:06 PM Page 844
>>
GEORGE BARNA
A statistician aims to make the church more self-aware.
During his childhood in Princeton, New Jersey, George Barna attended Mass every Sunday, served as an altar boy, and went through catechism and confirmation classes. By the time he went to premarital counseling sessions, Barna wondered why his Church believed certain tenets and performed certain rituals. e priest advised him to stop asking such probing questions, to just accept what the Church teaches, and to believe that everything would work out fine. He didn’t realize it at the time, but Barna would go on to make it his life’s work to examine the intricacies of Christian belief and behavior, oen uncovering that what people claim with their mouths doesn’t match how they act. Barna, in graduate school as he prepared to wed in 1978, didn’t think the priest’s counsel to turn off his intellect sounded too reasonable. He and his new wife, Nancy, decided to go on their own quest to truly discover God. ey found a small Bible-believing church, where the pastor embarked on a pursuit they never had witnessed before: verse by verse detailed explanation of Scripture. Aer a few weeks of the couple’s attendance, the preacher came calling to the Barna home. He made a presentation of the Gospel message, ending with an invitation that they receive Jesus as Lord and Savior. “I said I didn’t think so,” Barna recalls. “But I told the pastor if Jesus is as great as He claimed, I’d give Jesus a month to prove it.” e preacher reluctantly agreed, provided that Barna attend Sunday morning church services, attend Wednesday evening Bible studies, read the Bible daily beginning with the Gospel of John, pray daily that God would reveal Himself, and allow the pastor to visit him weekly. Before the end of the month, Barna had committed his life to Jesus. Yet within a few months, Barna learned he needed to adhere to a set of religious rules to be a “real Christian.” e minister told Barna he must look like a believer, and that meant shaving off his beard and wearing his hair in a specific style. Barna protested, but his arguments fell on deaf ears.
844
PART 4 Redemptive Communicators: Profiles from Across the Job Fields
SC-Part4-10MATHSCI_SC-Part4-10MATHSCI 6/25/13 2:06 PM Page 845
While many new Christians might have walked away from the faith under such circumstances, Barna determined to find another church. “I had grown in my relationship with Christ and realized that even if whacky stuff goes on in the way people live and the man-made rituals they practice, Jesus is still real,” Barna says. Meanwhile, aer earning two master’s degrees from Rutgers University, Barna began working as a pollster for political candidates. Later, as the lone Christian at a Los Angeles media-research marketing firm, Barna received the assignment of helping several television ministries determine what worked and what didn’t on the air. at got Barna to thinking about full-time work in the field of studying Christian attitudes and actions. Although the Gallup Poll had long asked general religious questions, no one, until Barna came along, tracked in-depth responses about evangelical spiritual beliefs and behavior. In 1984, he opened his own marketing-research firm, e Barna Research Group, then based in Glendale, California. (e company since has expanded and been renamed e Barna Group and relocated to Ventura, California.) In the intervening years he has continued to hone his skills and methods in order to provide current, reliable, and accurate bite-sized information to ministries wanting to make strategic marketing decisions. Early on, many hailed Barna as an innovative wunderkind, delivering much-needed tell-itlike-it-is research on church health, leadership, and trends. But by the time he wrote his third book, Barna’s detractors had grown vociferous, suggesting that relying on research, marketing, and strategic plans to communicate the Gospel amounted to secular selling out. “Marketing in and of itself has no moral content,” Barna notes. “It’s just a process in which connections are made with people and each other’s needs are met through a transaction.” Despite the reservations of skeptics, many more people thought Barna’s numbers, guided by Biblical principles, made sense in advancing the work of God’s kingdom. ey understood that marketing-research figures, if used wisely, could be a tool, just as preaching is. Many recognized that research can help the church, in response to Jesus’s words: function in a culture of wolves with the wisdom of serpents (see Matt. 10:16). Barna’s influence continued to grow. His work helped pastors become more realistic and objective about the actual state of affairs their congregations were in, rather than assuming everything would run smoothly perpetually. Along the way, as he publishes research findings, conducts all-day seminars for church leaders, and writes books, Barna has become a widely quoted authority—both inside and outside the church—on Christianity. His three-dozen books include best sellers such as e Frog in the Kettle, User Friendly Churches, and Transforming Children into Spiritual Champions.
Math & Science
845
SC-Part4-10MATHSCI_SC-Part4-10MATHSCI 6/25/13 2:06 PM Page 846
He also has done much to challenge people to scrutinize the depth of their spirituality. While a Christian remnant lives faithfully and behaves ethically, Barna has reams of data showing that a lot of Americans think they are going to heaven even though they have no relationship with the Lord. “Jesus died on the cross not to make people feel happy or to fill church auditoriums, but so that we can be transformed and completely committed to serve Him and other people,” Barna says. “If Christ truly lives in us and the Holy Spirit truly guides us, there should be evidence of progress toward a greater state of holiness. It’s a continual journey.” At times Barna becomes disappointed with those who are unwilling to examine whether their practices are truly Biblical. eir criticisms can be disheartening, but Barna continues his work, guided by the belief that calls His people to evaluate themselves and that sometimes, as with the Old Testament prophets, He calls individuals to issue this call to the current culture. “It’s never really concerned me whether people accept what I put out there because I’m doing this for God,” Barna says. “Truth and transformation always have been my main focus.” But he still finds a ready audience willing to listen to his warnings. His family oen accompanies him when he travels for his busy speaking schedule. He and his wife, Nancy, have several adopted daughters. Barna continues to keep challenging ministry and institutional leaders, even when they wish he would go away with his challenging forecast for the American church.
© 2012 by yogo. Used under license of Shutterstock, Inc.
“I can’t worry about my critics,” Barna says. “Jesus expects me to use all the years and the resources He gave me to facilitate transformation.”
While a Christian remnant lives faithfully and behaves ethically, Barna has reams of data showing that a lot of Americans think they are going to heaven even though they have no relationship with the Lord.
846
PART 4 Redemptive Communicators: Profiles from Across the Job Fields