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Methodologies
The data contained in this report originated through research conducted by Barna Group of Ventura, California. Youth Specialties and YouthWorks commissioned the studies.
This report is based on data gathered from a total of five surveys with U.S. parents of teenagers, senior pastors of U.S. Protestant churches and youth pastors of U.S. Protestant churches. Of these surveys, two were conducted in Fall 2013 and the remaining three were conducted in Spring 2016.
2016 Methodology
Parents
The study among U.S. parents was conducted online with a random sample of 606 U.S. adults with children ages 13 to 19. The survey was fielded March 29 through April 7, 2016, and is representative of the U.S. parent population. Sampling error for this data is plus or minus 4 percentage points at the 95-percent confidence level.
Senior Pastors
A total of 381 senior pastors of U.S. Protestant churches across 50 states were surveyed online March 15 to June 7, 2016. Respondents were recruited via two sample sources: Barna Group’s senior pastor panel (n=299) and a random sample of Protestant pastors obtained from a public listing of churches (n=82). These data were minimally weighted to be representative of U.S. Protestant churches by region, size and denomination. The sampling error for the senior pastor survey is plus or minus 5 percentage points at the 95-percent confidence level.
Youth Pastors
A total of 352 youth pastors of U.S. Protestant churches across 50 states were surveyed online March 15 to June 15, 2016. These participants were recruited from two sources: through members of Barna Group’s panel of senior pastors (n=51) and a random sample of youth pastors obtained from a public listing of churches and youth pastors (n=301). These data were minimally weighted by region and denomination to be representative of U.S. Protestant churches with youth ministries. The sampling error for the youth pastor data is plus or minus 5 percentage points at the 95-percent confidence level.
2013 Methodology
Senior Pastors
Senior pastor data from 2013 was collected via Barna’s PastorPollSM which consisted of 601 telephone interviews conducted among a representative sample of senior pastors of Protestant churches within the continental U.S. The telephone interviews were conducted from September 20 to October 9, 2013. The sampling error for the PastorPollSM is plus or minus 4 percentage points at the 95-percent confidence level.
Survey calls were made at various times during the day, Monday through Friday, so that every individual selected for inclusion was contacted up to five separate days, at different times of the day, to maximize the possibility of contact. Regional, denominational and adult worship attendance quotas based on national data sources were designed to ensure the final group of pastors interviewed reflected the distribution of churches nationwide.
Youth Pastors
This study included online surveys with a randomly selected sample of 463 youth pastors nationwide. The survey was conducted October 7 to October 25, 2013. These data were minimally weighted by region and denomination to be representative of U.S. Protestant churches with youth ministries. The sampling error for the data is plus or minus 4.6 percentage points at the 95-percent confidence level.
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Subscribe to Barna Access to read this report and unlock our vast library of research and resources.
Learn
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Grow
Understand how to enable your church to grow and thrive in the current cultural climate with years of Barna data.