Conducting church surveys is a powerful way to understand the needs, preferences, and spiritual engagement of your congregation and community. These surveys help church leaders assess satisfaction with sermons, doctrine, programs, and overall experiences. They also reveal if attendees feel spiritually nourished, welcomed, or are considering leaving—and why. Including demographic questions, optional comments, and targeted feedback from first-time visitors, regular members, and non-members provides a complete view of church effectiveness.
Community outreach surveys can identify barriers to attendance and uncover new growth opportunities. By analyzing this feedback, churches can align more closely with their mission, improve services, increase engagement, and attract new members. SurveyLegend simplifies this process with beautifully designed, secure, and customizable templates to launch your own impactful church surveys online.
Create your church survey, poll, or questionnaire now!
Why Conduct a Church Survey?
Many people join a church because they want to be part of a community and achieve spiritual growth. But to truly benefit from the experience of going to church, most want to feel a connection to the mission of the church. When conducting a survey, you can target regular church attendees or survey the community as a whole to see what you may be able to do to entice others to join. At SurveyLegend, we recommend using separate surveys to keep the survey relatively shortand avoid questions that may be irrelevant on one survey or the other.
What are some of the reasons to conduct a church survey?
Church leadership may want to understand the following:
- Overall satisfaction levels with doctrine and programs
- If people feel they’re being “spiritually fed”
- Whether congregants get the feeling of community from the church
- If congregants feel welcomed by the church
- Whether congregants disagree with preaching styles or particular teachings
- If attendance has changed due to preaching styles or particular teachings
- How congregants feel about financially supporting the church
- If congregants are actively looking for another church, and if so, why
Understanding how people feel about church activities and the church in general can help church leaders make adjustments that may re-engage congregants or attract new members.
Tips for Church Satisfaction Surveys
Before creating your church survey, here are a few things to keep in mind:
Collect Demographic Information
Your survey should ask about age, gender, marital status, income, residence, and other basic information such as frequency and years of attendance. This way, church leadership can track trends and understand exactly who their audience is. For example, is your congregation trending young? Sermons may need to be adjusted to appeal to these generations.
Prioritize Survey Questions
You don’t want to overwhelm congregants with too many questions. So, think about what’s most important for each survey. For example, if you’re planning the church budget, ask about what programs congregants feel are most important and if they plan to give. If you’re planning out a sermon strategy, ask questions about whether congregants are feeling spiritually fed during weekend services and what they’d like to hear more about.
Allow Optional Comments
Why not collect as much feedback as possible? Limiting responses only to your specific list of questions could result in you missing out on some important feedback or some great ideas.
Interpreting Open-Ended Feedback Effectively
While multiple-choice data is easy to quantify, open-ended responses often provide the richest insights. Comments about personal experiences, suggestions, or concerns can reveal patterns that stats may miss. To analyze them effectively, church staff can use keyword tagging, categorize feedback by topic, and share summaries with leadership teams. These responses often inspire the most actionable changes—from adjusting service flow to launching new community groups.
Leveraging Technology for Higher Survey Participation
Today’s digital tools make it easier than ever to connect with congregants. Church surveys distributed via email, SMS, or social platforms—especially when mobile-friendly and anonymous—tend to receive higher response rates. Using a tool like SurveyLegend allows churches to customize surveys with church branding, use logic-based question flow, and collect real-time results. Integrating survey links into your church app or weekly e-newsletter can further boost participation and engagement.
Don’t Over-Survey
Congregants are bound to become annoyed if you’re surveying them every Sunday. Spread out your surveys over a period of time to avoid survey burnout. You might consider one survey solicitation per person per month. Of course, one of the great things about online surveys? You can email them at any time, not waiting for any given Sunday (advantages of online surveys here).
Measuring Long-Term Engagement and Retention
Surveys shouldn’t just capture one-time sentiments—they should help track how member engagement changes over time. By administering regular surveys and comparing results year over year, church leaders can measure shifts in participation, satisfaction, or spiritual growth. This ongoing feedback loop helps spot trends early, identify at-risk congregants, and intervene with personalized ministry, follow-up, or pastoral care. Retention improves when people feel seen and valued throughout their spiritual journey.
Share Results (But Protect Privacy)
It’s a good idea to let survey participants know if their opinions led to new policies or initiatives. This lets them know that church leadership values their feedback and strives to make improvements. Results could be posted online, in the church newsletter, or discussed prior to services.
Building Trust Through Transparent Communication
Transparency is key to deepening trust between church leadership and members. When feedback is acknowledged and acted upon, congregants feel heard and valued. Regularly publishing summary results, highlighting changes made based on surveys, or even addressing criticism with humility can foster a culture of openness. Over time, this reinforces that the church is a living, responsive community—not just a top-down institution.
Creating a Survey Calendar for the Church Year
One way to keep feedback consistent without overwhelming your members is to establish a survey calendar. For example, send out satisfaction surveys quarterly, budget-related questions before planning season, and outreach surveys in early spring or fall when new initiatives often launch. This cadence ensures you’re collecting relevant insights at the right time—without survey fatigue. Use your church’s existing communication rhythms (like newsletter releases or sermon series) to promote participation naturally.
Create your church survey, poll, or questionnaire now!
Essential 40 Questions to Ask on Church Surveys
Now, on to the questions! While your church survey questions may vary, here are some popular questions to consider asking congregants.
