post at
www.byzcath.org, 10 March 2005
I read the report last night, and I recommend it to everyone. It is not hard reading, and it is filled with useful insights. It does not become mired in the "liberal / conservative" debate. Instead, it focuses on the specific responses of people to the specific questions about improving church attendance in the UK. Those responses, in turn, are useful for people in other countries too. The rest of this post is a summary of the report.
The goal of the report was to try to learn why about 60% of the people in the UK say they believe in God but hardly anyone goes to church anymore.
To learn why, a survey was conducted over a year (September 2003 - September 2004). The survey consisted of four, open-ended questions and invitation to respond. The questions were published in a variety of newspapers (religious and secular) in the UK, and the questions were announced over the BBC during its religious programming. The four questions were the following:
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?
The responses to these questions were collected and analyzed by the Ecumenical Research Council. It was founded in 2002 in order to discover why people in the UK believe in God but don't attend church. The group consists of members of 15 different Christian denominations (including Roman Catholic), and it says that it is financially independent of any of the denominations.
The responses can be summarized as follows:
--There were over 14,000 responses.
--The responses came from all over the UK and Ireland.
--The average age of respondents was over 40.
--The responses were well thought out and lengthy; and responses of several pages were common,
The content of the responses can be summarized into five main points:
1. There is a need for apologetics from the pulpit. Overwhelmingly, respondents believed that clergy *fail* to instruct the faithful of the reasons for believing in God, believing in Jesus Christ, practicing the Christian religion, and how to respond to secularism and Islam. The sense is that sermons tend to be about platitudes, or exegeses of biblical texts, but not about the reasons for being a Christian and defending the Faith. Instead, people reported learning about the Faith at home study groups -- not church. The respondents clearly cried out for instruction apologetics from the pulpit. Otherwise, as some respondents indicated, people will come away with the conviction that there is no rational basis for being a Christian. Implicit in all of this is the enormous importance of the sermon / homily. If there isn't good preaching, there won't be good church attendance -- or good knowledge of the Gospel.
2. There is a need for instruction in holiness. Too often, according to the respondents, God's infinite love is preached without any reference to God's infinite holiness. Hence, there is no preaching about the terrible and real consequences that result when people disregard the law of God: in this life and in the afterlife (hell). The result is that people conclude that God is a vague, warm-and-fuzzy deity who makes no demand on humanity and who makes no difference in people's lives. A corollary of this unmet need for instruction on holiness, according to respondents, is that there is virtually no instruction on how to live a Christian life. Again, respondents reported that they heard sermons filled with platitudes or feel-good generalities or Biblical analysis, but they received nothing about how the readings from Scripture could be applied in daily life here and now. Particularly, there was no instruction on how to keep the Ten Commandments. An example of this is the issue of ordaining practicing homosexuals (i.e. homosexuals who refuse to be celibate). This was frequently mentioned in responses, and it was emphatically condemned by respondents. Overall, people did not want to hear only of God's holiness, but nether did they want to hear only of God's merciful love; they wanted --and needed-- to hear about *both* God�s love and His holiness and, therefore, how both points must be lived in daily life.
3. There is a need for good liturgy. Respondents reported that services are often irreverent, in poor form, with useless sermons, and cold or no fellowship afterwards. The opposite of each is needed.
4. There is a need for helping people understand current events in the world. This is, perhaps, the most surprising result of the survey. Apparently, a lot of respondents are afraid of all the bad news in the world today: terrorism, the war in Iraq, the Middle East in general, crime, erosion of the family, erosion of morality and society in general, etc. People are genuinely *afraid* of these things, and they need *help* to understand these things in terms of the Gospel, and they need *encouragement* to live the Gospel in spite of these things. Furthermore, many people are genuinely afraid that the end of the world is coming soon. The respondents wrote about how grateful they were when they learned (at home study groups; not, alas, in church) that the second coming of Christ is a good thing because He will preserve the human race from destruction and set the world aright. Many respondents also wrote that they were grateful when instructed that no one knows the hour of this. Most respondents emphasized that there *must* be more and better preaching about the consequences of immoral and irreverent living: in society overall and in individual lives. Many people emphasized that that society becomes corrupt and God will withdraw His protection when people abandon God and His laws. In short, the respondents firmly believe that many problems in the world, in society and in individual lives have a *spiritual* root --immoral and irreverent living-- and these problems cannot be corrected till the spiritual root problem is corrected.
5. There is a need for clergy to visit people in their homes. This is seen as a way to show appreciation and interest in church members. It is also seen as an inexpensive and very effective means of evangelizing the non-churchgoers. Respondents emphasized that home visits allowed people to truly unburden their hearts to clergy and to receive individual instruction from the clergy. The role of clergy was stressed: they were seen by respondents in the role of alter Christus as well as individuals who have the education and training to most effectively minister to people�s spiritual needs. hence, the respondents stressed that they do not want spiritual visits from laity; they want to be visited by their clergy. Sadly, many respondents complained that the clergy only seemed to take a personal interest in them when they were being asked to make a financial donation. Many others commented that the people should be entrusted with the management of parishes in order to free the clergy to evangelize: particularly by visiting church members and non-churchgoers in their homes. Finally, many respondents stressed that home visits by clergy to non-churchgoers would be a very effective means of evangelization.
A personal note: The chapter on home visits by clergy was the most interesting chapter of the report to me. In America, we do not have this custom. (The only exceptions seem to be Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons.) Instead, in America, it seems that clergy usually only visit people in their homes when a person is very sick or if the clergy has a personal friendship with someone. As the respondents wrote, home visits might be an inexpensive and effective means of evangelization.
There was also a sixth chapter to the report. It included various topics made by many respondents which did not fit in elsewhere. Most interestingly, it included the complaint that people do not treat Sunday as a holy day (by shopping or participating / watching sports) because they generally have little sense of God and His message in the Gospel.
Overall, the survey indicates that people in the UK want to be spiritually fed with spiritual truth --in beliefs, in practices, in liturgy, in understanding the world around them, and in their personal lives-- and instead they are being spiritually starved by their clergy. In response, most people have stopped attending church in the UK. A few still attend church, but they increasingly find their spiritual nourishment in home-based study groups or worship groups. To change this, the clergy must again act boldly as clergy: by presenting the fullness of the Gospel to the fullness of people's lives.
Again, I strongly recommend reading this report in full.
www.churchreport.co.uk [
churchreport.co.uk] After all, the findings from the UK can be instructive for other parts of the world too.
--John
