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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

September 10, 2009 edition of

The FOSTER Letter—Religious Market Update

Young Workers Eric Chester, President of Generation Why, a consulting firm, says misunderstandings in the workplace come from different expectations. “They (Gen-Y) may have skills and are techno-savvy and book-smart and streetwise, but they don’t understand what the big deal is if they’re 5 minutes late.” 53% of recent Pew Research respondents call the generations “very different” in the respect they show others. “The classic thing is they show up on Day One and want to tell you how to change your business,” says Bruce Tulgan, author of Not Everyone Gets a Trophy: How to Manage Generation Y. “It leads older people to think they have a radically different work ethic, but Gen Y-ers wanted me to care about this place.’” Such attitudes aren’t just about work but rather about hierarchy. These people have grown up in very flat, horizontal relationships. So the idea of deferring to someone older, simply because that person is there, does not compute.. (USA Today 8/12/09) 

Christianity has the slowest growth among religions in America. Between ’90 and ’01, Christianity grew only 7%; Mormonism grew by 112% and Humanism by 169%. Islam grew by 210%, Buddhism by 270%, and Hinduism by 337%. The Wiccan religion grew the fastest: 1,675%. Nearly 1 out of 5 young people 18-22 now self-identify as atheists. (Gateways 8-9/09) 

Seasoned Advice—No Overhead Obtain experienced and objective guidance on management, marketing, product development, strategic partnerships, and general Christian market expertise—only when you want it. Contact 419-238-4082  Gary@garydfoster.com or www.garydfoster.com. 

In-House Speakers Bureaus Major US publishers’ in-house speaker’s bureaus, virtually nonexistent just 5 years ago, are turning out to be surprisingly recession-resilient. Publishers are splitting fees of between $5,000 and $20,000 (sometimes more) with their authors, representing a welcome source of found money, plus raising an author’s profile and promoting titles beyond the typically short window of book publicity. (PublishingPerspectives.com 8/26/09) 

Clergy Prestige Every year since ’77, The Harris Poll has been asking Americans their opinions about occupations. This year, the top 6 occupations seen as having “very great prestige” were: Firefighter (62%), Scientist (57%), Doctor (56%), Nurse (54%), Teacher (51%), and Military Officer (51%). The top occupations for having “hardly any prestige at all” were Union Leader, Actor, Stock Broker, and Real Estate Agent. The occupation of Priest/Minister/Clergy came in 8^th on the very high prestige list with 41% saying clergy have “very high prestige.” Another 21% said clergy have “considerable prestige,” and 28% said they have “some prestige.” In ’77, only the occupations of Scientist and Doctor were seen as having higher prestige than clergy. (HarrisInteractive.com 8/5/09) 

Women are on the verge of outnumbering men in the workforce for the first time, a historic reversal caused by long-term changes in women's roles and massive job losses for men during this recession. Women held 49.8% of the nation’s 132 million jobs in June, and they’re gaining the vast majority of new jobs, claims the Bureau of Labor Statistics. On average, women work fewer hours than men, hold more part-time jobs, and earn 77% of what men make. Men still dominate higher-paying executive ranks. Through June, men have lost 74% of the 6.4 million jobs erased since 12/07, of which more than 3 million were in construction and manufacturing. Experts expect the portion of jobs held by women to peak slightly above 50% this year, then drop below half when the economy recovers. Equality in workforce numbers reflects a long-term cultural change, says Maureen Honey, author of Creating Rosie the Riveter. (USA Today 9/3/09) 

E-Reader Findings from a new NPD Group report found 40% of those surveyed were only “somewhat interested” or “not interested at all” in buying an e-reader. Why? Of those who don’t want one, 70% said it was because they prefer the feel of an actual book. Among the 37% who were either “very” or “somewhat” interested in obtaining an e-reader, one of the main factors was the ability to buy and store multiple books, magazines, and newspapers. More than half of consumers were interested in features already offered in current devices, like the Kindle’s wireless capability and the Sony’s Reader's touch-screen. Unlike the mostly male, tech-savvy Kindle buyers so far, future prospects for e-readers are more likely to be female, less tech-optimistic, and big readers (5 books a month on average). (Online Media Daily 8/7/09) 

What Kids Search A Spring ’09 Symantec study of the top 100 searches conducted by children whose computers have the Online Family Norton software finds the top 10 words kids search are: 1. YouTube 2. Google 3. Facebook 4. Sex 5. MySpace 6. Porn 7. Yahoo 8. Michael Jackson 9. Fred (A popular fictional character whose YouTube channel has become a hit among kids) 10. eBay. (LifeSite News 10/14/09) 

