383 - How Data Leads To Change w/ Daniel Copeland (Part 2/8)

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Hello, and welcome back to the Pure Desire podcast, your biblically based and clinically informed approach to healing from betrayal and breaking free from compulsive sexual behaviors. I am your host, Nick Stumbo. Glad to have you with us as we jump into episode 383. And for those of you out there that have heard all 383, kudos to you here. Joining me again in our series on beyond the porn phenomenon and today part two is my co host, Ashley Jamison. Ashley, good to see you again.

Yes, I'm so glad to be here.

Yeah, we're doing a few of these podcasts in a row, and today's is kind of unique, or this one is unique because we are getting to talk to a data researcher, Barna, let him out of the dark cave where the researchers live. I'm kidding. No offense to data researchers out there. It just, you know, it sounds like kind of a real private job, like sitting in front of a computer screen analyzing numbers. But actually, I thought today's conversation with Daniel Copeland was fascinating. Ashley, what were some of your observations or thoughts on this?

What I like most about the, the times we've been able to sit down with the Barna crew and let them, I always think I'm not going to enjoy the episode because data numbers, I, I feel like at one point I said were my trigger words. But what I took away is that it really helps me understand how they find that, what their approach is, that you can really count on the data that's being presented and even just their heart behind why data is important to them in creating change and bringing awareness.

Yeah. I think for those that are nervous like you, there's a ton of great insight here into how does data create opportunities for change? You know, what are the things that we can go beyond the number and not just see a number, but like, what does this mean? How do we unpack this? So I thought it was very insightful. And Daniel, I think, has a way of sharing that is not just Let me unpack 43 different numbers for you and you're getting lost in it. He's really aware of, we want this to mean something. We want it to create those conversations. And so I think people are in for an unexpected delight. And I would say, because this is part two, this really sets up where we're headed next to have experts start to then look at the numbers with us and say, man, what do we do about this? Before we got to that, we wanted people to have some confidence in the numbers, in the way the research has been collected. Because, you know, I've heard It said that 78% of all stats are made up on the spot. Right. And, like, we really have nothing behind it. And so as we start throwing out numbers, people might feel like, okay, is that true? Is that real? And I think Daniel speaks to some of those fears today.

Yeah. And you bring up a good point, too. If you're not as much into understanding where they got the data, how the data was collect, you know, all of that, which it is a good episode that the future episodes will get more into. What does this mean for relationships and maybe some of those other parts that you might be interested in.

Yeah. So we're laying a foundation, and it's a really good one. It's very interesting conversation. A bit more about Daniel. Daniel Copeland is the senior lead researcher of Barna Group, and he oversees the strategy, operation, and execution of the firm's published and proprietary research. He is a trained social researcher and is passionate about producing objective knowledge that inspires meaningful and significant change in the world. In his Barna tenure, he has designed and conducted more than 150 of their studies, and he works closely with organizations across the globe to help them critically consider best practices in navigating the cultural moment that we're in. Daniel has a BA and an MA in sociology from Georgia State University, as well as an undergraduate minor in religious studies. He lives with his wife Heidi in Atlanta, Georgia. And so here now is our conversation with Daniel Copeland, part two of beyond the Porn Phenomenon. Well, Mr. Daniel Copeland, welcome to the Pure Desire podcast and thank you for being a part of our series on beyond the Porn Phenomenon.

Thanks, guys. I'm so happy to be here with you.

Yeah, we have been looking forward to taking a little deeper dive into not only the data, but into some of the methodology behind, you know, research and data collection. And for most of us on the Pure Desire team, and I think I speak for most of the listeners, we don't do a lot of this. In fact, for many of us, this might be the first real kind of data driven report we've tried to get our hands around. And so we just thought we'd talk with you, someone who has done, from what I understand, over 150 individual studies like this. Is that correct?

Wow.

Yeah, it is. I've done it a few times now. They've taken my training wheels off.

Yeah, that's definitely a few times. So for those of us that are less familiar with this process, would you just talk a little bit about the methodology behind creating a report like this and maybe most importantly, lead into that idea of like, can we trust this data? How do we know that this is reliable as we talk about these stats?

Wonderful. And kind of dangerous question because you've asked a researcher to describe what I do for a living. So let me start by just saying, so excited to be with you guys. So thrilled to have the opportunity to partner with pure desire on this study. My name is Daniel. I'm a senior lead researcher with Barna Group. I'm with Barna for six and a half years. And my job, if I'm doing it successfully, is I help our teams and our clients figure out what is the most important question we are asking in a study. What is the thing, the knowledge gap that we are trying to fill? And then how do I design a study that will fill that gap? And so, as you guys know, we spent a lot of time workshopping, we spent a lot of time reading other studies and finding out what are the gaps in knowledge when it comes to the relationship Christians hold with pornography, when it comes to the relationship pornography holds on the world right now. And so we did a lot of secondary research and secondary research, for anyone unfamiliar with the term, it's just figuring out what have the giants before, before us learned so that we can stand on their shoulders and add to a conversation. So in this study, we spent a lot of time doing that, and then eventually we did survey research methodology. So survey research in our field, this comes out of we're using principles of quota sampling and random quota samplings. So essentially what that means is that using data collection partners that we have partnerships with at Barna Group, we say, okay, who do we want to talk to? Well, we want to talk to the general US Population. And to do that, we're going to connect with them via the Internet. We're going to reach out to them, a random group of them. So a random sampling vis a vis email, sometimes text. And we are going to get the collection of people we're talking to to quota represent the US population, specifically the adult population. So there's people 18 years and older. And we'll go to the census and we'll study the census and say, what percentage of people are white? What percentage of people are black? What percentage of people live in the South? What percentage of live in the Northeast? What is the average income in the United States? And we will make sure by every major demographic, we are talking to people who meet a criteria of the general population so that we then get a data set back. And so we wrote a survey Together with pure desire, based on secondary research that we then need to send out. And we heard from over 2,000 people. We specifically in this study also over sampled practicing Christians, which means we heard from some extra practicing Christians. And I can give the definition of that in a minute to make sure that we were really getting insight into the church. So survey research. We also did some extra interviews in this for listeners who might be familiar with other lines of research. We're using some of the same research methodologies as a Pew Research center, as a Gallup, as a McKinsey. We're in the business of making knowledge accessible and doing it in a credible way. So hopefully that gives a little insight into how we're going about these things. Who answers our surveys is the number one question I get all the time.