First-Time Visitor Survey Questions
This survey is designed to collect feedback from first-time visitors, whether they’re attending with a friend or family member or just checking out the church on their own.
- Please evaluate your experience at our church today (scale of 1–5, 5 being best):
- Message
- Music/Choir
- Environment
- Friendliness
- Cleanliness
- Decor
- Overall Experience
- How much “church experience” do you have?
- Lots of church experience
- Only attend on holidays
- Never been to church
- Been hurt in church
- Looking for a new church
- Other
- Did you feel welcomed upon entering our church?
- What are some ways we could be more welcoming to new visitors?
- What did you enjoy most about attending services here?
- Is there anything you’d change about attending services here?
- How did you hear about our church?
- Would you come back to our church?
- Have you attended another church in the past year? What did you like that we could emulate?
- Is there anything you’d like our church to pray about?
- Any additional comments?
Importance of First-Time Visitor Surveys
This survey gathers valuable feedback from people seeing your church with fresh eyes. If they’ve attended other churches, they may also provide ideas you can implement.
Using Survey Data to Shape Ministry Programs
Church survey data can directly influence how ministry programs are structured and promoted. By identifying which demographics are most engaged or underserved—youth, seniors, single adults, or new believers—leadership can adjust resources, messaging, and volunteer efforts accordingly.
For example, if survey responses show low interest or attendance in youth programs, leaders may explore alternative formats, locations, or content. Aligning ministry offerings with the needs and desires of the congregation ensures programs remain relevant and impactful.
Church Membership Survey Questions
Regular attendees may have strong opinions. Questions to consider:
- How long have you been a member of this church?
- How did you first hear about this church?
- Please choose everything that influenced you to attend:
- It’s welcoming
- Location near home
- Church activities
- Excellent facilities
- Liked the pastor/staff
- Common interests with members
- Worship style
- Family’s church
- Why do you attend church?
- To become closer to God
- For children’s moral foundation
- To become a better person
- Comfort during trouble/sorrow
- Find sermons valuable
- To be part of a faith community
- Continue family traditions
- Feel it’s an obligation
- To socialize or meet people
- To please family/spouse/partner
- How well do you understand the church’s mission?
- Do you feel the church spends money in alignment with its mission?
- Do you leave services feeling spiritually fed?
- Which service time do you prefer or avoid?
- Are sermons relevant to your life?
- Do you agree with the doctrine?
- Is the church sensitive to congregants’ needs?
- Does the worship music resonate with you?
- Which amenities or events do you enjoy most?
- Would you like a more active role?
- Which ministry opportunities interest you most?
- Which outreach programs would you volunteer for?
- Any additional comments?
Create your church survey, poll, or questionnaire now!
Importance of Church Membership Surveys
Regular members must understand and connect with the church mission. If they don’t, they may leave. Transparency on funding and support needs is crucial. Use interest in volunteer programs to guide investment.
Members must feel welcomed and supported—especially in hard times. That sense of community is vital.
Enhancing Worship Through Congregant Preferences
Worship is a deeply personal experience, and surveys are a powerful way to understand how different styles resonate. Asking congregants about their preferences—traditional vs. contemporary music, sermon length, multimedia use, and inclusion of testimonies or scripture reading—can help shape worship services that are spiritually meaningful. These insights allow leaders to strike a balance between consistency and flexibility while ensuring that worship environments are welcoming and spiritually enriching for all.
Community Outreach Church Survey Questions
To grow membership, look outside your congregation. Ask:
- Do you currently attend a church?
- Have you heard of our church, [CHURCH NAME]?
- Have you ever been to our church?
- If not, why?
- Practice faith in other ways
- Not a believer
- Haven’t found a church I like
- Don’t feel welcome
- Too busy
- Poor health/mobility
- Too crowded
- Other
- What might convince you to attend?
- Different service times
- Online services
- More inclusive atmosphere
- More relevant sermons
- Modern music
- Clear church mission
- Support of outreach programs
- Would you attend church online instead?
- How far do you travel to attend?
- Where do you travel from?
- Have you recommended us to others?
- If we opened a new location, who should help lead it?
- Any additional comments?
Importance of Community Outreach Surveys
These questions help uncover reasons for low attendance—whether it’s inconvenience, inclusivity, or preferences. You may even learn if live streaming or new locations could help. (virtual events here)
Conclusion
With church attendance down, it’s more important than ever for church leadership to survey its congregation and community to understand why. Armed with survey knowledge, churches can begin to make changes or improvements that can help to attract or re-engage members. Ready to begin your church survey? SurveyLegend is here to help, with beautifully rendered surveys that you can securely send to church and community members online. We have dozens of survey templates that you can use to create your own church survey questionnaire template, so get started today!
Do you regularly survey your congregation? What about the community at large? Have surveys made a difference for your church? Let us know in the comments!
Create your church survey, poll, or questionnaire now!
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Is church membership declining?
Yes. In 2020, church membership fell below the majority for the first time, to 47%. That’s down from 50% in 2018 and 70% in 1999.
Why should church leaders conduct church surveys?
Church surveys help church leaders understand what they’re doing well and where they could improve. The input from surveys can also help inform doctrine and programs which can reinvigorate the congregation or help attract new members.
Should churches livestream their services?
Live streaming church services may help attract people who are strapped for time, younger people more digitally included, those in poor health or not ambulatory, and those concerned about COVID-19.
