Just came across your website in doing some research on the advantages of multi-site compared to church planting, not that they are mutually exclusive. I am in favor of both, but I would concur with Todd’s comments. Two thoughts about the study that leave me with a more pessimistic view than yours…

1. The downward trend over four years increases every year. Year 1 = 1%. 2 = 7%. 3 = 11%. 4 = 13%. That is disturbing. A safe projection for year 5 is 54%. Years 6-10 are likely less than that, though we can’t be sure. But, it is distrubing that the percentage of decrease every year does not at least level out. I’d like to see new churches tracked for 10 years. That would give us a much better view.

2. The response rate to the survey was 22%. In most studies, that percentage is more than adequate to provide a helpful sample. But, in this case, I think it skews the outcome in favor of survivability. To what degree is hard to say, but having planted two churches, I would venture to guess that the church plants that were going well were much more likely to respond than those that were not going well.

Ed has done a great job in this study and for setting us up for Part 2. While the 68% survival rate is being cited by many as good news, we need to look deeper as one could easily conclude the results are actually bad news. Consider the following:

1. We don’t know where the % survival bottoms out. The study goes to year 4 but the rate of decline (churches dying) is actually increasing with each successive year. We could only be certain the 68% is good news if the survivability curve had bottomed out at or before year 4. Will this rate continue this way in years 5 through 10? It very well may given the other disturbing data Ed reported (see 2 and 3 below).

2. At year 4, of the churches surviving, only 70% are financially self-sufficient. Yikes! Without sounding too harsh, what if we have a relatively high % of new churches on welfare at year 4 that is keeping them alive? Having this high of a percent of churches still on support at year 4 is why its so important to understand where the % survivability actually stops dropping significantly from year to year.

3. The tension between church size and financial viability and health. Taking average per capita giving numbers and applying them to average church size of all the churches in the survey at year 4 at least deserves the question are the churches positioned for health and growth? I have a hard time massaging the numbers in any way to conclude they are.

Not trying to be pessimistic but rather to suggest caution in interpreting the data.