Lausanne World Pulse – The Ethnicity of English Churchgoers

August 2008

By Peter Brierley

It is common knowledge that the black churches in the United Kingdom are exploding; this article looks at how the ethnic churches collectively have grown over the last few years.

An appropriate description has proved difficult to find; strictly speaking, “ethnic churches” should be “ethnic minority churches”; however, this has a negative connotation, so the word “minority” is usually omitted. In fact, white people are also part of the ethnic mix in the UK. Notwithstanding though, the phrase “ethnic churches” has come to describe the non-white churches, whether these are from Asia, India, Africa, the Caribbean, South America, or elsewhere. Some, like the Poles and Croatians, for example, are ethnically white, so that “ethnic churches” is more correctly a descriptive of the non-natural British or Irish churches, the large majority of which is concentrated in England as far as the UK is concerned, and in London as far as England is concerned.

Not all those who attend the ethnic churches are immigrants, although part of the explosive attendance figures has come from the huge surge in immigrants into the UK over the past decade, which partly explains why so many ethnic churches are in London, the hub of arrivals from overseas. The black people (which includes those from Africa, the Caribbean, and mixed) have been present in substantial numbers for the last fifty years, and started their own churches when they failed to receive a warm or enthusiastic welcome from some of the white churches. In addition, there was the pull of being able to worship in ways appropriate to their culture, with other members of their own culture and in the language of their own culture. Now, black church attendance is swelling not only through further immigration, but naturally through the inclusion of British-born children and grandchildren.

Today, one person in six (seventeen percent) who goes to church in England is non-white. This is up from twelve percent in 1998. Black church people make up ten percent of this and other ethnic groups the remaining seven percent. This also compares with twelve percent of the general population who are in these ethnic groups, which means that pro rata more ethnic churchgoers go to church than white people—nine percent compared with six percent, half as much again, giving an average overall percentage of 6.3%.

Congregational Ethnic Mix
The initial lack of enthusiasm of white people toward blacks in their churches has largely disappeared, so that while the talk may be about ethnic churches, the actual ethnic churches account for less than half of all ethnic churchgoers. The actual numbers in 2005 were:

Total attendance at ethnic churches	220,000
Non-white churchgoers at other churches	310,000
White churchgoers	2,640,000
TOTAL churchgoers	3,170,000

This means that there are many churches where the ethnicity of the congregation is mixed. The pie-chart illustrates the proportions.

The large majority of “white only” congregations are in the rural areas of typical English villages, where few non-white people live. The three percent which are totally non-white include Chinese and Korean churches, for example, which are wholly attended by those from these countries. However, increasingly in recent years, growth has come from other ethnic groups also, such as the increasing number of Indian Tamil churches, or the white European churches such as the Portuguese, Spanish, Polish, Hungarian, Ukrainian, German, Estonian, Lithuanian, Swedish, Swiss, and other nationalities, many of which have started because of the increasing number of immigrants from such countries.

Dr. Peter Brierley, a church consultant, is the Senior Lausanne Associate for Church Research. He attended Lausanne I in 1974 and has been involved with the Lausanne movement since 1984. He is former 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].