The Barna Group

The Barna Group is an evangelical Christian polling firm based in Ventura, California.

Barna Research Group was founded by George and Nancy Barna in 1984 and restructured in 2004 to become the Barna Group. The Barna Group was sold in September 2009.

The Barna Group consists of five divisions focusing on primary research (The Barna Research Group); communications tools (BarnaFilms); printed resources (BarnaBooks); leadership development for young people (The Josiah Corps); and church facilitation and enhancement (Transformation Church Network).[deadlink] It was founded in 1984 by George Barna, a media research specialist holding graduate degrees in urban planning and political science, for the purpose of providing "research and marketing expertise as a service to Christian ministry." For the first seven years of its existence, the Barna Group provided research services for the Disney Channel, work that provided enough cash flow to allow the company to gradually expand its services to the Evangelical Christian community. Other clients have included the American Broadcasting Company, VISA, and the military. In 1991, the company cut ties with Disney to concentrate its resources on a campaign to transform the church. The vision of Barna Group is to "provide people with credible knowledge and clear thinking, enabling them to navigate a complex and changing culture."Opinion polls provided by The Barna Group are frequently cited in national and international news media in articles about American religion.

The term notional Christians seems to have been created by the Barna Group for the purposes of gathering statistics. They define the term as follows: "We categorize Notional Christian as those who describe themselves as Christians, but do not believe that they will have eternal life because of their reliance upon the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the grace extended to people through a relationship with Christ. (A large majority of these individuals believe they will have eternal life, but not because of a grace-based relationship with Jesus Christ.)"

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