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New Book Addresses Church "80/20 Rule"

June 28, 2011

Researchers and authors Scott Thumma and Warren Bird have declared war on a long-uttered church euphemism: that 20 percent of any congregation completes 80 percent of the ministry in its church. According to Thumma and Bird in a Christian Post interview, the other 80 percent are consumers and spectators, infrequently attending and minimally involved. Thumma remarked that church leadership doesn’t always know how to combat this problem, so it goes unaddressed. Pastors also, according to Thumma, focus more on evangelism and outreach than on spiritual growth and engagement: in a 2010 Barna survey, 46 percent of senior pastors responded that they’d like to develop evangelism ministries in the coming year, while only 28 percent said they’d like to develop the spiritual growth options in their churches, and 19 percent said the same for engagement of the congregation in the ministry. “Once you’ve been at the church for 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, 40 years, there’s hardly any programs aimed at those groups to continually keep them engaged.” Thumma and Bird’s book, titled The Other 80 Percent, hopes to encourage pastors to “care for every member of the flock, not just the active 20 percent.”