Good Samaritan United Methodist Church

The Far-Eastern parable of the Blind Men and the Elephant exists in many versions. In general, the story depicts sight impaired people touching various portions of the great animal and from their single perspective, being asked to describe what an elephant is like. One holds the tail and says an elephant is like a rope, one leans against a leg and says an elephant is like a tree, one touches the tusk and says an elephant is like a spear, one tries to hang on to the trunk and says an elephant is like a snake… Each one understandably perceives the elephant from the perspective of their own experience.

It’s easy to do this with our church as well. Many of us have our regular sphere of contacts and involvements and assume that our small groups are representative of the entire congregation. To help us get a more accurate picture of Good Samaritan United Methodist Church, a demographic study was conducted of our membership based on birthdates recorded. (We’re missing only about 7% of baptized and professing member birthdates, but are working on updating our information.)

You may enjoy studying the results that follow, but here are a few observations to start us seeing beyond “our own part of the elephant”!
• Nearly a third of the people affiliated with Good Samaritan Church are under the age of twenty. 
• Half of our total membership is under the age of 40.
• About a fifth of our membership is of retirement age.
• We have a relatively even distribution of ages across every decade of life from 0-80.
• We have 71 members age 80 and over.
• We have more elementary school children than the entire membership of the average United Methodist Church in Minnesota.
• What do you see? What other information might you be curious about? How could this affect our present and future ministries? Share your thoughts with: marilynwaynec@aol.com, jkasiske@comcast.net and dan@good.org.

View the Report NOW of Good Samaritan's demograpic study.