Yeah. Well, I remember in the process, Daniel, we kind of asked like, well, hey, if we pay more, can we get more? Like, what if we interviewed 10,000 people and you hear surveys out there like, we asked 50,000 people. And sometimes it's like the number is associated with credibility. But I really appreciated your answer. Could you just speak to that of, like, why is qualitative maybe a better measurement than just sheer quantity of people that answered questions?

Sure. So in the research world, the question and the methodology have to match each other. The question we're trying to ask about the universe, you know, research, we're knowledge producers. The knowledge we're trying to produce has to then match. How are we getting that answer? And essentially, there's something really fun about having the Data sandbox of 50,000 respondents. But frankly, there's really good methodology that says we don't need that many responses. We need a good mix of people that represent the larger population we need. And actually, a precision of people is sometimes better than a quantity of people when it comes to data collection. We want to hear from the right group of people, the right mix of people. And there becomes actually a point in statistics where you can talk to too many people and it creates noise in your data, which some people are going to think you can literally hear it humming or something. Not like that, but it makes things blurry. And so there's a precision to what we're trying to do to get statistically reliable samples, statistically relevant groups of people that can accurate accurately represent their population, their group. And so that's what we're trying to do. While I would love if in every study I could talk to 10,000 people, it's not really actually that necessary after a certain point, because we're Trying to figure out this smaller population, populations.

Yeah, yeah. You told me that, that after a certain number, you're just going to get more of what you've already got because you've surveyed the right sample, a swath of people across these demographics. And I think that was honestly one of the things that was compelling to us because we've asked questions of people, but we realize, oh, those were all people that had already come to a Pure Desire conference. So they were in a demographic, so to speak, that was already motivated enough by this topic to spend their weekend at a conference with us. Well, while that is a good sampling of people at a Pure Desire conference, that may not actually be a good representation of, say, the U.S. population. So I think that was of interest to us. Like, let's really try to get our hands around what's happening broadly in the world and then what's happening broadly in the church around these topics. And I think the survey brings out a lot of that.

Yeah. And one of the great things, one of the questions people ask me all the time is, or maybe I should say, one of the assumptions people make a lot about our work is that they believe people know when we're doing a survey that they think they know that Barna is the one surveying them. And that's actually not true. These people are anonymous to us and they're confidential to us. We don't know who they are, they don't know who we are. And actually adds to the credibility and to the rigor of it. It's anonymized, it's confidential, it's double blind. Which basically means there is no way for anybody to figure out who is who in that, which adds to the honesty of what a person can share with. And it makes it so that we are also not leading them to answer a certain way because somebody says, oh, well, if Barna is asking, I want to say this thing. They don't know it's us. They don't know it's Pure Desire. And that helps us feel more confident in what they're sharing.

Yeah, that's really good. Okay, so Barna did the first report, the porn phenomenon, in 2016. How do you think this conversation has changed for Barna and for pastors since that time? And what kind of feedback do you hear at Barna?

Yeah, so when I joined Barna in 2018, it was kind of right on the last leg of the porn phenomenon, shaking up a lot of Christian ministry and entering people's vocabulary. And I want to use that word vocabulary really intentionally when Research is successful. We create new vocabulary. We create or we strengthen a vocabulary. We give words and phrases to people that didn't know what they were experiencing. And so when the porn phenomenon came out, what we found was that at that time, most of the conversation in the church around pornography was really centered on the theology of sexual ethics and what's good for people, what's good for theology, what is a great expression of Christ's likeness in the world when it comes to our sexual ethic. And what the porn phenomenon did, was it standardized a vocabulary through which people could talk about this? It's kind of like sometimes you have to say the hard thing to give other people permission to say the hard thing and talk about the hard thing. Sometimes you've got to be the first mover to say, hey, porn is an issue. And if it's an issue for this many people in society, there's a chance it's an issue for that many people in this church. And so the ripple effect of the porn phenomenon was we were able to acknowledge an elephant in the room that church leaders did not have the vocabulary to talk about. They did not have. Maybe they didn't know that elephant was sitting in the room, or maybe they did and they didn't know how to talk about it. But suddenly there was equity through research of, we can all talk about this thing now, and we can use common vocabulary. We can look at that statistic and say, is that true of you too? And whether the answer is yes or no, it means that somebody else has said the hard thing. And then we can dig deeper it in our local communities. And so it was really exciting. I remember coming to Barna and getting this report, you know, called the porn Phenomenon. At first I was really uneasy to read it, but then in our own team, in our own culture, we're able to standardize talking about this, talking about it from a neutral place of data, from an objective place of data, rather than a stigmatized or shame based way. And that's really helpful for our team. It is also helpful for every church leader I've ever encountered who knows that report.

Mm, yeah, I can. I can see that too. You know, like, even just in my. If I were to bring it back to my family, if. If I had no idea what kids were going through this day and age, I. You wouldn't know where to start. You wouldn't want to assume or make your kid feel uncomfortable. But if you had this report land on your lap that said, you know, 80% of children are falling asleep in class I mean, I would go, are you falling asleep in class? This is what it's saying. This is a lot of kids, you know, and it does give you kind of that neutral territory to just say, hey, is this, you know, is this applicable to you? Or I recognize that a lot of people are struggling in this way and we're just here to lower shame and say, you're not alone in that.

