Jason Clarke has posted some thoughts and notes from a lecture on the decline of the church in the UK. It is fascinating reading, and great to get some real flesh on the often anecdotal statement “the church attendance is decreasing”.

One of the major things to note for me is the difference between the UK and the US. SO much of church talk is compared to the US, which forgets that there is a background church attendance of 40% there compared to less than 7.5% [1998 figure] here.

Here are some of Jason’s thoughts:

5. Surveys on church attendance in UK show: 1979 - 12%, 1989 - 10%, 1998 - 7.5%. The trend is downards
6. Anecdotally, the figure is much much lower in urban places, maybe 1%, and sometimes higher in rural areas with low population densities.
7. Reminded me again of how different the UK is the USA. The UK is secular, the US is a religious nation (over 40% attendance/connection to church)
8. People are occasional attendees, the role of regular attendance is gone from most churches.
9. People have their own liturgical calendar. In the country it can be around harvest, mothering sunday etc. I wonder if in urban areas it is around public holidays that are now vacation times. The church calendar now marks peoples vacation lives. How do we live the church calendar when peoples liturgy is something very different?
11. National Census in 2001, optional question on religion, had 71% of UK self selecting as Christian! Was this people believing and not belonging, where are they getting their christian input from? Or is it people selecting Christian as an ethnic statement, i.e ‘Not Muslim’, and a selection against atheism, i.e most people believe in God, and if they aren’t muslim will still opt for Christian when questioned. In other words they saw this survey as ‘do you believe in god?’
14. Despite downward trend of church, 97% of people opt for a religious funeral! Reminded me again of place for connection to our world in funerals for evangelism.
15. Also 20% of children are baptized, another key place for church to meet people. Weddings down to 40% by church, but still a huge proportion.
19. In 1851, 39% of population at best were in attendance at church, and 50% of those were not in c.ofe churches
24. First and Second generation of children growing up who have been taught nothing about christianity, huge implications for our evangelism!

You’d better head over here to read the rest [and/or take a look at his notes!]

Well, after so long I clearly am not going to get around to blogging more from the conference I went to in Germany. I managed two: one on cultural shifts and one introduction. So I have decided to give you chance to download my notes. I can type pretty fast and so they are fairly comprehensive.

Go on take a look ;o). Click here.

Many of you know about our friends Steve and Kathryn who have just moved out to Uganda to work in an orphanage there. As a church we had the wonderful privilege of giving them some money to sort out their water tank for their house. Above is a picture of said house and the fixed water tower on the right hand side. Cool, eh? God bless ‘em, I say! What an amazing thing to do, especially with two young kids: Joel [6] and Anya [4]. I think I have the ages right anyway!!

Anyone up for a trip to visit them?

If you want to follow their news then read their blog here.

Many of you know about our friends Steve and Kathryn who have just moved out to Uganda to work in an orphanage there. As a church we had the wonderful privilege of giving them some money to sort out their water tank for their house. Above is a picture of said house and the fixed water tower on the right hand side. Cool, eh? God bless ‘em, I say! What an amazing thing to do, especially with two young kids: Joel [6] and Anya [4]. I think I have the ages right anyway!!

Anyone up for a trip to visit them?

If you want to follow their news then read their blog here.

Last Saturday I went over, with Ivet, Catherine and Hannah, to the graduation ceremony for the KBCTC students that were placed with us this year. It was great to be there. I am proud of “our”students! They are good eggs ;o). “Our” Pete was the student speaker - he did a good job. He used one of my favourite passages, so I am claiming some credit [he said he got it from the bible but there we are...]. Our Gordy sang a song she had written - I wonder if it was recorded? - if so I’d put it up here to download…

If you flick these two photos quickly you will get a feel fro Pete’s talk:

I promised to embaress Hannah too:

Some of you may remember last years students, here’s the link for old times sake ;o)