Listen to these results from a study just released by The Barna Group. All the statistics and study description shown in this post came from The Barna Update, which is emailed free to any subscriber. This study of 1005 randomly selected adults over 18, conducted in December 2007, reveals new understanding of the ways people are creating what we’re calling The Mosaic of Church Experience. Barna contends that the presumed practice of four out of every five adults used to be that they had only one “legitimate way to practice their faith: through involvement in a conventional church.”

The study shows that now a majority of adults feel comfortable with other “biblically legitimate” methods of faith expression. This agrees with my observation (through reading and study) that people are increasingly creating a mosaic of spiritual encounters and disciplines formed from alternative methods of worship, devotion, prayer, and community.

Here are the top alternatives:
89% - engaging in faith activities at home
75% - being active in a house church
69% - watching religious television programs
68% - listening to a religious broadcast
68% - attending a ministry event such as a concert or community service activity
54% - participating in a marketplace ministry
45% - interacting with a faith-oriented website
42% - live events over the Internet

We are particularly interested in this research since we are engaged in evangelism ministry across Christian churches and most of the alternatives chosen by respondents. Let us know how you feel about each of these alternatives. Do you participate in them in addition to, or instead of, traditional church experience.? I participate in many of these myself, especially ministry events, marketplace ministry, and listening to sermons over the Internet when I’m housebound for some reason. But I have a full range of church activities and community, too. How about you?