Yeah, I think too, it was one of the things that motivated us is feeling like the 2016 report kind of came at a time when this topic in general was bubbling up in the church to realize like, boy, we can't avoid this anymore. You know, a lot of churches jumped on with the Conquer series. It was, you know, had come out a year before that. There were some major leaders and pastors that were at least talking about, you know, Josh McDowell himself putting a focus on this. And I think it did create conversations. But what we kind of saw is it maybe normalized the topic for some people in an unhealthy way of like, well, yeah, this is kind of an issue and a lot of Christians struggle too, but it kind of is what it is. And we didn't feel that it maybe had been spotlighted in a way that led to change as much as led to awareness and admission of, yeah, we're, a lot of us are struggling and we, we didn't really go forward with doing much about it. We just, we had a brief talk about it and moved on. And that was kind of our hope in coming back around. And now, beyond the porn phenomenon, to say, let's look at what's happened in the data in the last seven years and let's think more constructively about what do we do. And I know that's where we're going. This conversation is like, what's next? What do we do with numbers? You know, numbers in and of themselves don't create change, they create awareness. What, what do we do to change? And I'm curious to get your thoughts on that. But I think for some that hear these numbers because of some adages, like I've heard people say, oh, 90% of Christian men struggle with lust or pornography, and 10% lie. Like, haha, you know, all men struggle. So they might hear the number that 54% of Christians have an issue with pornography, 75% of men, 40% of women, and they might actually be surprised the numbers aren't even higher. And so how honest do you think people are being about a sensitive topic like this? Is it a possibility that the numbers are a Lot higher. Or is it pretty accurate that people are going to be honest around a topic like this?

Yeah. So this is where I would invite any listener jump into the sandbox with us for a second and let's think about this. So if I was to equip you with one idea from statistics, it's that in statistics we always tend to take a conservative interpretation. Let's say the number we're seeing is just the bottom, just the bottom threshold of something. If it's 54%, let's just assume that's the bottom end and that it much might be much higher. Because there is an honesty factor to any survey environment, any environment that we are in. We, when we take surveys. This thing I learned very early in my career from my sociological training. When we take surveys we tend to try to. Our brain convinces us to answer it more like a test where we think there is a right answer and a wrong answer.

Yeah, we're going to give the best.

Answer or a best answer. And your brain's trying to say, you know, trying to promote your own success in a way and your own well being in a way. And that's going to lead people to answering in the way that they think is correct, not always honest. And now don't, don't hear that from me and say, oh, so people aren't being honest. The work of survey researchers like me are to give them every opportunity to be honest to even in a survey communicate to them, hey, we're not trying to shame you. Hey, we are just trying to learn from you. You are the expert of your own experiences. We, in this survey, we gave in every single question of the survey. We gave people the opportunity to opt out of the question if it was uncomfortable for them. And what we thought found that is super interesting is that less than 2% of all U.S. adults opted out of every single question we asked. And just to think about that for a second, if we had 100 people in a room and we asked all of them a really uncomfortable question about pornography and we were able to ask them in a confidential way, in an anonymous way, only two of them are opting out in this survey, which is actually really fascinating because that then cues us in. Oh, people are willing to have this conversation with us in this closed double blind environment of a survey. We gave them the chance to say, you don't have to answer this. And so that makes us cued into okay, I think they're being a little bit more honest. We also add things into survey instruments to basically test to see if they think there's a right answer. And part of that is us just knowing the market, knowing what people think about these topics, because we did the secondary research. And so we're trying in every single item to maximize the opportunity for them to be honest. And so I was astounded in this project first that more people weren't opting out of questions. I thought that that was going to be a bigger issue. And I want to, you know, people should have the opportunity to opt out of questions. That's fine. But people were willing to talk about it, and there's something interesting to talk about. You know, the willingness to talk about it could be its own topic of its own. But what we found also matched up with other data we were available, that was available to us, things that we had seen in other places. And so I feel strongly that people felt like they could be honest in this. But as a statistician, I also take the most conservative interpretation. Let's say that this is the bottom line. And it might be more pervasive, it might be more. But at least we can start here and have that conversation.

Yeah. Yeah, I think that's compelling to think about that. If I'm answering those questions, and particularly among Christians, practicing Christians, it would seem unlikely that I would try to overestimate my poor choices or that I would try to be too aggressive about how poorly or bad I've been. My brain might be working with me to kind of downplay or like, well, yeah, once in a while. And so if someone marks an occasional porn use, like, that's probably a baseline. And if, if we actually could mark down every time they had viewed in straight into pornography, maybe it is monthly or weekly, but at a minimum, they're willing to acknowledge, yeah, it's. It's happening once in a while. That, that would just make sense to me that if. If your brain taking this, you know, test and giving the right answer was doing anything, it would probably kind of downplay and forget negative choices rather than overplay your negative choices in the. The answers.

Absolutely. And that's one of the reasons we use scales in research, so that it's not just yes, no.

Right.

So the question you're referring to in the survey is we ask people, how often are they viewing pornography? And it wasn't just daily or never, or it wasn't just yes or no, I watch porn, it was how often. And we gave them a scale of daily, several times a week, a few times a month, at least once a month, occasionally less often than that, Never, never I never do it. And so that gives a person. So let's just imagine for a second we have somebody who watches pornography every single day, and they maybe feel shame about it. Well, that may be when they're taking the survey. They think the right answer, the honest answer, might be daily, but maybe they have a shame about it and they click. It's actually several times a week. It's not daily.

Yeah.

