Barna
Barna Group is one of the most widely used research organizations in Christian ministry, known for studying faith, culture, leadership, and generational change over nearly four decades. Their work is especially helpful for leaders who want to ground decisions, sermons, and strategy in real data rather than assumptions. Barna’s research is often paired with thoughtful articles, interviews, and videos that help interpret what the numbers mean in practice, adding story, lived experience, and pastoral perspective to the data.
For ministry leaders, Barna works best as a sense-making tool. You can dip into it when you’re noticing shifts in your congregation, wrestling with engagement, leadership development, faith formation, or generational change, and want to see how those experiences connect to broader trends. Barna’s reports, blog posts, and YouTube interviews are designed to be accessible, making it easy to move from research to reflection and conversation with staff teams or boards. Like Pew Research, Barna is based in the United States, so its findings are most useful when read with an awareness of local and Canadian context.
Barna also has a great YouTube channel with video interviews and conversations with church leaders in diverse settings of ministry.