Interested in research, statistics, demographics?
The North American Mission Board’s (NAMB) new Center for Missional Research (CMR) has revamped and expanded its operations in Alpharetta, Ga., over the last year. It’s done so to become more interactive and proactive in providing research data to the Southern Baptist Convention’s (SBC) 43,000-plus churches.
While NAMB — even going back to its predecessor, the Home Mission Board — has always operated a research division, CMR allows NAMB to do more with the research, said Ed Stetzer, CMR senior director and missiologist.
“[W]e … wanted to develop research to make churches more effective in evangelism, church planting and in sending missionaries,” he said.
The center offers research tools, new research and resources at no cost to SBC churches and church planters.
The CMR’s Web site — www.missionalresearch.info or www.namb.net/cmr — is organized into three broad categories: Knowing Church, Knowing Culture and Knowing Community.
Knowing Community includes a demographic profile with traffic flow reports that can tell a church where to buy billboard space, for instance.
It includes local population statistics and trends broken down by age, gender, ethnic group, household income, education, consumer habits, recreational activities and personal values.
About 70 pages long, the study also has more than 30 thematic maps reflecting even more data.
And if you’re that pastor needing quick, thorough SBC research for upcoming sermons, the CMR’s Web site includes more than 1,600 immediately downloadable PowerPoint presentations on a myriad of subjects.
The Knowing Church section includes a ChurchFact File where pastors can download information on such topics as baptism, belief, evangelism or church planting.
The Knowing Culture pages include information on cultural and moral issues, ranging from abortion to pornography. (BP)
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