We then capture that bias within the data, that kind of error, and we're going to assume other people are going to do that as well. And so then what we did in our analysis is we lumped all porn pornography users together compared to non pornography users, and then we did analyses to measure the impact of daily uses versus less often use so that we could then capture some of those things. And what we hope for in statistics is that by the randomness and by the size of our sample, we're able to capture those nuances along the way so that we can learn about it and then give people generous assumptions and generous interpretations. But also, remember, they probably answered this thinking that there's a right answer and a wrong answer. And we hope that we gave them the chance to be honest.

Yeah, that's so good. I love how you unpacked all that, because I did a. I don't know if it was a quiz or a personality or some kind of thing, you know, last year, and I caught myself, like, lying on it, but, like, nobody is seeing this.

Why am I lying to.

Yeah, exactly. Why am I not putting on.

I'm lying to myself.

So I love that you guys did that skill because I would have been the one that's like, it's not daily. It's just, you know, several times a week. That's different. Could be the same thing, but it doesn't sound as bad. So I. Yeah, I just really appreciate you unpacking that a little bit for us, too, to understand how you got those answers. Okay, so as your team compiled the research, what stood out to you? Is there anything that was surprising?

Well, first and foremost, people's honesty was really surprising. Like, I've already stated the thing that I loved about this study. One of the things that the Pure Desire team really challenged us to think about was let's not just think about. Let's think about pornography as one indicator light in a bigger picture of an overly sexualized culture. And so we got to talk about a lot of other thematics throughout this work. So, for example, there's a piece of data within the book itself that shows the impact that pornography use in different frequencies has on a person's well being.

Yeah.

So, for example, what we see in the data is that the more frequently a person's using pornography, the less likely they are to say things like, I'm happy with my appearance. Which when I say that out loud, it hits intuitively. But when you look at the data in this book and you see the sharp line of it, of how dramatic that can be, and we, we don't want to make a causal argument here saying, okay, porn causes that, but you can look at the data and it's really compelling that at the very, very least you can look at that and say, that's a problem. That's something worth addressing in our society. And so I was fascinated to see all the connections between porn use and other aspects of a person's life. The other one that is so big in this study, that was so important for us to think about was betrayal. And the big stat that I don't know if I fully unpacked, even though the book is out at this point, is how we were able to identify. And I don't even like saying able. We, we identified because it's sombering that when in a relationship, a male is using porn and the female knows about it, the male is likely to see that as a positive experience. Whereas females who know that porn is being used in the relationship look at it as a very negative thing. So men look at porn use within a relationship and say, this is good for us. And women look at porn in a relationship and say, this is hurting us. And it is stark, stark with a somber period at the end of a sentence. And I think that that was something I did not know we were going to stumble upon. Maybe if we did, we didn't think it was going to be as dramatic as it is. But to see that there are different narratives of porn use in our culture, in our marriages, in our relationships, around what is it? How it's impacting us and how it's seeing us or how it is influencing how we see.

Yeah.

One way that we wrote about it in our early Pure Desire team knows all about this. But in our BARNA work and our BARNA process, we go through a lot of documenting, charting. And I wrote this statement in some of my early notes about the project. I don't know if they actually ever made it into the book, but I wrote that men are seeing pornography within a relationship. Men are seeing pornography as a liberating aspect, whereas women are seeing it as a caging aspect. And that has Just stuck with me ever since it surprised me. It might keep me up at night sometimes, but I'm thankful that people were honest enough with us that we could learn about that and start a conversation about it. But it's troubling to its core.

Yeah. Yeah. I think, Daniel, the level of honesty that you guys saw speaks a lot to something churches need to pick up on that. People want safe places to talk about this issue. It's important to them. They probably have strong feelings about it, but they're not often asked in a way that they feel like they can safely maybe talk about what's happening to them. And I think the report and the survey provided that. Yeah, and I agree with you. The mental health questions, I think stood out to me and people see it in the report, if they pick one up, that there is this direct correlation. And we don't, again, we don't know if it's correlation or causation, but there is a connection that the more pornography someone consumes, the more unhealthy is their mental well being. And you just see it's like this line of more porn equals more unhealth. And whether that's the porn is causing the mental unhealth or the mental health is causing the porn, it's like, well, either way they're connected. And so if we want to help people's mental health, let's deal with pornography and vice versa. If we want to deal with pornography, let's help them in their mental health. And not, I think we have been guilty as Christians, is kind of treating these all as separate items. And well, let's help Christians with this, let's help Christians with that. And in seeing in the report, we need to help Christians see how all this is connected. We can't just pull them apart as separate issues. And to the last piece you said, I think one of the data points that has really stuck with me is the question of are you comfortable with how much pornography you're viewing? And to have 61% of Christians basically say, I'm okay with the level of porn I'm using, it makes me feel like I should come back to you and say, hey, can you parse out men and women? Because if men are seeing it as liberating, if men's opinion is like, hey, this has been by and large healthy for our relationship, and then you ask, so are you okay with porn use in your life? Even if they know theologically it's wrong. The Bible, you know, calls it sin. If my experience is, oh, it seems fairly positive Then I might say, yeah, I'm okay with that. And that actually for me could create a little connection to one of the things that I found most surprising about the report.

