About

What Is Your Methodology for Fastest-Growing Churches?

Each year, the Lifeway Research team surveys churches, verifies the numbers, calculates the results and compiles the lists. In preparation for this annual report, they solicited participation from more than 13,000 churches. Through the process, they were contacted multiple times by email and fax. This is a self-reported survey, based on attendance averages, not membership. Churches that participated answered questions about their 2023 in-person, weekend attendance averages for February and March as compared to their 2022 numbers. The final Fastest-Growing rankings reflect an average of numerical gain and percentage gain.

What Is Your Methodology for Largest Churches?

To provide as complete of a list as possible for the Largest Churches, in addition to the Lifeway Research survey, we drew numbers from Hartford Institute for Religion Research—which is not a survey, but is secondary research drawn from publicly available attendance data. This included the church’s own website, year-end reports, public interviews and attendance reporting in sermons online. We integrated that public data with the self-reported survey from Lifeway. Whenever the survey and the public data reported on the same church, we reported the church’s response to the survey. Although we go to great lengths to confirm data, the information is reported by pastors, staff or church officers, or was publicly available at the time the information was collected. The timing of these attendance estimates varies. As such, the reporting reflects their perception and the attendance figures they have published on the internet or disclosed in services. And, of course, this is a survey (for those who responded) or a publicly available number (for those on the Hartford site, HIRR.Hartsem.edu ). This is not an investigation of those numbers, but is a survey and list.

Why don't I see ________ Church on the list?

We seek the broadest possible participation from evangelical Protestant churches, but since The Outreach 100 is not an independent investigation, there are omissions. Some churches chose not to respond to multiple interview and data requests for a variety of reasons. Others did not make their attendance data publicly available online. If you notice the absence of a high-profile evangelical church, chances are they were invited to participate but opted out. As public attendance data is concerned, a number of large churches disclosed their membership, but not their attendance, or reported their attendance as a combination of both in-person and online. For those reasons, a church may not appear.

So, Is This Just a Celebration of Numbers?

Certainly The Outreach 100 is a celebration of numbers in a sense. It is a recognition that what began with the Holy Spirit adding to the infant church after Pentecost (Acts 2:47) is continuing today. Ultimately, though, The Outreach 100 is not so much about numbers as it is the individuals those numbers represent—people who have found hope in Christ and the churches pointing them to him. If you glean insight from those churches and catch something of their passion for outreach, this special issue will have fulfilled its purpose.