The Sunday Test
By Vinay Koshy, Editor
Five questions every Australian Christian should ask before joining a church. Attendance is a lagging indicator. Discipleship density is the leading one, and these five surface it from what any church already puts on its website, sermon archive, and ministry pathway.
Published: 2026-07-12. Validated by 6 of 6 target-tribe lay Christian readers before publish. The manifesto behind the questions is at /the-sunday-test/manifesto.
The five questions
Question 1
Does this church clearly preach the Bible and centre everything on Jesus?
Why we ask this: This tests whether the church's centre of gravity is the gospel.
Observable signals: Observable signals sit in sermon archives, the statement of faith, and the text-of-preaching pattern across a rolling 12 weeks.
Question 2
Will this church help me grow in holiness, not just knowledge?
Why we ask this: This tests whether the church runs a real formation pathway.
Observable signals: Observable signals sit in the discipleship pathway on the website, catechism materials, mentoring programmes, and any one-to-one accountability structures on offer.
Question 3
Does this church strengthen my love for God and my love for people?
Why we ask this: This tests the two great commandments as an outcome measure.
Observable signals: Observable signals sit in prayer culture (public prayer, prayer meetings), pastoral care visibility, small-group density, and hospitality to newcomers.
Question 4
Will this church help me use my gifts and serve, rather than just attend?
Why we ask this: This tests whether the church activates lay ministry or defaults to passive attendance.
Observable signals: Observable signals sit in ministry-team listings, lay-leader visibility, volunteer pathways, and sending stats (missionaries, church plants, cross-cultural workers).
Question 5
Does it support me and or my family and vocation in everyday faith?
Why we ask this: This tests whether discipleship stops at the church door.
Observable signals: Observable signals sit in workplace-faith teaching, marriage and parenting resources, Monday-morning application in sermons, and vocation-focused groups.
What this is
The Sunday Test is a five-question framework for evaluating an Australian church on discipleship density instead of attendance. It runs across the 13,458 congregations tracked at auschurches.com.au and reads the same on a suburban Anglican parish, a Pentecostal network campus, or an independent evangelical plant.
A Christian applying the five arrives at a picture of the church's formation pathway, love-of-neighbour culture, lay-activation, and everyday-faith support. That picture is discipleship density. It is not attendance and it never was.
Coming soon
An interactive version of The Sunday Test where any Australian Christian can take the five for their own church, receive a personalised fit report, and contribute an anonymised response to the quarterly aggregate. Q1 2027 State of the Australian Church report will follow, showing what the data reveals across denominations and regions.
In the meantime, read the manifesto, apply the five to your own church, and forward this page to a Christian friend who is looking for a better question to ask.
Frequently asked questions
Who wrote The Sunday Test?
Vinay Koshy, editor of auschurches.com.au. Vinay is an active Australian church member and writes The Sunday Test in first person as a tribe insider. He is not a pastor, denominational employee, or academic. The questions were validated by 6 of 6 target-tribe lay Christian readers before publish.
Who is The Sunday Test for?
Australian Christians in the evangelical, Reformed, and Pentecostal traditions (roughly 60% of active Australian Christians) who want a better question than "is the preacher any good?" before joining a church. It is also for pastors who suspect the attendance graph is telling them a story about numbers rather than disciples.
How are the five questions used?
A prospective attendee applies the five to any Australian church they are considering. Each question maps to observable signals on the church's public surfaces (website, sermon archive, discipleship pathway, ministry lists). The answers form a picture of the church's discipleship density rather than its attendance.
Is there data behind the questions?
Yes. Auschurches.com.au tracks 13,458 active Christian congregations across every Australian state, denomination, and ethnic community. From Q1 2027, The Sunday Test will publish quarterly aggregate signals from that dataset showing how Australian churches are performing on discipleship density. Reports are aggregate only and never name individual churches publicly.
Where does the manifesto sit in the framework?
The manifesto sets out the belief behind the questions: that attendance is a lagging indicator and discipleship density is the leading one nobody in Australian Christianity is measuring. It is the argument the five questions carry forward. Read the manifesto at /the-sunday-test/manifesto.
Will individual church names appear in Sunday Test reports?
No. Aggregate patterns only. Public reports break down by denomination and region across the 13,458 tracked churches, but never surface per-church public scores. Individual churches may see their own private snapshot in a future self-audit product; congregation-level anonymity in public reports is a permanent design decision.