Report offers churches hope
While UK churches have endured unprecedented challenges and difficulties during the last two years, a new report has revealed there are significant reasons for Christians to remain hopeful and confident in the face of the Covid pandemic.
The Evangelical Alliance's third Changing Church Report – revealing the views and concerns of leaders and individuals across the UK – paints a picture of decreasing congregations and a significant drop in volunteering and financial giving.
Yet, at the same time, the research also demonstrates the importance of churches to the lives of local people, as it reveals most are not only managing to maintain a strong presence in their communities with reduced resources – in terms of essential food and medicine provision, vital mental health work they undertake and the asylum applications they actively support – they are doing much more than before Covid-19 struck.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT: despite fewer volunteers, church food banks have never been busier.
Amid all of the trials and tribulations faced by so many, the report highlights the 'average' church member continues to actively talk about Jesus, speaking about their faith to an average of six non-believers since February 2020. Encouragingly, 42% of respondents had invited a non-believer to their church between August-October 2021.
Significant regional variation around evangelism was uncovered by researchers, with Scotland and Wales more likely to be seeing people become Christians than in other parts of the UK.
Wales has changed from being one of the lowest to one of the highest regions when it comes to people attending a course exploring Christianity. Also, younger church leaders are seeing more people come to faith than they did before the Covid-19 pandemic, increasing from an average of 1.4 people before the pandemic to 2.6 people in the last three months.
HELPING HANDS: more people suffering from poor mental health have sought church support.
“The church continues to face a changing, and at times challenging, landscape,” says Rich Powney, lead theology researcher at the Evangelical Alliance. “Yet this is also an opportunity to reflect and reset, to ask strategic conversations and hold formative conversations as we learn some lessons from lockdown.”
The report's key findings include:
- 95% of churches are back to in-person services and 61% are continuing to offer online services.
- One-in-three people (32%) have stopped attending church services in-person – but this is offset by a rise in accessing church online.
- Almost 60% of church leaders have perceived a decrease in volunteering and 24% of churches who offered youth ministry before the Covid-19 pandemic are not currently offering this important service.
- There is a downward trend in relation to congregations supporting their churches financially.
FIGHTING FOR JUSTICE: churches have increased their support for asylum seekers during Covid.
A total of 552 responses from church leaders were used by the report authors, as were 1,676 responses from church members. Of these, 58% of respondents were leaders of churches affiliated to the Evangelical Alliance and 39% of the individuals were also members. The overwhelming majority of responses – 86% of church members and 94% of church leaders – described themselves as an 'evangelical Christian'. The research was conducted between 14-24 October 2021.
Formed in 1846, the Evangelical Alliance is the oldest and largest evangelical unity movement in the UK. To access the full report, click here.