Survey Says

I don't know about you, but I've always been a fan of the show "Family Feud." I remember the old show with Richard Dawson, the ultimate game show host. Katie and I both enjoy playing "Family Feud" on our iPads as well. However, that show always made me wonder, who actually goes out and does these surveys? Do they just knock on your door and ask you a question like, "What is your favorite part of the chicken to eat?" or "Name something people alphabetize?" I know I never had someone come up and survey me on these questions, although I admit I always wanted to be part of the "100 people surveyed."

Well this past week we did some surveying of our own. With the help of a number of mission teams (more about them in the next blog post), we were able to engage over 100 people in some spiritual surveys. Our goal was to help us better understand who is living in our community and how they approach spiritual matters. We asked them six simple questions, and I wanted to highlight some of the responses for you here.

The first question we asked was "What is your view of God?" What we found to be true is that people in our area have one of two views of God. First, he doesn't exist. The majority of people answered that they were either atheist or didn't believe in a real God. Some thought there might be some force out there, but it isn't knowable or really intelligent. The second view of God that was prevalent can be summed up in one word, distant. Many people responded that God was up there or out there. They have the idea that God is detached from this world and from them.

The second question we asked was "How do you make peace with your God?" Again the answers fell into two categories. The most common answer, even for those who claimed to be atheists, was good works. Many people responded that they try to live a good life or do more good than bad or love others. The second most common answer was that they didn't know. It was something they hadn't thought about before. I was expecting some people to ask us back the question, "Why do I need to make peace with my God?" But we never got that. I think for most people, they knew they needed to make peace, but hadn't really thought about how to do it.

The third question was "How does Jesus relate to God?" This got all kinds of responses like: God's Son, a prophet, a good guy, fictional character, and an alien. But the one thing this question seemed to do to just about everyone is make them a little uncomfortable. We even had a couple of people refuse to answer and stop the survey at that point. It was so interesting to see time and time again that people know in their hearts they have to decide something about Jesus and that makes them uncomfortable.

The remainder of the questions related to their view of church and what they would be looking for in a church. These answers will help us shape when we meet and some unique ways we can engage our community around the Gospel.

I don't know if I'm ready to host the spiritual version of "Family Feud" yet, but these surveys provided us with some valuable information and insight into the spiritual hearts and minds of our community. We will continue to do more surveys with our mission teams over the summer. Please continue to pray for us as we seek to speak the truth through grace and peace here in NYC!