Report on Christ Church URC Chelmsford Survey (13 Jan 2009) Background Christ Church URC Chelmsford recognised that the world was changing rapidly and set out to develop a clear vision and action plan which would enable the church and members to truly be Christ s church. As part of this programme, a survey consisting of 12 questions was sent to all 178 registered Members of URC Christ Church to seek their opinions as well as gather basic demographic information. In addition, copies of the survey were available at the church for non-members and visitors were invited to contribute and provide their feedback. The survey was issued in late October 2008 with a deadline of 30 November 2008. 54 completed survey forms were returned ie from 30.3% of Members, which is a reasonable response rate for surveys. A further 20 survey forms were returned from other users of the Church building. These have been reviewed briefly and collectively do not yield much clear insight none of the responses came from parents of a child or youth who attends Christ church nursery or uniformed organisations. Demographics Based on the returns to the survey, female members represent 68% of all Members, more than double that of male members. The age profile of the Members is clearly skewed towards the older population. The 70 to 79 years is the largest single category accounting for 40% of all Members. Overall, 81% of Members are 60 years or above. This will clearly pose some serious implications as the church operates with a very high proportion of volunteers across a range of activities, and in time other volunteers will need to be found to maintain similar activity levels. Page 1
Based on the responses to where Members live, Christ Church URC Chelmsford is not a traditional local church with only 14% of Members residing within a mile. This is not surprising, since Christ Church was formed from the union of churches in Baddow Road and London Road. First contact Questions 5 and 6 set out to better understand how Members first came into contact with a Christian church and subsequently Christ Church. The responses reflect marked different experiences as well as a reflection of changing times. 46% of responses were that Members first contact was via Sunday school, with another 39% indicating that parents brought them. Together this represents almost 85% of instances (potentially some double counting as parents may have brought them to Sunday school!). Page 2
However, the contact with Christ Church shows that only 18% of Members indicated Sunday school or parents as the reason for the initial contact with Christ Church. Instead, Members either came by themselves or friends or relatives were the catalyst. This highlights an issue of modern times that whereas previously children came into contact with the church through parents and or Sunday school, this is not a main channel for Christ Church. Nearly all the responses were from people who currently attend Christ Church regularly with only three responses indicating otherwise. One was from a Member who was housebound, one was from a visitor who took the time and effort to give their views, and the third from someone who was not a Member and did not want to at this moment in time. Page 3
Satisfaction Satisfaction questions in survey should always be treated as often times, respondents may a) be inclined to give a more favourable answer than truly felt, b) may feel the survey is an opportunity to criticise/rant, and c) what is satisfying to one person may be unsatisfying to another. That said, treat the following analysis with caution. Overall, members were generally satisfied with the range of activities currently provided. Indeed, there was only one instance of a member indicating they were very dissatisfied (Sunday evening worship) out of the total 236 responses. The instances of not satisfied was also remarkably low at 17, which is 17% of responses. Page 4
It is interesting to consider how the different activities compare with each other. The holiday club has the highest overall satisfaction score (caveat: the sample size was only 14 responses here so the standard error is much higher). At the other end of the spectrum, the monthly church meetings resulted in the lowest satisfaction score, and this is reflected in some of the comments about church meetings eg Church meetings don't decide much, so why go?, Monthly church meetings are more of a "gathering" and inefficient use of time, Monthly church meetings should be replaced by quarterly ones, Church meetings every two months sufficient The message is repeated if we look at the proportion of members who are very satisfied or satisfied as opposed to not satisfied or very dissatisfied. Of the 33 responses for monthly church meetings, 1 was very satisfied, 13 satisfied with 13 neither, 6 not satisfied giving a net positive proportion score of 24%, which is far lower than the next category. Page 5
Interest The responses to the questions on possible new activities showed that only a small minority of members may be interested in any of these activities. Healing service was the most popular of the choices available with 3 indicating probably very interested, 12 probably interested out of the total 38 responses. The saying you can please some of the people all of the time, or all of the people some of the time, but never all the people all the time comes to mind. In launching any new product or service, much effort will be needed to explain what the product is about and time to establish trust. History is littered with classic examples of experts misjudging the potential demand for new products, but at the same time, if we are unable to convince the probably interested into attending the services, then much effort may be spent on an activity which has limited appeal to begin with. The question on which aspects of spiritual life that people would most like to improve showed a slight preference to five of the eight categories. Even then, the results are very close, and the results of this question is at best informative and support a decision rather than giving clear preference. Page 6
Other comments Members also provided insights via the text responses to the open-ended questions. Of the 54 responses, 51 forms included some text, and in total there were 4501 words in the completed returns, an average of 88 words per return. All of these comments have been typed up - see accompanying table. Report prepared by Po Shing Lee Page 7