It makes me think too. I, this is. My brain was like going down all these roads, but just the, the connection of it. You know, there's been some, I guess I don't want to say condemnation, but criticism of, you know, church leaders or pastors saying, you know, somebody may come to them and say I'm experiencing anxiety or depression. And that spiritual like, well, what hidden sin do you have? But there is some truth to that, that if, you know, if it's not just about confessing a hidden sin, but if you do have something that's causing shame or is an addiction or a struggle that's continuing to cause shame and impact the way you view yourself and your and others and your ministry, that then it actually can cause depression. Anxiety. Depression. Anxiety can then lead you back to wanting to cope with pornography and so just to not throw the baby out with the bath water of even things that churches have tried to do to help. But that what I found in understanding more of the clinical data, the research is that I needed help connecting what God, the Bible my pastors were trying to tell me through, through scripture and through well meaning statements to my body and how I was integrating that into my mind, body and soul. And so it just made me think that, yeah, it is, it can. Those hidden things can cause physical things that our pastors will say, well, what are you dealing with in secret? You know, like there's truth to that. What are you dealing with in secret? Because it could be causing that. And then the other thing I thought about the data is that this is not, these are not struggles that people go around asking, you know, like, it's not like shopping for car insurance where you just can go ask your neighbor, like, hey, what car insurance do you use? That this data provides a way for us to just offer again that information and that as leaders, church members, parents, it gives us an opportunity to say, hey, I ran across this new report and I saw this and to continue to offer the information for people.

When people hear this information, some want, you know, they want to take it to a pastor, they want to talk to their kids, they want to write articles about it. They might get really passionate as we do that, which is good and we hope people will share it with others. Are there any cautions you would give where we maybe are taking the data too far or trying to make a survey say something it doesn't as a researcher, is there any cautions you would give in using this data?

Oh, it's so many. And that's part of my world. You know, we, we live in a world that has somehow too much data and at many times not enough good data. And so, you know, Nick, you made this good point earlier that I would love to echo, which is that information does not change behaviors. Information does not change behaviors. Information inspires conversations. Conversations might lead to experiences. Experiences change behaviors. It's not going to be, I read in the book this thing will make me live a happier life and then I go do that thing. It's not the information that made the change, it's the experience that comes later. So let me just start by saying that. So when we look at data, this feels like the sort of thing that I'm supposed to kind of close my eyes and do. And I will literally ask myself, what do I want this data to say? Help me name my own bias. Going into this report, people, a novice researcher would tell you researchers have no bias. A matured veteran research will tell you is that researchers have so much bias, we learn to control our bias. We learn to know how to put it in its place and know how it's showing up in work so that we can then look at the work, look at the data and go, how might my bias be influencing my interpret, my interpretation, how I think we should act because of this. So I will actually go through the practice of before I even see the data, I will think through in my inner soul, what am I hoping this says? What do I expect it says so that then I can go read it knowing, having that bias kind of in place. And I can hold it neutrally. I think too often people coming to your dangerous question, they don't take the time to acknowledge the bias that they are entering into. Whether it's data, whether it's a sermon, whether it's a book about class. They're taking a meeting with their boss. So often we don't take the time to acknowledge what is it that we hope is said, what is it that we hope this book argues for? Because if you're hoping for something, you will see it. Let me give you a funny example. Years ago we did this global study of next generation adults in 15 countries and I had this really neat opportunity of presenting some of the results to church leaders in the UK and I'm on Zoom with 100 plus church leaders. And I say to all of them, bad news. Only one out of three young people in the United Kingdom feel loved by a church leader. I let it land there. Only one out of three. And before I could go to my next sentence, somebody interrupted me on zoom and said, that's encouraging. That's exciting. That's not one out of three. I would have thought here in the UK it would have been one out of 20. I'm thrilled to hear it as one out of three. And in my American context, my Western context, my work, where we often talk about the dying church or the struggling church, I looked at it and said, only one out of three. But I hadn't named that. That's kind of what I assumed we were going to be talking about. And so I could have done my work to go talk to somebody in that context first and say, hey, how does this hit you? Does this feel like only one out of three? Or thankfully, one out of three. And I think you have to do that with every stat you come across. Name what are you hoping it says? What's the story you're already telling about it? And then think from the other angle, or think the angle of perspective of somebody else who might be reading that. And how would they see it differently? The other trick I will give you so first is name what you're hoping to see. The other one that I use all the time is I stole this from historians, actually. It's the art of triangulation. And that basically says if you want to make an argument, get three stats for it, three different places that back up the same argument, and then, then you probably have a good case going for you. So if you're looking. So when we see people abuse pieces of data, it's usually because they're manipulating one number to say one thing. But if you can get two more numbers to say that, you've probably got a good case. So acknowledge your bias. Triangulate. Find other things that back up what you're seeing. Don't take one number and run with it.

Yeah, that's really good. I don't remember if it was you or Sheila Gregoire, and not because you look the same, but because she also did some research. But one of you, we're talking about just the example of, you know, doing a study saying, do does going outside more during your workday increase your life and your health? And the answer was no, based on research. But if people are going outside for smoke breaks multiple times a day, then that data is skewed. And so I really appreciate just how you guys have said you take approaches to make sure that you're. You're asking the questions in the way where we can just present the data and we can make those connections without it being so skewed like that. I mean, I'm not a researcher and I'm not like all brainy like that. So I don't know what it would be called, but that was really eye opening to me of you could say, okay, well, we surveyed these people at this office and maybe that's where you're talking about making sure that your sample group is diverse and representative. Because, yeah, if they're all going out to smoke, then no, maybe it won't increase your life. But. But here at our office we go out for walks and maybe it does increase our life.

Yeah, I think along those lines, Daniel, for me, what I would encourage listeners is that attitude probably matters more than numbers. So a data point delivered with the wrong attitude is just going to feel more like being beat over the head. Like, see, see, I told you this and this and this. And I think that was one of our thoughts behind the report, is we didn't want it to come out like, so see churches, you're doing all these things wrong or bad. We really wanted to keep this hopeful perspective to say church. We think as we look at the reality, there's a ton of opportunities here and we're going to get to that in a minute. But I just wanted to say to listeners, like, it would be, I think, grievous to me if you got a copy of the report and went to a pastor and kind of slammed it down on the desk and say, see, all the things I've been saying about why we need groups are proved by this report and we're failing our people. And you know, that attitude, Even if you're 100% truthful in what you're saying, immediately puts a church leader on the defensive of, we're doing something wrong, our programs aren't good enough. And so I think if we have this data and we're motivated by it, just being conscientious of what does my attitude need to be so that people are open to hearing the reality and to wrestle with me of man, if people feel alone in this, if people aren't helping them, if they don't feel safe to share their secret, what could we do to help? And that attitude is going to get you a lot further than using these as kind of sticks to beat people up with to show how right you are about the things you've been saying. So that was just one of the things that came to mind for me as well.

