Ten years ago, your church’s lead pastor (maybe it was you!) participated in the Emmanuel Gospel Center’s study of 41 church plants in the Boston area. 

This year, we hope to revisit your churches and learn together from your journeys.

We invite you to participate in this new study, which includes an interview and a learning event. 

Whether you're hearing about this study for the first time or you're already familiar with our work, your participation and input are invaluable for understanding the changing Boston-area church landscape. Join us as we look back to look forward, explore your pressing questions, and collectively write the next chapter in the story of faith and community in Greater Boston.

Here, we give you a taste of how the new project can serve you. 

We now have expanded capacity for analysis so we can extract additional learnings from the 2014 data on a variety of topics relevant to your ministry — far beyond what was reported on at the time. We showcase some fascinating findings from the 2014 study and highlight the kinds of insights you would gain from taking part in the follow-up study.

1. Unique God stories

Every church plant adventure is unique, and God has different stories to tell with each church journey. Below is the story of a church that helped plant many other churches. This is only one kind of story.

Sample stories the new study will gather to share

• What are your church’s stories? How did God provide for or work through your church in the community, perhaps in unique ways?

• Of all the church plants who had planned to plant other churches, what has God done in the past 10 years overall?

2. Demographic changes

Who were the pastors in the first study, by age, race, and gender, and what has changed in the past 10 years?

Lead pastor ages

This is the distribution of ages of the lead pastors of the church plants 10 years ago. The black dots on top represent churches that are now closed. What does this distribution of ages (for churches that survived and those that didn’t) tell you?

Lead pastor races

What racial diversity was represented in the original study’s participants? 

Lead pastor gender-distribution change

How has the gender of the lead pastor shifted in the past decade of the church’s life?

Sample demographic questions the new study could answer

• Did the pandemic disproportionately impact whether pastors of color stayed in their role?

• Did the proportion of bi-vocational vs. full-time pastors change, and did churches with bi-vocational pastors outlast those with full-time pastors?

• Did the pandemic disproportionately impact churches by denomination, composition, or size in terms of which are still active today?

3. Highlights from the original study

Effective outreach effort — mentions

What outreach efforts were mentioned as most effective at increasing church attendance?

Sample insights the new study could bring

• How have effective outreach efforts changed over the past 10 years?

• What supports do church leaders (pastors and others) find the most useful, and how has that changed?

• What kinds of support did church plants start with, including training, team composition, personal and financial support, and how did that impact whether they still exist today?

4. Insights for deeper reflection

Reflection Guide: That First Spark–Remembering Our First Love in Boston Church Planting

Sample reflection pathways the new study could create

• What elements of your church’s identity and mission have stayed the same or changed?

• How does your church’s culture uniquely inspire and influence your church’s shared journey?

• What roles have church planter spouses played in church leadership, other paid employment, and more?

5. Looking back to look forward

What have you learned in your church planting and leadership journey that could be useful to those just starting out as church planters (and those training them)?

Sample learnings the new study could produce

• Looking back, what would you say to your earlier self about the church planting journey?

• How has your church been adjusting its ministry focus or approach in the 2020s and beyond?

6. Your pressing questions

We want the new study to center on questions you most want answers to. First, the interviews will include an opportunity to add your pressing questions. We will then follow up with a live learning event that focuses on those questions, and you’ll gain many answers in real-time.

Type of questions you can add in the new study

• What would you want to know about trends or stories from the other churches in the study over the past decade?

• What would you most like to explore about how your church has changed in the past 10 years?

• What’s missing? What should we ask that we didn’t?