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Christian Research’s English Church Census 2005 suggested, among other things, that the number of people attending church in England in the last twenty-five years has halved and that the decline is significantly less marked in London. Does this reflect your own impressions and experience?
I see the ECC results as fairly accurate, especially where they relate to traditional church groupings, where there are predominantly elderly congregations, predominantly declining. My experience with evangelical churches in Cambridge, Edinburgh and here, however, is somewhat different, where I’ve seen them at least holding their own.
What key factors do you think are involved in the decline in church attendance in this country?
On an individual level there could be lots of different reasons why someone does not go to church. On the macro, cultural, level some themes can be identified.
In the post-Christian West people think that Christianity has been tried and found wanting, and so we can leave it behind as a relic of history; they are wary of exclusive truth claims and cynical about big ideas and institutions. The rise of liberalism has led to lack of confidence in core Christian beliefs, and non-Christians looking on see a divided church, not sure of what it believes or why. Furthermore, a largely secular media has marginalised Christianity from public life, and then there is also the church’s own track record which has often been marred by scandal. These are just some of the themes! And all this seems to be more accelerated in London.
Putting it all together, what it means is that evangelism is hard work. You’re not starting at point zero but rather at minus eight; you have to undo the negatives before you can build a positive case for Christianity. The starting point is not a neutral position: there are wrong ideas that need to be dismantled before you can present Christ’s claims and get a fair hearing. It’s a very different atmosphere and context in which to be doing evangelism than in the past.
Having said all that, ‘church decline’ can be a red herring: how much is real loss and how much is a falling away of nominalism? I am not entirely convinced that we are a less Christian country now than we were at some points in the past. It may just be that our ungodliness is more obvious.
Are any factors especially significant in a city like London?
The cultural themes are all more accelerated in London because London is more globalised, the media presence is stronger, there are more things to be entertained by, it’s more intense. London gets ideas first, which are then disseminated out to the rest of the country. On the other hand, London’s role as a hub, both in UK and the world, means it has an important place in the spreading of the gospel.
In what ways can the decline in church attendance best be addressed by the church?
Church planting is important. Whilst not wanting to go to the stake for it, I’d say it’s sometimes better than trying to revive smaller, struggling churches – it’s sometimes easier to do something new than to work within something with a lot of inherited traditions, something which is struggling but still wanting to hold on to the past. You can be a bit more fresh with something new.
Radical thinking is important too – that’s one reason I love LCM’s arts project at Departure in Limehouse; I’m really thrilled it’s on our doorsep. Even St Peter’s Barge is quite an innovative solution to the lack of available meeting space in Canary Wharf. Obviously, though, you can’t simply try to duplicate such things somewhere else; it’s fresh thinking in a local community and context.
But ultimately we have to recover confidence in the truth of the gospel; if you don’t understand that truth clearly and then explain it in a way that people can understand, you’re never going to grow the church. That can only come about by preaching the Word.
What are some of the significant issues facing the church in London?
One I think is actually money: just the sheer cost of London living. In particular, it’s incredibly expensive to put Christian pastors in the centre of London, to enable workers to live in the area in which they actually minister. People are living out and commuting a long way in. I have seen how it has benefitted me to live in the community where I am working.
People often put time down as a particular challenge in London; I’m not sure it really is. Time is generally about priorities: people still have time to go to the gym, they do have time for things they think are important. We have to be sympathetic to the demands London makes on people’s lifestyle without making excuses for people putting other priorities above things like the gospel and the local church. At our church we encourage people to be committed to one Sunday meeting and one in the week – an expectation of being at two events a week if you are part of the fellowship. Lots of churches are affected by people having short weekends away (people are earning more, and travel is cheaper) and so being absent from church on Sunday morning. Also the business culture, with long hours in office blocks and lots of travel, takes lots of people away from their local church. There is a tension here: how much do we encourage Christians to work hard and do good jobs, to be salt and light, but at the same time help them keep a healthy balance and not to end up idolising things like career or status? It is a difficult issue for many, not least because of the knock-on effect it has on people’s marriages and their commitment to Christian activities.
Islam is a challenge as well, particularly in terms of the way that the predominant feeling is now that to be enthusiastic about religion is something negative, that being radical is not good. People quite easily associate Islamic extremism with other extremism, like evangelicalism. People think that religion is a threat to world peace, and that we wouldn’t have these problems in the world if we were secular: one fundamentalist is very like another, whether it’s an Islamic fundamentalist in Iraq or a Christian fundamentalist in America.
Is there an anti-evangelical feeling within society? Is ‘evangelical’ becoming a word which only has negative connotations?
The word ‘evangelical’ is either misapplied or used negatively. Confusion between ‘evangelical’ and ‘evangelistic’ is common in the secular world (and also happens within the church); ‘evangelical’ is often used to communicate someone’s fervour, passion and enthusiasm, but not usually in a good sense. ‘Evangelical’ has become eroded and devalued in relation to its theological context, while externally it has become synonymous with intolerance (especially in relation to things like homosexuality); it is not generally regarded as a positive term.
But, what do you do with it? Redefine it, or drop it altogether? I think we just need to clearly define what we mean by it. I often try to speak of Christianity as a relationship rather than a religion, and then clearly differentiate it from both fundamentalism on the one hand and traditional religiosity on the other.
Christian Research also identifies a pattern that larger churches are more likely to see growth than smaller churches. Do you find this to be true? What are some of the strengths and weaknesses of larger and smaller churches?
I suppose I am a representative of a growing small church that would appear to buck the trend of what the research is saying. In fact, I think that the increase there has been in church planting means that there are more small evangelical churches. There was not much church planting thirty years ago, say, but now it seems like your average evangelical church is more likely to be thinking of a church plant than it was in the past. We could consider ourselves a small church at St Peter’s Barge, but we still have about ninety coming over two services on a Sunday, having started with a core of twenty-five three years ago.
Some of the things that a small church like ours can do well are discipleship, pastoral care and accountability, which can be more of a challenge in a larger church. In some of these it can be hard work for someone to feel part of things even where there are small groups for people to plug into and get to know other Christians. On the positive side for large churches, they can often do things very professionally, can have larger staff teams, good teaching and more resources; they are often good at training, because they have staff with the time to help train others. One way larger churches might grow is that students, young people and young professionals often like a church where they can meet others of a same stage; there’s a sense that a crowd draws a crowd, and some people are less likely to stay in a church if there aren’t others like them there.
The kind of challenge we face as a smaller church is to have enough of a critical mass at each service for people to come back after coming once. Also, our area of London has a narrow demographic associated with it – young professionals, 24-35; when people get married and have children, they want to move out to the suburbs, and continuing their commitment to our church might be a problem. We’re just beginning to hit this challenge for the first time. Others are on short contracts, and don’t stay long: another London challenge.
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