Lausanne World Pulse – Pulling Out of the Nosedive in the United Kingdom!
By Peter Brierley
Churches with nationals from other parts of the world (Chinese, Korean and Indian churches) have also seen growth and in 2005 amounted to a further seven percent of all churchgoers overall. Churches fed by immigrants (Italian, Spanish and Swiss) from Europe have grown too, especially since the turn of the century. Seven new Croatian Catholic churches started between 2000 and 2005.
Non-white churchgoers are younger than white churchgoers, bringing to their churches more energy and more children, as many have families.
3. More Growing Churches
The proportion of growing churches has increased from twenty-one percent which grew during the 1990s to thirty-four percent which have grown from 1998 to 2005, as illustrated in Chart 2. The percentage of declining churches has dropped from sixty-five percent to fifty percent, the remaining percentage being stable (congregations remaining within ten percent of what they were).
While this is positive, part of the reason for more growing churches is that some people are simply transferring from the declining churches. In the last few years, especially emphasised by the Archbishop of Canterbury, a number of “Fresh Expression” churches have started, some of whom responded to the Census; these proved to have smaller and also younger congregations. Could these be the answer for the declining numbers? They may well be part of an answer; however, there are still far too few of them.
4. Larger Churches Are Growing The 2005 English Church Census found that the larger the church, the more likely it was to be growing. This is especially true of churches with congregations of more than two hundred people, and is particularly true of the larger Anglican and Baptist churches. Why do they grow? As other research has shown, this is partly because the preaching is relevant (a very important factor), the welcome received is warm, there are suitable activities for children and adults midweek and especially because there is likely to be strong leadership with a clear vision for the future.
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Dr. Peter Brierley is the Senior Lausanne Associate for Church Research. He attended Lausanne I in 1974 and has been involved with the Lausanne movement since 1984. Formerly a government statistician, he is currently executive director of Christian Research, a UK charity which produces resource volumes like Religious Trends and the UK Christian Handbook. Brierley can be reached at [email protected]. |