Two online surveys conducted by Barna, a private, non-partisan, for-profit organization collected responses from 2,500 U.S. adults in the year of 2019 to determine who the mass thinks is best suited to solve local community problems and where the Christian Church would stand in this question.
One of the questions in the survey asked, "Who do you think is best suited to solve problems in your community?" The general population depended on the government whereas one in four looked towards churches and Christian organizations.
Regarding the position as the community's problem solver, 33% of Christians favored the church and Christian organizations which was not much different from the 31% of Christians favoring the government.
However, non-Christians selected the government or citizens as the most suited entity to solve local community problems. 42% of non-Christians chose the government and 26% chose citizens.
Non-Christians expressed their belief that the community will continue to maintain itself even without the aid of faith or religious organizations.
The survey yielded a result of about one-quarter of all respondents believing most good works would still persist even without faith groups.
In a survey question, "What, if anything, does your community need that churches or Christian organizations could provide?" a whopping 62% of Christians selected "homeless services" as their priority whereas only 42% of non-Christians did.
Rev. Dr. Tony Cook, the vice president for Glocal Ministries at Lutheran Hour Ministries believe that although individuals can do incredible things, the "sume is greater than the parts. "Truly, when we band together, there is a multiplied effort on those gifts," Cook said.
"A lot of times we think about ourselves as 'the Body of Christ' so we just talk about believers coming together, but I believe this works in a very similar way when we have 'the body of humanity,' when we have all people working together for the common good, working together for the betterment of mankind and for one another."