So well said. And to quote the phenomenal Brene Brown, I'm not here to get it right. I'm not here to be right. I'm here to get it right. I'm not here to be right. Get it right. And I think about that a lot when I'm analyzing data that I'm not trying to be right. I'm trying to help us all get it right over time, curiously. And. And that ultimately, the goal of a researcher and the goal of great data is not to be right and not to be even to be smart. It's to equip, and it's to empathize, and it's to see a bigger picture. And so it's to look at, you know, 55% of people say this, and even if I disagree with that statement, to say, wow, there are people out there who do feel that way, and I can empathize more with them. And now I'm a little more equipped to get it right, to enter into my church in a more humble stance, to approach my church leader with a little bit more humility, trying to be honest just as much as I'm trying to seek truth.

Yeah.

Yeah. That's so good.

Yeah.

Okay. Does anybody else keep hearing the survey says, what is that off a Family Feud?

Yeah, I think so.

Oh, gosh. It won't come out of my head, so I'm glad I could share that. All right, so data is numbers. How do these numbers tell a story that leads to change or action?

Oh, wow. Well, I feel like I kind of answered that already by just saying information rarely changes behaviors. It is the start. It's the input to a behavior change. What we hope we're accomplishing is we hope we are creating common vocabularies. We hope we are addressing elephants in the room that can then equip change makers in their communities. I heard somebody say a few weeks and weeks ago, they were kind of critiquing national data in a way. And it wasn't to downplay it. It was actually just to acknowledge what I'm talking about here, where they said, you know, I don't know if we need more national data, is what they said, because we don't have national pastors. And what is a pastor's job? Pastor's job is to shepherd. And so when we hear 55% of millennials feel lonely, that is not a real statistic. I just making something up right now. It might be, though, if you heard that there's not some national entity to go care for all millennials, it is then in our hands, in our local communities, to go care for people around us. The information might inspire a behavior, it might inspire change, but it's, it is just that starting ground. And so I would encourage anybody who feels convicted by a report like this, who feels curious about report like this, start a conversation with somebody, Start a conversation with your pastor, start a conversation with your small group leader, somebody around you, localize it, because so long as it's data that is out there, you're probably not going to do anything about it. Get it home, get it into your community, start a conversation. That's where you're going to experience change.

Well, I think that's one of the areas where another tool connected to the report comes into play. And that's the church toolkit that leaders can get. Because tucked into that toolkit, and this is@barna.com they can find an assessment there. That's a Barna assessment about a sexual inventory. I think we're calling it sexual inventory. And you could use that specifically with your church or congregation, which I think is really vital because maybe we do hear this report and it's national data and it's like, well, wait a minute, I mean, not in my church, right? Like that. It can't be the same in my church. And there's an invitation there to say, well, why not ask in a confidential way. Use this assessment in the church toolkit in your congregation and find out. Because I think many of us might be surprised to see there's actually consistency with the data in our church. Or maybe it's even higher than we expected. And that can take a national survey and make it more localized to say, oh, this isn't just people out there. Because I think I get that some from pastors, like, oh, I'm sure it's. And it always depends where the leader is from. If they're from a community, real conservative church, it's like, well, that's, that's probably numbers more from liberal churches. Or if it's someone from a smaller church, like, well, that's for mega churches. And someone that's in a Baptist church, like, oh, that's mainline churches. And someone in a mainline church is saying, well, that's those, those radical evangelicals. And everyone else thinks it's someone else. And so if, if we're stuck there, it's like, well, why not find out? Why not assess your church? Because to me, that's where the story starts to get told. As I've looked and, and said, if a pastor stands in front of a church on a weekend and at the service, and really believes. More than half of my people would say they've got an unaddressed or an ongoing challenge with pornography. That starts to compel my heart to say, I'd like to do something. I'd like to help. I want to be a shepherd in this area. But if I think it's only out there or somewhere else or a different group of people than those that I'm leading, I might just stay insulated from it. So I would invite leaders to check out the church toolkit to use that assessment and make it more localized, because that, I think, can compel you to say, okay, we've got to do something. And that's really been one of our goals with the report, is to have leaders and church members alike saying, we've got to do something to help one another in this vital area and to.

Not be afraid to use the church toolkit or even bring this to the surface. Because we hear that from church leaders. I mean, that's, That's. That's my job here at Pure Desire is, well, you know, what if we start talking about this and then there's too many people coming forward to help or we don't have leaders. But the thing is, all of what's. Whatever comes up on that assessment is already happening in the church. So whatever gets brought to the surface is already happening and will likely it will get worse. And so bringing it to the surface, you're. It's. It's not doing anything except for letting you know exactly what it is that you need to start working on. And so to just not be afraid to kind of take that lid off and see what's inside.

It's super well said. The thing I love about the assessments we've gotten to work on is exactly what Nick just shared, that sometimes it's too easy to read a report and say, that's what's out there. But take that assessment, bring it home a little bit, and, you know, best case scenario, your church is the exception. And if you are, you should probably start writing a book about it. Start studying your.

Right. Tell the rest of us we'd like.

