Active Christians 19%
- Believe salvation comes through Jesus Christ
- Committed churchgoers
- Bible readers
- Accept leadership positions
- Invest in personal faith development through the church
- Feel obligated to share faith; 79% do so.
Professing Christians 20%
- Believe salvation comes through Jesus Christ
- Focus on personal relationship with God and Jesus
- Similar beliefs to Active Christians, different actions
- Less involved in church, both attending and serving
- Less commitment to Bible reading or sharing faith
Liturgical Christians 16%
- Predominantly Catholic and Lutheran
- Regular churchgoers
- High level of spiritual activity, mostly expressed by serving in church and/or community
- Recognize authority of the church
Private Christians 24%
- Largest and youngest segment
- Believe in God and doing good things
- Own a Bible, but don't read it
- Spiritual interest, but not within church context
- Only about a third attend church at all
- Almost none are church leaders
Cultural Christians 21%
- Little outward religious behavior or attitudes
- God aware, but little personal involvement with God
- Do not view Jesus as essential to salvation
- Affirm many ways to God
- Favor universality theology
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Five kinds of christians
According to this article in Leadership Journal (fall 2007) there are five different kinds of Christians. I just skimmed the article, but this looks like interesting stuff. I want to look at it more in-depth later. One of the first thoughts I had was that I would like to personally go to the mall or somewhere and poll people myself as to what kind they consider themselves to be. Anyway, here are the "5 Kinds of Christians" from the article:
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8 comments:
I'm curious why the last category would be categorized as Christian at all...sure are a lot of 'em, though :/....
That leaves me being a "private", "cultural" Christian, in that I don't go to church and that I tend to keep my Christian beliefs to myself, except when asked.
I found it interesting that you mentioned that denominational-driven Christians do not necessarily believe salvation comes from Jesus Christ, their savior.
I also don't believe in wearing a cross, for if you don't show you're a Christian in action, a talisman is really then, an insult. The same hold true for crucifix tattooed persons with continual felonious behavior.
I have attended church, but ... it isn't really for me. I think too many forget that God doesn't exist in A building, but rather everywhere. Church, therefore, shouldn't be a once-weekly ninety minute communal harvest of amens, but rather a continual worship with meetings for unified thought and discussion.
Going to church, therefore, doesn't make you Christian, but gives you a meeting place for growth -- not very well defined for many people who claim, "Well, I go to church every Sunday!" Good for you, but do you invite God in your house and life?
Robin,
Yeah, I struggle a bit with the last one. But I think it largely depends on whether we look at a person as being "in" or "out", or whether we look at it as "which direction are they heading." I forget the guys name now (Tom - you know what I'm talking about) who had the theory of all of us either pointing *to* God or *away* from God - no matter where we are in relation to him at the moment. Many Christians tend to see it as "you're either in the 'God' circle, or you're outside of it." I'm not sure it's that cut and dried.
MDH,
Thanks for chiming in here. I appreciate the opinion of someone from outside the institutional church, but still a follower. I certainly agree with you in that wearing a cross and/or attending a Sunday gathering isn't what makes one a Christian. To be honest, it's also easy for people to just be nice and "say" they are Christians too, without including themselves in public worship (not that I'm saying that's what you're doing). I've read your one blog, and your faith might be more public than you're aware of too. :)
Thanks again for the input. And... If you're ever interested, I would actually be curious to know what you thought about the Sunday gatherings at my church. It's always nice to get another perspective. So if you're ever in the mood... :)
Haha... how was it Darth Vader put it?
"I find your lack of faith... disturbing."
(choke...gasp... sputter...)
I am some mix of the first three:
From Active Christians, the following fit:
o Believe salvation comes through Jesus Christ
o Bible readers (trying to do so daily, with moderate success)
o Accept leadership positions (looks like one is coming my way - I am reluctant, although I did say yes)
From Professing Christians:
o Believe salvation comes through Jesus Christ
o Focus on personal relationship with God and Jesus
From Liturgical Christians:
o Predominantly Catholic and Lutheran
o Regular churchgoers (but if our church closed the small, intimate service we attend on Sunday evenings that would be a crisis for me)
o High level of spiritual activity, mostly expressed by serving in church and/or community (less interested in serving in church than in the community)
It would be interesting to be able to take the original survey and see where they shoehorn me (or you).
MR,
Was that Darth Vader or Reilly? :) "Luke...."
Jim,
Wow, cornered into a leadership position, huh? :) Just kidding. I bet you'll be good. I wondered what the original survey might look like too. Would be interesting. Thanks for sharing.
It is interesting to track the method of how one receives the word of God through this list. I'm thinking you either read it for yourself or you have someone else read it for you or at least tell you what it says. I'm not sure this would stand the test of time, at least going backwards.
You don't have to go back in history too far to find a time when very few people actually could read the Bible for themselves. Even today I would guess that a majority of Christians worldwide cannot read the Bible.
It strikes me as being very culturalcentric (Is that a word?) but maybe it was supposed to be.
Good point about Bible-reading, Tom. I think it's a bad habit some preachers have (myself included) - of just telling people they need to "pray more, read the Bible more" etc. And I have no idea if "culturalcentric" is a word or not, but it sounds cool.
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