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The Foster Letter —

Religious Market Update

The FOSTER Letter is a bi-weekly e-mail religious market intelligence report targeted to Christian market channel and ministry leaders.  Each issue reports on news, trends, events and research that will directly or indirectly impact your audiences and businesses in a convenient summary format  Better informed leaders make better choices!

Researched, Edited & Published by Gary D. Foster

Excerpts from the

April 25, 2007 edition of

The FOSTER Letter—Religious Market Update

Puddle, Swamp, Ocean or Well? When you’re thinking about developing a new product or ministry, it’s essential that you find out 2 things: 1) How widespread is the public’s interest in it? 2) How deep is that interest? If interest is not widespread and not very deep, you’re looking at a puddle. Never invest time or money in a puddle. If interest is widespread but not very deep, you’re looking at a swamp. Be careful of swamps. They look like oceans at first because everyone is interested. Many have gone broke when what looked like a swamp turned out to be an ocean. If interest is wide and deep, you’re looking at an ocean. But you’re going to need a platform on which to navigate your ocean. If you don’t have a platform, you’ll drown. And you’re going to need a plan or you’ll drift. If public interest is narrow but deep, you’ve got a well. Don’t underestimate it. You can draw a lot of water from a well. Are you in a puddle, a swamp, an ocean or a well? I can objectively help you find out. Contact me at 419-238-4082, GFosterCns@rmi.net or www.GaryDFoster.com (Monday Morning Memo 7/9/07) 

America’s Leading Retailers are expected to open 94,000 new store locations over the next 5 years. (2007 Retail Tenant Directory)  

U.S. Culture tends to view teens as small adults when, neurologically, they are large children. Laurence Steinberg, Temple University psychologist, says stricter laws and policies limiting teen behaviors would be more effective than education programs when it comes to dissuading teens from risky behaviors. Researchers have found the brain is not fully developed until after 18. The system that regulates logic and reasoning develops before the area that regulates impulse and emotions. (Current Directions in Psychological Science 4/07) 

13/30 Window Rickie Bradshaw, Executive Dir., StreetLife Worldwide, has coined the term 13/30 window inspired by the Missiologists term 10/40 window which describes the geographical region between 10° and 40° latitude, which many consider to be the least evangelized region in the world. The 13/30 window is defined as people between the ages of 13 and 30, the largest unreached group of people in the world today. (Leadership Network Advance 4/10/07) 

Why They Left 59% of formerly churched adults left their church because of “changes in their situation.” The two top specific situation changes were too busy to attend (19%) and family/home responsibilities (17%). Next were, moved (17%), work (15%) and got divorce/separated (12%). (Faith & Trends 3-4/07) 

The Top Christian Colleges in U.S in academics, student and spiritual life according to Relevant magazine are (1) Baylor University, (2) Calvin College (3) Pepperdine University, (4) Wheaton College and (5) Biola University. (Relevant Issue 25) 

The Bible ranked 6th according to World Book Day’s 10th anniversary list of “books you can’t live without.” #1 was Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice. (Christian Retailing 4/2/07) 

The #1 Reason People Attend Church is for spiritual growth and guidance, say 23% of recent Gallup survey respondents. 20% of adults attend because it keeps them grounded/inspired. The top “rational” reason adults seldom or never attend church is they don’t agree with organized religion or what they preach (24%). Among top “practical” reasons for hardly attending or missing church altogether, 21% don’t have time or they don’t get around to it. The poll found that while Protestants mainly go to church for spiritual growth and guidance, Catholics tend to attend because it keeps them grounded/inspired. Catholics are also more likely to attend because it’s their faith. For Protestants, 17% attend because of fellowship and community. Among those who seldom or never attend, 16% listed “don’t believe in going to church” as a rational reason; 10% don’t believe in God; and only 3% stay away because the church asks for too much money. (GallupPoll.com 4/6/07) 

50-Plus Over the next decade the number of age 50-plus consumers will increase at a rate 9 times faster than the growth of their children’s and grandchildren’s generations. They will account for 76% of income in the U.S. (The 50-Plus Market by Dick Stroud) 

