Pastors and Worldview

Kerby Anderson

Most Christians do not have a biblical worldview. That has been well documented in numerous studies. This is puzzling since a significant percentage of Christians without a biblical worldview regularly attend church services. A recent study by George Barna may have an answer.

Put simply, church members don’t have a biblical worldview because the pastor does not have a biblical worldview. Less than a third (31%) of pastors in America have a biblical worldview. That is a shocking percentage.

One pastor told George Barna that may not be too shocking considering that many pastors of liberal churches would not have an orthodox view. But he went on to say that what would be shocking is if the percentages were low among evangelical pastors. The most recent poll shows that a bare majority of evangelical pastors (51%) and only about a third (36%) of charismatic or Pentecostal pastors have a biblical worldview. He also found that less than one in ten (9%) of pastors in traditionally black churches have a biblical worldview.

Another interesting correlation was the relationship between worldview and church size. Generally, the smaller congregations are more likely than the larger congregations to have a biblical worldview. More than four in ten (41%-45%) of the pastors of churches with smaller congregations have a biblical worldview. By contrast, only 15 percent of pastors in churches with more than 250 adults have a biblical worldview.

George Barna explained that pastors who fill the position of Teaching Pastor or Executive Pastor usually had the lowest scores. These positions are found most often in larger churches.

His survey breaks down pastors according to denomination, according to church size, and according to congregational ethnicity. None of the percentages are encouraging and are a reminder that we need to be discerning when choosing a church.