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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

February 25, 2007 edition of

The FOSTER Letter—Religious Market Update

TRYSUMERS is a new term coined by Trendwatching.com to describe experienced consumers who are becoming more daring in how and what they consume, thanks to a wide range of societal and technological changes. Freed from the shackles of convention and scarcity, immune to most advertising, and enjoying full access to information, reviews and navigation, experienced consumers are trying out new appliances, new services, new flavors, new authors, new artists, new destinations, new outfits, new relationships, new anything with gusto. From handbag subscriptions to super car sharing, a myriad of schemes makes it possible for consumers to try out and sample goodies, while spending just a fraction of ownership costs. One trend watcher observes, “Trying new things is the decadent alternative to ownership and permanency.” Reviews on anything, anytime diminish the risk of disappointment, of buying a lemon, and will empower and entice consumers to explore. Expect reviews and inside info to become even hotter--with 1+ billion consumers now online. Only 13% of U.S. consumers admit they buy products because of ads, and a paltry 6% believe companies generally tell the truth in ads, so trying out sampling may open new doors for you. (Trend Briefing 2/07) 

Role Models An American Bible Society survey finds that 67.7% of 12-18-year-olds believe parents are the most important role models today. When choosing role models, teens look for biblical principals such as honesty, integrity, loyalty and truthfulness. After parents, 40.6% say teachers and coaches followed by siblings (40.4%), religious leaders (18.7%), athletes (18.3%), and celebrities (16.5%). 27.5% of African American teens say religious leaders are role models compared to 17.3% of Caucasians. Teens today look for role models and heroes within their reach and with whom they have regular interaction. (RNS 2/6/07) 

Evangelism Co-opted Howard Schultz sees himself, not as Chief Executive Officer of Starbucks, but as its Chief Evangelist Officer. He often describes himself as a “coffee evangelist.” So why are so many Christians abandoning the word “evangelical” when corporate America is just beginning to embrace our language? Consider the following: • Japan’s hottest wireless phone vendor, Yasumitsu Shigeta, calls himself a “phone evangelist.” • Larry Gibson is a former West Virginia mining maintenance worker who did a turnaround. He now calls himself an “evangelist of the environmental cause.” • John Bates, cofounder of BIGWORDS.com and Radionet, has a calling card that reads “John Bates, Evangelist,” a job title that is increasingly common in the Web world. • Karen Allen has the job title of “Internet Evangelist” for the Recording Industry Association of America. •One of 6 questions asked by Russell Reynolds Associates to determine whether you have “Web DNA” is, “Are you more evangelical than Matthew, Mark, Luke or John? •Business Week presented profiles of the greatest innovators of the past 75 years in their 75th anniversary edition. The person they selected from management was John F. Welch Jr. The title they gave him was “Management Evangelist.” (The Gospel According to Starbucks, Leonard Sweet, WaterBrook Press, 2007) 

Christian Market Counsel With over 30 years of first-hand involvement, I am one of the foremost authorities on this unique market channel. Contact 419-238-4082, GFosterCns@rmi.net or www.GaryDFoster.com.  

Household Shift In 2000 married couples made up 52% of American households compared to 49.8% of America’s 105.5 million households in ‘05. Meanwhile, the percentage of other households has climbed to 50.2%. Those include 36.7 million where unmarried heterosexual or gay couples cohabitate out of wedlock, 14 million headed by single women, and 5 million by single men and 30 million with unmarried men and women living alone not even categorized as families. Big cities (New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, San Francisco) are statistically becoming more and more single while the farm states, Great Plains and rural areas remain dominated by families. (The Church Report 1/29/07) 

Religious Change 16% of Americans have switched their religious identities at some point in their lives, reports the 2001 American Religious Identification Survey. Twice as many Americans left Catholicism as joined, while evangelical Christianity gained 3 times as many as left. The biggest change was among those who said they had no religious identity at all, increasing from 8% of the U.S. population in ‘90 to 14% in ‘01. Most switching happens through social relationships, like marriage and friendship. (Pew Forum 2/12/07) 

