• Ethnic Caucuses
• Black Methodists for Church Renewal (BMCR)
• Methodists Associated to Represent the Cause of Hispanic Americans (MARCHA)
• National Federation of Asian American United Methodists
• National/Jurisdictional Association of Korean American UMCs
• Native American International Caucus
• Pacific Islander National Caucus of United Methodists
• Southern Asian National Caucus of the UMC

• Bishops of The UMC
• Research Consultants: clergy and lay leaders in music and worship in the annual conferences as selected by their bishops
• Academic representatives from the UM seminaries and Asbury Theological Seminary
• The Fellowship of United Methodists in Music and Worship Arts (FUMMWA)
• The Order of Saint Luke (OSL)
• United Methodist Musicians Email Listserv
• Local church pastors, worship, and music persons identified by UMPH
• Music and worship experts across the connection selected by the study committee

A number of different surveys were used. A comprehensive instrument developed to capture a wide range of data related to United Methodist music and worship practice was given wide use. Several smaller and more focused instruments were used with specific groups, including bishops, academics, and experts. Actual survey instruments may be found in Appendix One of this report.

Disparities in our samples from UM national data (GCFA) include the following:

• Our sample has a more even distribution among congregational sizes than is present in The United Methodist Church. 72% of our congregations have an average attendance of 100 or less, while only 40% of our sample reflects congregations of this size. At the same time, 42% of United Methodists attend churches with membership under 200 while 24% of our sample attend churches of these sizes. Smaller churches are thus somewhat less represented in this data than in the general UM distribution of congregations and individuals.
• Our sample over-represents racial and ethnic populations overall, but provides a fairly accurate reflection of the ethnic populations as a percentage relative to their representation in the United Methodist Church, with the exception that African Americans (who comprise over 75% of all non-white churches) are represented as slightly over half of our ethnic sample to allow for a more meaningful sample size for other smaller ethnic groups whose voice may otherwise have been completely unheard.

Using standard statistical formulas for church size data, and a finite sample formula for ethnic populations (since the total sample size for this specific population was significantly smaller, though representative) we can ensure that our sample sizes relative to United Methodist Church populations represent a 95% confidence level at the following intervals (plus or minus X percent) for each of these population subsets:

The confidence intervals measured here relate only to the sampling of the populations, not to the answers to specific questions throughout the survey data. In other words, we can be 95% confident to this degree that the people we have surveyed represent the people in congregations of the United Methodist Church.

Sample Data were collected from several constituencies. The largest of our sample sets includes 1045 persons recommended by bishops from a majority of Annual Conferences across the connection. This group we have labeled Research Consultants. A second group of Racial/Ethnic Groups includes 247 leaders of non-white congregations. FUMMWA (193 persons) and The Order of Saint Luke (19 persons) also participated. The confidence intervals reflected above are for the cumulative populations reflected across all of these groups, all of whom used the same survey instrument.

Professors and bishops received a similar, but separate, survey that addressed the larger questions of trends and general overview rather than specific local church practices. Finally, we solicited additional technical help to gain broader perspective on trend observations from other experts in music and worship across the denomination.

PUTTING THE DATA IN CONTEXT  (Slideshow 1-7) OR
Download PDF

DATA: ACADEMICS: SEMINARY PROFESSORS  (Slideshow 8-21) OR
Download PDF

DATA: BISHOPS  (Slideshow 22-35) OR
Download PDF

DATA: RACIAL/ETHNIC GROUPS  (Slideshow 36-107) OR
Download PDF

DATA: RESEARCH CONSULTANTS  (Slideshow 108-157) OR
Download PDF

DATA: FUMMWA  (Slideshow 158-204) OR
Download PDF

DATA: ORDER OF ST. LUKE  (Slideshow 205-250) OR
Download PDF

DATA: MUSIC AND WORSHIP SPECIALISTS (Word PDF)

DOWNLOAD ENTIRE MUSIC STUDY PDF (3.4 MB PDF)