Last week, Outreach magazine’s special issue featuring lists of the 100 Largest U.S. Churches and the 100 Fastest-Growing U.S. Churches showed up in thousands of mailboxes. Unfortunately, the fastest-growing churches list was wrong.

A database was missorted, and no one caught the mistake until it is immortalized in ink and on the Web.

When I highlighted the list last week, I noted that it did not make sense. Some churches with less numerical and percentage growth were ranked higher than churches that had more growth in both areas.

The formula itself was not bad.

To be considered for the list, a church must have:

1. Grown by at least 500 people in weekly attendance from ‘06-’07
2. Averaged over 1000 people in weekly attendance in ‘07
3. Grown by a measurable percentage between ‘06-’07 (usually 10%+ growth)

Churches meeting the above criteria were ranked by numerical growth and then by percentage growth, and the average of the two ranks determined their final ranking.

The research was accurate, but obviously the rankings did not make sense when their order in the database was mistakenly resorted.

Oops!

Hopefully, this blunder will help pave the way to more accurate lists in the future, as I am sure that editors will be even more deliberate when proofing their work.

Outreach magazine will be republishing the list with the correct data soon. For Ed Stetzer’s thoughts, check out his blog.