Sad news about Good News

Fifteen reasons people give up
by Bill Bowder

NOEL FORD
MORE than half the respondents to a survey of people who have given up churchgoing in Britain still believe in God. Their problem, they said, was with the Church.

In their study of church-leaving and returning in the 21st century, Gone for Good?, published last week, the Revd Professor Leslie Francis and the Revd Philip Richter say that churchgoing “plummeted from 12 per cent to just 7.5 per cent of the population” between 1970 and 2000. They found 15 “discrete themes”.

One in three said that their loss of faith was a key reason for leaving. Other reasons given were:

• Excluded by cliques (about half)

• Churchgoing was part of growing up (two out of five)

• Moving to a new area and family commitments (main reason for one in three)

• Tensions with work (one in four)

• Church was too feminine for some men, and too difficult for those sexually active outside marriage

• Inadequate return for time and money (two out of five)

• Disillusionment

• Hurt by pastoral failure (14 per cent)

• Church irrelevant (high proportion)

• Disliked change, e.g. of hymns (one in five)

• Worship too formal/informal and teaching too high/low (one third)

• Church leader was too authoritarian (RCs) or too unclear (Anglicans) (one in four)

• Church was too conservative (one fifth to one third)

• Lack of boundaries between the Church and the world (one in four)

“Where should our energies be targeted as churches if we are to encourage people to begin coming to church again? Burying our heads in the sand is not an option,” the researchers write. Those who return will need “multiplex” churches that meet different needs, but work together, they suggest. The observance of Back to Church Sunday and greater pastoral professionalism are among the other recommendations.

Gone for Good is published by Epworth Press (£19.99).