This week’s episode looks at recent data to explore whether pastors and Christians share an understanding of unity.

In early summer 2022, Barna conducted a study in partnership with The Genius of One to explore Christian opinion on unity and a variety of other topics. Data show pastors and Christians hold varied understandings on the definition of unity. For pastors, words like “harmony” (70%), “reconciliation” (52%) and “sacrifice” (41%) come to mind when defining unity. While some Christians unsurprisingly gravitate to the same words as pastors, they do so at a lesser rate. Instead, words like “alliance” (39%) or “sameness” (31%) are more often chosen by Christians than pastors.

The only term about unity that both pastors and Christians align is “agreement.” Forty-seven percent of both pastors and Christians say they define unityas “agreement.”