How To Grow little companies and ministries into big ones: 1. Focus What are we trying to make happen? How will we measure success? See it clearly. Say it plainly. 2. Evaluate What is the competitive environment? Do we understand the felt needs of our prospective customer? What is holding us back? Name the limiting factors. 3. Prioritize When two of our goals come into conflict, which one bows the knee? Prioritize our objectives. 4. Strategize What would be the shortest route to our primary goal? What levers might we use to dislodge impediments? How might we nullify other limiting factors? Are we willing to modify the business model? This is the moment when the future is won or lost. 5. Implement Are we willing to pull the trigger? Quit talking and DO something. Nothing changes until action is taken. For more contact me at 419-238-4082, Gary@garydfoster.com or www.garydfoster.com. (Monday Morning Memo 9/3/07) 

Volunteers  1 out of every 5 Christian nonprofits is reportedly relying to a greater extent on volunteers to offset the economic downturn, according to a Christian Leadership Alliance study. Also, with the economic downturn, more people are without current employment and have free time to volunteer. (Church Leadership Insights 8/09) 

House Church Defined Barna Research asked survey respondents about house churches by defining them as, “part of a group of believers that meets regularly in a home or place other than a church building. These groups are not part of a typical church; they meet independently, are self-governed and consider themselves to be a complete church on their own. Do you participate in such a group, sometimes known as a house church or simple church, that is not associated in any way with a local, congregational type of church?” The response to this inquiry consistently generates just 3% to 6% of all adults saying they have been involved in such an assembly during a typical month. Broader definitions of a house church generated “yes” answers from up to 33% of respondents. Barna Research reported in ’06 that 1 in 5 adults attend house churches. A follow-up study by Center for Missional Research commissioned a Zogby study that asked. “Do you meet weekly with a group of 20 people or less to pray and study scriptures as your primary form of spiritual or religious gathering?” 26.3% of the 3,600 Americans polled answered yes. (Barna Update 8/31/09, EdStetzler.com 9/3/09) 

NIV to be Revised The New International Version (NIV) of the Bible will be revised for the first time in 25 years. Revisions will be made by members of the Committee on Bible Translation (CBT), an independent body of global biblical scholars with sole authority to update the NIV text. To be released in 2011, the version is “all about maintaining and enhancing the original values of the NIV for today’s readers,” said CBT Chairman Professor Douglas Moo. (Christian Post 9/1/09) 

Recommendations by personal acquaintances and opinions posted by consumers online are the most trusted forms of advertising globally. The Nielsen Global Online survey shows 90% of online consumers worldwide trust recommendations from people they know, while 70% trust consumer opinions posted online. (Trendwatching.com 9/1/09) 

Customer/Donor Loyalty According to the 2006 1 to 1 Customer Loyalty Survey, 87% of corporate executives say their companies understand loyalty is driven by the overall customer experience created, yet only 38% have a system in place to identify the experiences that are most important to loyal customers or donors. Do not put it off if you want to close the gap between customer expectations and delivery. I can help you make customer/donor loyalty the center of your corporate strategy. Contact 419-238-4082, Gary@garydfoster.com or www.garydfoster.com. 

Heaven & Hell Only 59% of Americans believe in hell, compared with 74% who believe in heaven. (Pew Forum on Religion and Pubic Life 8/6/09) 

Post Denominational Church historian Rodney Stark reports between ’60 and ’00, the Episcopal Church declined 55% in terms of members per 1,000 U.S. population. The United Methodist Church declined 49%, and the Presbyterian Church (USA) declined 49%. Megachurches have doubled in number and size in the past 5 years. This leaves the churched population among Christians at about 40% attending regularly. It also says, with about 85% nominally Christian in the U.S., only about half of them regularly attend church. They are not unChristian; they are unchurched. (Bob Buford’s My Next Book,Year 5, Chapter 14.) 

Divine Decline Even in the USA, the most religious nation in the industrialized West, those who choose not to identify with any particular religion constitute the fastest-growing “religious group.” Rather than flocking to more theologically relaxed denominations, an increasing number of Americans are abandoning organized religion altogether. According to the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life in ’07, 16.1% of the respondents said they were unaffiliated. The ’08 American Religious Identification Survey found 15% of the U.S. population had no particular religious preference, almost double the figure of 1990. (foreignaffairs.com 8/09) 

Christian DVD Sales in Christian bookstores increased a remarkable 90% in the first half of ’09, reports Bob Elder, Propeller Consulting. Fireproof DVD sales alone rose another 23% over the same period. In ’07, 74% of the top-selling videos were targeted to kids with only 3% being feature films. By the end of ’08, feature films accounted for 62% of the market, and the top 3 selling films of the year were all feature-length releases. (Christian Retailing 8/10/09)

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