Let the people speak
A series of articles based on a survey available at http://www.churchsurvey.co.uk.
Let the people speak (1)
"Organised religion is in near-terminal decline in Britain because parents have only a 50-50 chance of passing on belief to their offspring." So read an article appearing in the Daily Telegraph in the middle of August. It continued "By contrast, parents without faith are successful in producing a new generation of non-believers." So the church faces a demographic time bomb!
During 2003-4 an Ecumenical group carried out an "investigation examining the reasons why church-going is declining in Britain and Ireland and the solutions people offer to reverse this decline". How important is this?
A while go I visited a friend whom I rarely see. I knew that she had become a Christian later in life but her husband had failed to join her in this. I visited soon after his death and was overjoyed to learn that he had, in fact, come to faith somewhat later. In a careless and ill-thought remark I opined that that was very nice for her. She looked at me strangely and replied "Yes, but it was nicer for him".
When faced with church decline, we are faced with the fact that the problem is not primarily one for the church, it is one for those outside - it is the tragic situation in which those who have no assurance of salvation in Jesus find themselves.
For some time now the church across the world has grown while in Europe it has declined. Of course there are islands of exception - one church in London, for instance, added 1,000 to their numbers in the first half of this year. What can we do to reverse the decline?
The church is not short of groups and committees who look into these things. Usually they look inwards to find the answers. The investigation referred to looked outwards, primarily to those who had left the church or to those or who had never been members.
The group who carried out the investigation was set up in 2002 under the title Ecumenical Research Committee under the chairmanship of an Anglican priest. It appears to have had representation from across a wide spectrum of British and Irish churches but otherwise seems to have been ad hoc in nature. Trinity's Discipleship Group came across their findings recently. We felt that we should share this with the church more widely. We need, not only to be aware but to respond to the challenge with which we are presented. I quote:
"The Committee operated on the premise that the only way to discover why individuals who used to regularly attend church and had become infrequent in attendance or who had actually given up completely, was to 'let them speak for themselves'. The failure of many surveys is that they are often open to the charge of being worded in such a manner as to steer those responding towards a particular conclusion. With this in mind a questionnaire was composed with open ended questions avoiding the use of 'tick boxes'. Questions were worded loosely to encourage those groups or individuals responding to think for themselves. The aim was to facilitate rather than direct answers. This technique was to promote a higher order of thinking by freeing people's thoughts and giving them the flexibility to be utterly open and honest."
Here is what they were asked:
1. If you attend church regularly, what are the main things which encourage you to attend? If your attendance is merely out of a 'sense of duty', what could be changed so as to make it more appealing?
2. If you used to be a churchgoer, but now only attend infrequently or not at all, what were the main things which led to this? What could be changed in order for you to attend again regularly?
3. If you have never been a churchgoer, what could be done to encourage you to begin?
4. The traditional custom of 'clergy visiting' has steadily declined in spite of the maxim 'a house going minister makes a church going people'. Do you think the demise of this customary visiting role is significant?
You may like to consider what your response would have been before I share some of the findings next month.
Charles Cooke
Let the people speak (2)
Having had a short break from our series on declining churchgoing let me remind you that you can read the full report at http://www.churchsurvey.co.uk.
The issue was made more poignant by a comment in this month's 'Christianity' magazine on some reasons why churches decline.
- Lack of vision for the future
- Preference has taken precedence over purpose - perhaps because the sense of purpose of 'calling' has been lost.
- Lack of recognition and understanding of values - often holding to 'old' values, but no clearly defined Biblical Kingdom building values.
- No strategy or plan for the future
- Lack of proper leadership - perhaps operating with the 'one man paid professional' model.
- Aversion to 'risk'.
Now back to the report:
14 thousand responses were received. About 30% of these were from people who attended church weekly about 20% from those who never go to church. Others attended infrequently - maybe once a month. The following is taken from the report of the findings, much of it verbatim.
In analysing the reasons (for non-attendance) it was thought that there would be a wide diversity of opinions. The reality was an unexpected uniformity of views with 91% of responses expressing the same opinions. This reveals that what many people want from the church and what they actually receive are frequently two different things.
The report summarises the findings in five chapters covering:
- The need for apologetics
- The desire for holiness
- Worship
- Vision
- Home visiting and pastoral care
This month I will deal with apologetics.
Basically people did not know what church was about. They "want churches to emphasise the reasons why believing in God and Christianity make sense and to challenge a doubting society. People will be attracted to the Christian faith if they understand that it makes sense to believe. Today's generation wants to know the reasons for belief, hear the evidence and examine the facts."
In many countries churches emphasise what are called apologetics, here churches ignore them altogether so people are left with the false impression that there are no strong reasons for Christian belief. One correspondent wrote "The Bible never speaks about a need to have a blind faith, but rather a reasoned and logical faith built on a firm foundation of facts and information." This aspect was mentioned in 73% of letters!
Sadly one elderly man from Yorkshire declared "After 50 years of attending church I gradually realised it was all nonsense" But one churchgoer in the Midlands wrote "It is a myth that the people in this country have rejected Christianity, they simply haven't been told enough about it to either accept it or reject it." Interestingly "House groups now form the backbone of many Irish and UK churches. Hundreds of groups revealed that the main reason for their popularity was not so much 'fellowship' as the teaching they provided".
One young churchgoer from Surrey summed up her feelings "If it hadn't been for the teaching I received from my house group friends I would have given up on Christianity ... they told me that the coming of Jesus fulfilled 300 prophecies in the Old Testament and that these prophecies had been written centuries before their fulfilment. To me this was evidence for the inspiration of the Bible and has provided an anchor for my faith".
Perhaps the best summary is "Replies revealed that apologetics are often taught in house groups. Churchgoers want this teaching 'from the pulpit'".
Charles Cooke