To come study you if that's the case. But even if it is, even if your church is such the exception that it's only 1 out of 10 people in your congregation that are struggling with pornography. What a gift to now know that there's this thing we can be caring for. And what a gift to know that, to have that clarity, for that clarity to create kindness in our Communities. And so you know, it. It's a hard conversation, but so much to Ashley's point, it's already there, surfacing. It is an opportunity. It's there already. And our work as truth tellers, as gospel seekers, is to lovingly, kindly embrace each other, even through the tough things. And so I'd really encourage people to check out the assessment. It's a really neat tool.

Yeah, I know our founder, Dr. Ted Roberts, would get pushback from churches like, oh, not in my church. You know, we preach the gospel here. And. And he'd say, well, could I do a survey in your church? And he had a kind of simple tool he would use. And his conviction was that when there was pushback or a belief that it didn't happen, usually those churches would score even higher in struggle. Because what he would see is the greater to the denial. It didn't mean it was absent. It just meant it had been pushed under the surface and no one was talking about it. And I hope that is whether that's true of a church or not. I'm not trying to cast blame, but to say if. If we're willing to have the conversation and face reality, then we can do something about it, versus just living in a place of assumption that, oh, I assume everyone's fine, but maybe on the inside, they're really longing for a place to address this topic. So along those lines, if we're an individual, a parent, a spouse, a leader, and we're concerned about these numbers, and we're talking to a lot of other ministry experts in the next episodes in kind of a practical ministry way, but as. As you think of it from a data and a research point. Daniel, what can we do if we're concerned about these numbers?

First and foremost, check out an awesome ministry like Pure Desire and figure out what they're already doing. One of the things that.

There'S this.

One of my favorite sociological concepts is the idea of proximity effect. Proximity effect is the idea that your proximity to an issue defines your perspective of that issue. Proximity effects actually comes out of poverty research where we find that people's perspective and perceived solutions to poverty are defined by how close or how far they are from poverty. So what research does is it helps bring things close. It helps bring proximity. And now, I think, so much to Ashley's point, these issues are already in communities. It's there. What I would. What I find that people do all too often is when they get the information and this idea feels close to them, they sometimes feel as though they are now, you know, the bearer of truth that needs to go do something about it, that they've then been knighted to go on this journey. And that's actually exciting. I want to encourage that. Go look up the people in your community who are already talking about this. Go look at a pure desire who is already talking about this, who has the resources. We don't need more and more and more ministries because we don't need to create all new things all the time. Go talk to the experts. Trust those people who have been in this conversation, join that cause. And the other thing, I was about to pitch this, I was thinking about this with the assessment. Even if your church ended up being an exception to these assessments, it's probably not true of your community too. And so what an opportunity to then equip your people with the knowledge to embrace their communities and embrace the people around them. And so I would look into the people already doing the work, if you're really concerned about it, and figure out what do they have for you in terms of how you can interact with your church, how you can interact with your family. Second, use it as like I said earlier, use a report like this to say the hard thing for you to address the elephant in the room to start a conversation. And then the final thing I would think about is pick one number in this survey, a number that really concerns you, and ask yourself the question, if 10 years from now this number got better, it went in the right direction, why did it go in the right direction? And do some reverse logic. Okay, that number that really concerned me earlier, the number of men who, when pornography is present in a relationship, they believe it's a positive experience. If I was to sit here right now and think to myself, okay, 10 years from now, we made progress on this. How did we make progress? Well, I think we made progress because we started having more open conversations about the impact of pornography on women in relationships. That probably means I talked to my own spouse about it probably means I talked to other men in my life about. Probably means that I looked more into resources around how women seek healing when they are in those situations because there's been a wrong done to them. And how do men seek healing? Because whether there's blindness to the impacts of pornography, how are they seeking healing? And so pick that number, think about how did we solve it into the future and look at those ministries around you. Start a conversation.

Yeah, I like that.

Well, you kind of touched on the next question a little bit, but I'll give you a chance to offer some more ideas and examples of when it comes to church leaders or pastors, they might feel a temptation to avoid some of this hard data. So how would you encourage them to see a hopeful picture amongst these hard truths?

I think that the gospel is the story about people doing new things and saying what has been will not work into the future. Jesus overturned the way we thought about religion and society with a bunch of stories, parables, and encouraged us to think new. And so if I'm a church leader and I'm afraid to touch this subject with a 20 foot pole, think creatively and think about, you know, there are people around me, maybe I'm even one of those people who need something new in my life, need some transformation, and that hard things are often only hard at the beginning and they get easier as you go. That's not true in every situation. Grief is not always like that. Suffering is not always like that. But you will be more proud of yourself for starting a hard journey than avoiding a hard journey. And I think church leaders have an incredible calling to help their congregants face hard things. My favorite thing that has been said in this episode is Ashley naming. These things are already there. We're talking about just being honest. We're talking about raising up the issues that we're afraid to talk about. And so if it's not already being talked about in your congregation, you have a chance to be the brave person. It's going to be uncomfortable, but to help your neighbor, help that person sitting next to you in the pew. If you're a church leader, just think for a second through, how do I want to change that number 10 years into the future? Well, it's probably going to start through me being open about my experiences maybe, or me inviting somebody to be open. And so I think there's a bravery that this work takes that oftentimes church leaders are, I think church leaders are really brave people. It's a really hard profession. And when it comes to a really tough topic like this, it's probably one that we're quickest to take the out if we don't need to. So I would just encourage bravery, courage and great discernment. Knowing that there's a shepherding role that this whole world needs to go do new things and to rethink the problems. Because the tools we have built, the ways that we're thinking about this, there are wonderful resources in the world, but this problem will only get worse if we do not start thinking differently.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think of a couple responses that for a lot of leaders or pastors this might embolden them to realize this is well worth investing time and energy in. I mean, look at the percentage of our church that are likely struggling with the history of porn use to say, hey, we're going to start a group here. This isn't now just some kind of fringe or sporadic need. Like this is pretty central to what people are experiencing. And the data backs that up. And then I also think about how in a lot of the numbers, there is a silver lining that can encourage the church to be the church. So one of the data points that we're going to talk about in a lot of these conversations is that 84% of adults with a history of porn use say that no one is helping them avoid pornography. Well, if 84% say, I feel alone in this, what an opportunity for the church to practice Galatians chapter six and to help bear one another's burdens and say, you know what, we're not going to let people face this alone. We're going to be there for them. We're going to be the help they need and we're going to, like you said, Daniel, we're going to change that number. I don't know if it's going to, you know, fix people or not, but we're not going to have people saying, no one's helping me, or another. One of those numbers is 48% of people said, no one even knows about my porn use. Well, there's a silver lining. A church can say, you know what? Then we want to create safe environments for people who to enter into, like a confessing way of life. James, chapter five. Confess your sins one to another and you will be healed. Well, where can we create environments that for 48% of people that say no one knows, that's a place they can go and get real and find support and love and forgiveness and not fear judgment or rejection. So when we hear the hard numbers, it's like, well, what's the silver lining here? What's the opportunity for the church to be the church for one another? And I think then that can create the kind of momentum and growth that we're looking for.

