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The survey results are in!
In June 2022, we ran a survey among our supporters getting just over 250 responses. The questions were carefully written to guide product development decisions before our most popular series, Christianity Explored, is updated. No question was wasted and the responses have been encouraging, humbling, and surprising.
We were encouraged to know that, since 2019 (before and after the pandemic), 87% of our supporters have used an evangelistic course with a non-Christian. Evangelistic courses are still something both Christians and non-Christians are willing to take part in and the results indicate that Christians still managed to find ways of continuing to run courses despite the difficulties of the pandemic.
The non-Christians who come to an evangelistic course tend to be warm towards Christianity but still some way from making a decision. On a scale from one to ten, one being "hostile to Christianity" and ten being "ready to become a Christian", our supporters said that most people they bring to a course would lie between six and seven.
When asked how course guests would be likely to describe their religion, 73% of our supporters said their guests would identify as having ‘no religion”. This relatively high figure reflects a wider UK trend that has been evidenced in census data, that fewer people describe themselves in religious terms.
When we asked survey respondents what barriers they face in using Christianity Explored, the main concerns identified were difficulties in inviting people to come to a course and the challenge of maintaining attendance among those who do come. This was true for 44% and 36% of our supporters respectively.
Perhaps unsurprisingly given that the whole country has been going through a time of trial, the question most course guests are asking leaders about is “Where is God in all the suffering?”, with 77% of respondents reporting having been asked about this issue. The next most popular question is about the exclusivity of Christianity, with 52% of our supporters having been asked "What about other religions?" Lower down the list of frequently asked questions, but still significant, between 35% and 40% of leaders report that their guests raise issues of sexuality, evolution, judgement and Bible reliability.