Church Loyalty Facts & Trends research reveals the average length of time American Protestant adults have been attending the same church is 13.7 years. However, excluding the minority who cite a very long stay, a more accurate median is 6.6 years. 13% of churchgoers have been attending the current congregation for less than a year; 16% 1-2 years; 11% 3-4 years; 18% 5-9 years; 16% 10-19 years; and 26% 20 or more years. The most loyal congregants are Lutherans and Presbyterians at 12.5 and 10.6 years respectively. The least loyal are non-denominational and Pentecostal/Charismatic churches averaging 3.9 and 5 years. 30% of Protestant churchgoers typically attend church services or activities less than weekly; 29% weekly; and 41% more than once a week. Baptists and Pentecostals are the most frequent attenders. 66% of all churchgoers said they will definitely attend the same church in the near future; 25% will “probably” attend; 7% may or may not; and 1% are already planning to leave. 74% of those who attend weekly or more, definitely plan to attend in the same church, while 48% of those who attend less than once a week definitely plan to remain. Also, 72% of adults who have attended the same church for 4 or more years definitely plan to continue, while 62% of those who have attended for 1-3 years and 49% of those who have attended for less than a year say the same. (The Christian Post 2/9/07) 

Feminized Church On a typical Sunday morning, 61% of U.S. church pews are occupied by women and 39% men. That translates to 13 million more women than men, with nearly a fourth of married women worshiping without their husbands. For midweek activities the ratio is 70% to 80% female. (Lima News 2/10/07) 

Africa According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, about 147 million Africans describe themselves as Pentecostal or Charismatic, about 16.6% of the continent’s population vs. just 17 million in ‘70. (Mail & Guardian Online 2/10/07) 

Generosity? Studies find 85% of pastors are uncomfortable preaching, teaching or talking about money. Yet 95% of U.S. seminaries never teach a biblical approach to personal and church finances. (Brian Kluth, MaximumGenerosity.org 2/07) 

Curriculum Decline Over the years, declines in denominational loyalties and church attendance have led to fewer Sunday schools resulting in lower sales for most denominational publishers. Neil Alexander, CEO of the Protestant Church Publishers Association, reports publisher members’ sales of dated curriculum have declined 30% over the last 6 to 8 years. (UMNS 2/6/07) 

Manga by Nelson Thomas Nelson and Realbuzz Studios have agreed to release a minimum of 26 manga titles, making it the biggest Christian publisher of faith-based manga content. Manga, a form of graphic novels originating in Japan, is one of the fastest growing fiction categories among tween and teen girl readers in North America. Manga sales topped $300 million in ‘05 and have seen steady double-digit growth for the last 5 years. (Christian e-Tailing 2/12/07) 

Teen Daughters of married parents who enjoy close relationships with their families are more likely to retain their virginity, according to a National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health analysis. (Movie Guide 1/07) 

At Risk According to a Campus Crusade for Christ study, 21% of U.S. college students believe their sex lives are not normal; 1 in 3 feel degraded by their sexual behaviors; and more than 15% score in the highest range of risk for developing a sexual addiction. The 15% statistic is twice the rate of American adults in general. (The Christian Post 2/15/07) 

Autos Abandon Print As magazines try to adapt to the Web, Detroit’s carmakers, long big print spenders, are cutting costs, while looking for more direct and interactive connections with potential customers. The Big Three cut spending with Time Inc. by a total of more than $100 million in ’06: GM, formerly Time Inc.’s biggest advertiser, cut spending by 29%, or $47.8 million, DaimlerChrysler by $43.8 million, and Ford by $5.7 million. (Ad Age 1/22/07) 

Newspapers represent a nearly $180 billion industry worldwide, with more ad revenues than radio, outdoor, cinema, magazines and the internet combined. (Center for Media Research 2/13/07) 

Computers and Spouses Today 8 in 10 Americans are more dependent on their computers than 3 years ago, claims a Kelton Research study. 65% of consumers are spending more time with a computer than with their spouse. “As computers become increasingly pervasive in our lives, our relationships with them can begin to seem almost as important as a relationship with a significant other,” says psychotherapist Dr. Robi Ludwig. (PWB 1/26/07) 

Giving Away Electronic Books Online is the way to sell more books overall, according to a recent Google Unbound publishers conference. 172,000 book titles were published in ‘05, yet only 6% sold more than 5,000 copies. For example, best selling author Seth Godin gave away 2 million copies of his book Small Is the New Big on his website, yet it remains in the top 5 on Amazon. He attributes this to word of mouth. Today publishing consists of 3 segments (printed works, print-on-demand and inventive entertainment) in which authors create personas through multimedia channels, all of which are marketed by search, by social communities on-and offline and by continuous workflow. Publishers must leverage these channels to create books and engage users. David Warlock, Electronic Publishing Services Ltd., says, “We’re not living in discrete product worlds or distributed worlds. We’re in a world where users can connect things otherwise unconnected.” (DM News 1/22/07)

For information on how to become a subscriber to the entire 3-page Foster Letter---Religious Market Update, E-mail us at: subscribe@garydfoster.com