Despite increased media exposure, more efforts to present the message of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and a population of nearly 1 million church members in North America, fewer people know about the Adventist Church than did 20 or 30 years ago, a re
Despite increased media exposure, more efforts to present the message of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and a population of nearly 1 million church members in North America, fewer people know about the Adventist Church than did 20 or 30 years ago, a recent survey shows.
The 2003 survey reveals that just 56 percent of people in the United States and Canada claim to be familiar with the church. The consolation comes with a 3 percent increase in name recognition from a 1994 survey. A similar poll in 1986 showed that 70 percent of North Americans were aware of the Adventist Church.
“The culture has changed. There’s more non-Christians,” says Kermit Netteburg, communication director for the church in North America. “There’s a lot more competition just to be noticed in media today. The other factor is that Adventists have stopped being as involved in their communities as they were. We don’t knock on doors for ingathering and literature evangelism. We don’t do some of the public seminars we used to. Those two factors have made it more likely that we’re going to be less well known.”
He adds, “This tells us we still have a lot of work to do. We have not reached back to the levels we had in the 1970s and 1980s.”
The survey reveals young adults, those under 40, are significantly less likely to have heard of the church, a factor that has remained constant since the 1970s. Netteburg says this is probably a function of age—those who were under 40 in the 1970s and 1980s are now in their 50s and 60s and know the church better.
When the 56 percent who have heard of the Adventist Church were asked what comes to mind when they hear the name “Seventh-day Adventist,” 33 percent had positive ideas and 20 percent had negative concepts of the church. About 15 percent associate the church with the Mormon church, Jehovah’s Witnesses, or say Adventists are a cult.
Netteburg says this is “one of the most worrisome findings in the survey” because “we’d like to be known for who we are.
“We don’t know exactly why it’s happening. Our best understanding is probably related to the idea that there’s so much more competition in the ideas of the world and it’s harder to keep track of everybody who’s got an idea. So it’s easier to dismiss an organization as, ‘Oh they’re kind of like [this group] or they’re kind of like that [one].’”
Another factor the church in North America is taking into consideration is that a large percentage of those familiar with the church know of it because they have a neighbor, a friend or relative, a work colleague, or an acquaintance that is an Adventist.
“All our media programs, all our publications, all our advertising for this that or the other thing, none of that is as important in knowing about the Adventist Church as knowing a Seventh-day Adventist,” Netteburg comments. “It means that Adventist members have a tremendous opportunity—and responsibility—to increase the name recognition of the church.”
With networking and such extensive mission activities the church ought to be recognizable more than it is, says Mary Schnack, a public relations consultant who advised the church on media relations and crisis communication. “But the church members tend to stick to themselves and do not, except on occasion, reach out beyond own borders. Perhaps your walls are high,” she comments. “Interfacing with the community will get you known more,” she adds.
The question that church leaders in North America are asking is, “What can we do to get our name out there and familiarize people with who we are?”
As far as church awareness, “We’re trying to be more involved in public media,” Netteburg says. “When you talk to people one by one by one, you go a long time before you contact as many as one article does in a newspaper. We’re trying to be more involved in public discussion of issues in the media.”
On the other hand, the “best known part of Adventism is that people say, ‘I know an Adventist.’ So we want to encourage Adventists to be proud of the fact that they’re Seventh-day Adventists and to share that openly and publicly. This is something new this survey revealed to us.”
Netteburg adds that the church in North America “has said it would like to be known as the church that enhances quality of life for its members and community as well.”
