FAITH & FAMILY: Mapping out the U.S. religious landscape

Additionally, about 35% of all religious families have one or more children living at home. Faith and family DVD customers for this group include both young parents and extended family gift-givers. Members of the remaining 65% of religious respondents could be adults looking for a good DVD for themselves.

Retailers wanting to find whether certain regions could use more faith and family DVDs can get an idea from the survey. The survey organizes respondents by state and geographic region, which shows where the potential Christian audience lives and shops. There’s an additional categorization of Christian respondents into three large categories—evangelical churches, mainline churches and historically black churches, along with the Catholic category—that can help in identifying customers likely to shop for specific Christian retail products.

Christian denominations by U.S. geographic region break down as follows, according to the survey. To give VB readers an idea of how well the regions are being served by Christian stores, some information on the presence of CBA stores is included as well; such figures don’t represent all Christian stores, but only the more than 2,000 stores that are CBA members, and the fact that some states are more populated than others accounts for some of the differences. But based on the number of CBA member stores in each region, some areas could use more faith and family titles.

The Midwest—Missouri, Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, and North and South Dakota—most closely resembles the religious makeup of the overall population, according to the Pew survey. With a population of 24% Catholic, about another quarter (26%) of the Midwest population attends an evangelical Protestant church (Lutheran/Missouri Synod, Independent Baptist and nondenominational fundamentalist). Nearly one in five (22%) attend a mainline Protestant church (Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, Church of the Nazarene, Disciples of Christ, United Church of Christ and United Methodist).

Nearly 345 CBA Christian retail stores serve the Midwest, with the most in Illinois (64) and Indiana (58), but only five in North Dakota and three in South Dakota.

The South—Alabama, Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Delaware, Maryland, the District of Columbia, Virginia and West Virginia—has the heaviest concentration (37%) of members of evangelical Protestant churches (Southern Baptist, Independent Baptist, Church of Christ, Assemblies of God) and more than one in 10 Christians (11%) are connected to a historically black Protestant church (Independent Baptist, National Baptist, Church of God in Christ). Catholics add another 16% to the marketing mix.

The South also leads at retail, with 665 CBA Christian retail stores. Texas tops the list of states with 138 stores, while Delaware hosts only five Christian stores.

The Northeast—Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont—has the greatest concentration of Catholics (37%), with 19% of the population being mainline Protestants (United Church of Christ, Anglican, Episcopal USA, Presbyterian USA, Evangelical Lutheran Church of America and United Methodist) and 13% evangelical Protestants (Seventh Day Adventists, Presbyterian Church of America).

This region of the U.S. may be the most underserved area, with 155 CBA Christian retail stores, and only two in Maine, three in Vermont and none in Rhode Island.

West

The West—Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Idaho, Utah, Montana, Wyoming, Oregon, Washington and California—has the largest proportion of people unaffiliated with any religion, according to the survey. But the West also is home to Catholics (25% of the population), evangelical Protestants (20%, consisting of non-denominational evangelical churches, Church of the Nazarene, Seventh Day Adventist, nondenominational fundamentalists, Free Methodists, nondenominational Charismatics, Assemblies of God and Presbyterian Church in America), mainline Protestants (15%, including Episcopal USA, Presbyterian Church USA and American Baptist) and 3% from historically black Protestant churches. Members of the Mormon Church make up 6% of the population in the West, compared to only 1% in the Midwest and the South and 0.5% of the population in the Northeastern states. (The fact that the Mormon church is based in Utah accounts for this.)


Regardless of where they’re located, consumers who shop for Christian titles seem to be looking for the same thing. Tim Way, divisional merchant manager for the nation’s largest chain, Family Christian Stores, recommends such Christian-oriented films as Facing the Giants, Flywheel, Amazing Grace, The Last Sin Eater, The Nativity Story and DVDs based on Janette Oke’s books. 

“There are also great opportunities for crossover movies that are not overtly Christian in content, but where Christian values speak strongly through the storyline, such as The Ultimate Gift,” he says. 


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