Church Switchers More than 1 in 5 adults, who switch to a new church move away from traditional worship, finds recent LifeWay Research. Church Switchers often choose a new church that is different in several ways from their previous one, and most end up not attending traditional services as they did formerly. 53% attended traditional style worship, of that, only 29% switched to churches with traditional services. The most popular worship styles among switchers are blended worship (38%) and contemporary worship (33%). 46% move to a larger church while 29% go to a smaller one and 25% find one the same size as their former church. Among those who attended a church of 100 or less, 79% switch to a larger church. Among those who attended a church of more than 500, 57% moved to a smaller church. 54% change denominations when switching. 44% consider denomination an important selection factor. Among those who have disagreements with their previous church’s teachings or positions on issues, 71% change denominations. Only 4% left a previous church because they could no longer identify with that particular denomination. 87% base their selection on preaching and 90% have found preaching that meets their need for relevance, interest and clarity. 91% consider the preaching at their current church relevant while only 44% say this about their previous church. 91% say their current preacher holds their attention vs. only 37% claim this about their previous preacher; 86% are challenged by the preaching at their new church to live and think biblically compared to only 39% who were previously so challenged. 97% attend worship at their current church; 84% contribute financially vs. 69% previously; and 64% volunteer compared to 51% before. Also, 60% attend a small group, Sunday school or discipleship class at their new church. Moreover, 74% become a member of their current church vs. 69% at their previous church. (The Christian Post 4/5/07) 

It’s About Community In these times, people are extremely anxious, unsettled and uncertain because of massive changes introduced by social and economic forces that seem beyond our control. Your business or ministry is not really about marketing, product, net sales or donor revenue—it’s about community. Businesses and ministries that can effectively build community with and among its audiences are the ones that will thrive. This should be in your organization’s DNA. Make me your ‘Community Consultant.’ Contact 419-238-4082, GFosterCns@rmi.net or www.GaryDFoster.com.  

Tough Customers “As products and services have become commoditized, the ability to keep customers engaged is based on drivers other than product and price,” says brand loyalty researcher Robert Pasikoff. More and more, customer service is taking on a larger role in purchasing decisions. (Brand Week 3/19/07)  

Evolution 63% of U.S. 18-25 year olds believe humans and other living things evolved over time vs. only 33% say all living creatures have existed in their present form since the beginning of time. (Pew Research 4/16/07) 

Revolutionary Parenting, a new George Barna book, claims there are 3 dominant approaches to parenting in the U.S. 1) Parenting by default, the path of least resistance. Here parents do whatever comes naturally as influenced by the culture. The objective is to keep everyone as happy as possible, without the process interfering with the parent’s other life priorities. 2) Trial-and-error parenting is based on the notion every parent is an amateur at child raising. There are no absolute guidelines, so the best one can do is experiment, observe outcomes, and improve based upon their successes and failures. The goal often becomes to perform better than most other parents do. 3) Revolutionary parenting (the least common) requires the parent to faithfully and consistently apply God’s words on life and family. These parents define success as intentionally facilitating faith-based transformation in the lives of their children, rather than simply accepting the aging and survival of the child as a satisfactory result. (Barna Update 4/9/07)   

Deadly Behavior Studies show that years of smoking shortens a smoker’s lifespan from 1 to 7 years. But analysis of the age of death in Norway and Denmark for legally married gays suggests engaging in homosexual behavior reduces the lifespan by 24 years. (Christian news Wire 4/12/07) 

2 Day Sell Out That’s what the U.S. Immigration Services experienced recently when it began accepting applications for H-1B work visas. 133,000 envelopes (many with multiple applications) poured in seeking the 65,000 openings. The application period was promptly closed. (Information Week 4/9/07) 

Shortchanged In ‘05 less than $78-billion of the $250-billion donated to charity explicitly helped the economically disadvantaged finds a Google study. The gap between intentions and actions with regard to charitable giving is biggest among the wealthiest donors. (Philanthropy Today 4/4/07) 

Biblical Illiteracy Just few years back, 1/3 of Wheaton College entering freshmen didn’t know that Paul’s travels are recorded in Acts or that the Christmas story is found in Matthew reports Gary Burge, Professor of New Testament. These students are mostly from strongly evangelical churches and their ignorance of Bible basics is disturbing. Biblical illiteracy is “a universal and growing problem” among students and churches. As churches turn to spiritainment to draw the masses, what often falls through the cracks is the transfer of basic doctrinal truths. Burge says, “There’s not an educational dimension [to church] any longer. We’re all about the experience, not the facts.” As a result, the younger generation is not learning the important stories, people and background of the Bible. (One News Now 4/12/07) 

Christian/Gospel music’s ’06 sales were 3% over ’05 claims GMA. Album sales were up 1.5% compared to the overall music industry’s sales downturn of 1.2%. Along with classical, soundtracks, and Latin, the Christian/Gospel category was the only genre to grow in ’06. Of those, Christian is the largest, representing 6.75% of all album sales. However, Christian retail accounted for only 36% of all ’06 Christian/Gospel sales, vs. 64% via mainstream retail outlets. (Aspiring Retail 4/07) 

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