Glossary

Gen Z: born between 1999 and 2015

Millennials: born between 1984 and 1998

Gen X: born between 1965 and 1983

Boomers: born between 1946 and 1964

Elders: born between 1945 or earlier

Practicing Christians are self-identified Christians who say their faith is very important in their lives and have attended a worship service within the past month.

Group Participant Definitions

• Community participants, at some time in their adulthood, have had the following experiences in some kind of group, club or other association:
• Their participation was not required for their education or schooling.
• Their participation was not directly related to their job.
• The group included three or more people.
• The group met three or more times.
• The group provided some external benefit reaching beyond its own participants. Though those benefits might have extended widely, they had to have some local impact, meaning in one’s own city or town. Additionally, while a church or Christian community could have benefited, it could not have been the only beneficiary of the group’s actions.

Barna further defined the spectrum of activity to isolate certain motivations or methods among general participants. These two categories include:

• Compassionate participants, who have been involved in at least one group that originated outside of an existing program offered at a church, school, civic or other institution and came together with others to do something they were interested in or passionate about, or in order to change something, help someone or something.
• Collaborative participants, who, in addition to being compassionate, have been involved in at least one group where members shared strong feelings or passions, resources (such as dues, tools or expertise), goals or decision-making abilities. Further, beyond the general prerequisite of having impact in their city or town, respondents had to specifically identify their community as a beneficiary of a group’s efforts.