Less than 10% of evangelicals want shorter sermons; 30% want more in-depth teaching: survey By Michael Gryboski, Christian Post Reporter for Christian Post
Fewer than 10% of evangelical Protestants want to have shorter sermons during worship, while nearly a third want more in-depth teaching, according to recently released survey data.
Grey Matter Research and Infinity Concepts released a new report last Friday titled “The Congregational Scorecard: What Evangelicals Want in a Church.”
The researchers surveyed 1,000 American evangelical Protestants, asking for their views on 14 different elements about the churches they attend for worship.
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According to the report, a copy of which was emailed to The Christian Post on Monday, only 7% of respondents want sermons to be shorter, while 85% believe the sermon lengths are acceptable as they are. About 8% percent said they wanted sermons to be longer.
These trends were fairly consistent across generations, as 10% of evangelicals under the age of 40 preferred shorter sermons, while 11% over the age of 70 responded the same.
Evangelical respondents between the ages of 40 and 54 were the least likely to want shorter sermons, with 3% agreeing with this idea. Respondents between the ages of 55 and 69 were the most likely (88%) to believe sermon lengths were fine as they are.
“One of the more surprising findings was that so few evangelicals want shorter sermons, since such a common and unfortunate stereotype is long-winded pastors,” Grey Matter Research President Ron Sellers told CP.
“Not only that, but we keep being informed that younger adults have short attention spans, and pastors really need to cut down their sermons to reach this population. I expected to find a higher proportion of evangelicals (especially younger people) who wished for shorter sermons, like maybe 20% or 30%. Instead, it is just 7%.”
Additionally, the data shows that 30% of respondents want more in-depth teaching from their churches, while 69% responded that they felt the depth of teaching was “fine as is.”
