Carrying the Cross · Tools

Know Your Context

See the people God has placed around your church: who they are, what they carry, and where they gather.

Compared with the United States

Surprises and confirmations

Surprises reveal areas of needed ministry. Confirmations reveal areas of focus.

Who they are

Age, background and households

Peoples and languages

The nations next door

Each country and language is a people group to learn, love, and partner with.

Work, income and education

How people earn, learn and get to work

Home and stability

Housing, cost and how often people move

Needs and belonging · CDC PLACES

Where adults are struggling

Loneliness, lack of support, food and housing insecurity: model-based estimates of adults from the CDC's Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System.

Side by side

This area against its county, state and nation

For your church team

Five questions to talk through together

Surprises

What surprised you most, and what does it reveal about needs you have not seen?

Gaps

Which groups in this profile are least represented in your congregation today?

Nations

Which languages and countries of birth show up here, and who already reaches those communities?

Needs

Where do loneliness, housing stress, or food insecurity stand out, and who in your church could respond?

Next 90 days

What one ministry experiment could you try in the next 90 days?

Sources and method

Where these numbers come from

ACS 5-year estimates are the Census Bureau's most reliable small-area figures. They pool five years of responses, so they describe the recent past, not today. The tool always pulls the newest 5-year release directly from the Census Bureau's API.

ZIP data uses ZCTAs, which approximate USPS ZIP codes.

Religious affiliation and political views are not collected by U.S. government surveys, so they are not included. For congregational data see the U.S. Religion Census (usreligioncensus.org).