One other thing I would think about is our churches these days have a bit of a program bias where we think about what's the program for, that we've become very, very sophisticated in our programming as the modern church. I would actually say in something like this, resources exist. Start small. You could think really, really small. Break this problem down into something that is an easy thing for a congregant. To jump into it doesn't need to be a, you know, Alcoholics Anonymous like group where people come and share their testimony around pornography use. Start with an anonymous Dropbox, you know, an anonymous write out. You put a, you know, check on a piece of paper and drop it anonymously into this box or reach out to us, this anonymous email address just to say, like to have a conversation even anonymously about this thing. Start small and just think through how will you maybe how can we listen to people right now and give them the opportunity to be heard? And so I don't think you need to rush to a program. Great resources in the world like a Pure Desire exist and will help you along the way. But think through how can you listen to your congregation really, really well and give them a chance to. Chance to thrive through something small and something. What is the easiest thing they could say yes to in this? And it might just be an anonymous little slip of paper. It might be an open invitation of hey, I get in front, get in your pulpit and say, hey, last week I read this really troubling report and maybe no one here wants to talk about it, but I think I want to talk about it. And so do you want to stay after church next week and just hear some of the things I learned about it? Even if, if this isn't you, I would love to have that conversation and just invite a listening posture.

Yeah, yeah. So good.

Providing a lot of opportunities I think is key because as you guys do in research where you say you give a. You give them multiple opportunities to be honest because they may not even feel comfortable or know that they're not being truthful. I feel the same way in overseeing the groups department at Pure Desire. I'll say to churches, just sprinkle the whole pathway with all kinds of things of surveys. Anonymous Dropbox. Hey, I heard the service parent thing. Just keep putting the information out there and give people an opportunity to come forward and to recognize that you don't have to be fully professionally trained. All these things help. You don't have to get to the point where you can talk about sex and pornography without blushing like being brave. You, you might need to do these things even though it's uncomfortable and scary. But once you know that the problem exists in your church, in our society, then it makes it a little easier to just do it anyways. But definitely offer lots of opportunities.

Well, Daniel, this has been so good and I hope people have learned a ton. I know I have. As we wrap up today, I'd like to just ask what is one piece of advice you would like to give our listeners that you feel would create change in this area in our world?

Yeah. And let me just say I've been so thankful for the Pure Desire team across the course of this study. It's. It's been challenging for us in all the right ways. And so just really appreciate you guys as partners. And I'm really hopeful, prayerfully about this report in the world. My piece of advice would just continue if research is successful. One of the things we do is we inspire curiosity. And pornography is a. You know, it's kind of funny to say a sentence like, be curious about pornography. Be curious about the people in your communities in a really deep and empathetic way. Research like this is helpful because it names that elephant in the room. But be empathetically curious about people around you, the struggles they might be having. And this isn't to, you know, we don't want to create a myth that suddenly everybody around me started struggling with the pornography. But maybe they're struggling with loneliness, maybe they're struggling. Maybe they have a history with pornography. Maybe they're struggling with their sex life and their marriage, whatever that might be. Be curious about our world. Listen intently to the people around us and care deeply. I love research because it keeps me so curious about people in a way of how. What. What more can I learn so that I can love our world in our neighborhoods better? And so my advice would be to stay curious, stay compassionate, and maybe be the person who is willing to have a hard conversation if it means all boats will rise.

Yeah. Yeah. So good. What I hear you saying is that curiosity can lead us into compassion and that compassion can be a part of what creates change around us. So that's really beautiful, Daniel. Again, we're grateful for you and for Barna. If people want to connect more with Barna and what you guys are up to, what you're doing, what is the best place for them to do that?

That. Yeah. There are plenty of ways to connect with us on our website. You can always. There's some contact us forms there. They'll get you in touch with me and my team. We are always thrilled to see people accessing our reports, either through Barna.com or Barna Access plus where you can get access to these things. And always be on the lookout for more about data. We're trying to do a better job of always of releasing things in timely, nimble ways and are so excited to see the church equipped by good information brought to you by wonderful partners like Pure Desire. So, so thankful for what you guys are doing. Prayerful for this report along the journey.

Yeah. And we'll put some of that in the show. Notes Barna.com, how to get that church toolkit, how you could buy a copy of beyond the Porn Phenomenon if you don't have one. So, Daniel, thank you for your time, for your expertise and for for all of your insights today. It's been great having you.

Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you.

And if you are a fan of this content and today's show, we would love it if you would subscribe, if you would share it with somebody or write us a review. It helps other people hear these vital conversations and might lead them into change in their life. If you want more information about Pure Desire groups, resources or counseling, you can Visit us@puredesire.org Journey on my friends, you are not alone.