By Randall Murphree | AFA Journal Editor

Editor’s Note: These questions and answers are condensed from AFA Journal Editor Randall Murphree’s interview with George Barna for AgapePress. AFA Journal frequently cites statistics from the Barna Research Group.

How did you get into polling and research?
I originally got involved in doing research by managing political campaigns. I enjoyed doing that, but it’s kind of a burnout profession.

After a few years of that, I decided I needed to specialize in something, and I realized that the two areas I really enjoyed were speech writing and polling. I went back to graduate school and while there, I became a Christian. I came out and started working with a market research firm that was primarily doing media-related research in Los Angeles.

So, I was a new Christian working at one of the ten largest market research firms in the country. One day a Christian media development company came in. They were producing programs and doing the marketing for a whole group of televangelists. That client, because they saw a Christian, said, "Oh, good. You guys take this work. We want this Barna guy working on it." That was my first foray into religious-oriented research.

How was the Barna Group born?
Well, you know, a lot of times, you have a calling and you don’t know it. That was my situation. Eventually, that [televangelists’] media management company, which was based back in Wheaton, Illinois, hired me. I moved out to Wheaton and worked there for a few years. I had been a Christian for five or six years, working with ministries like Billy Graham, Navigators, Youth for Christ, and World Relief. This was really expanding my horizons and opening my eyes quickly.

My wife and I spent time praying about our future. ... [W]e came back to California and started Barna Research in 1984. The Lord has been incredibly gracious to us. In retrospect, just from a business perspective, it was really kind of dumb because we had no money, no clients, no reputation, nothing.

How hard was it to be a pioneer?
There we were, living in LA. My wife was working two jobs to pay the bills. I was trying to start this company not really knowing what I was doing. Then, within our first month of business, the vice president of marketing research at the Disney channel called.

It was a woman I had worked with at the big firm where I started out. She said, "I just finished interviewing all the different research companies that we work with, and I learned one thing about all of them – I can’t trust any of them. The one thing I know about you is you’ve got integrity. I can trust you. Would you like to do some work for the Disney channel?"

Wow! When God answers prayer, He answers in a big way. The irony is, you look at Disney today, and they’re on the "other side" of the battle lines from us in most cases. That’s kind of how we started – made money off Disney. That allowed us to build up the company. Eventually, we left Disney just to focus on the ministry aspects [of research].

How do you hope the church will use your information?
We understand God’s vision for our company to be that we’re to provide strategic intelligence so that churches can make better ministry decisions. What we want to see is our information coming out in bite-sized, affordable pieces on focused aspects of ministry that churches, parachurch ministries and Christian individuals can take and immediately convert into practical, strategic action that results in lives being transformed for Christ.

What is your greatest frustration with the Body of Christ in America today?
I think it’s that we are so distracted from our faith that, when people make decisions, the faith aspect of their lives generally doesn’t even influence the decisions that are being made. That’s the frustration with individuals. We have become so acculturated that we lose sight of the fact that we are to be spiritual people first.

This whole thing on worldview [highlighted in Think Like Jesus] is partly a reaction to that, the fact that when people are making decisions they don’t go back and try to figure out, "How would Jesus think about this situation? What kinds of alternatives would He consider? What are the choices He might make?" That’s our best clue of how to make a good choice.

What are the best books you’ve produced?
Think Like Jesus is a very important book. Actually the most recent one I’ve written is starting wildfires all over the place. It’s called Transforming Children into Spiritual Champions. Everybody was shocked that it’s selling so well. We’ve got churches ordering case after case. I’m really excited about what the Lord is doing with it.