by slimboyfat 41 Replies latest jw friends
To blame Alpha for the OVERALL decline is presumptuous. There are churches that are growing. They also tend to be the ones who are outreach oriented.
Your statistics, if validated, say that the GROWTH of THESE churches has not stopped the OVERALL decline.
Jgnat,
I did not say I "blameAlpha for the decline". I am pointing out that if the aim was to make a dent on the rapid decline of church involvement then there is precious little evidence for a positive impact in the recent figures. It would be going a bit far to say Alpha has made things worse though! I suppose you could always argue that the decline could have been even worse without initiatives like Alpha.
But then maybe I have a limited view of "success". I assumed that a main point of initiatives like Alpha would have been to stem the decline in church involvement. If their more modest goal was to make a lot of cups of tea and scones then it was surely a tearaway success!
Brierley has discussed the effectiveness of Alpha and other initiatives many times in his books. He is generally positive on the fact that at least something is being done, but he has never found much evidence that it produces much results. So much so that he in fact hardly discusses Alpha this time round in his most recent book of census results. Brierley estimates that 100,000 have been encouraged to attend church by Alpha courses between 1998 and 2005, but not all of those for any length of time. And those brought in are far and away outnumbered by those who are leaving. On page 206 he concludes simply:
Were certain types of evangelism, like Alpha courses, likely to make a church grow? While Alpha certainly aids growth, as do other courses, overall the answer is: NO! (page 206)
Remember Brierley is someone who desperately wants such initiatives to succeed, and this is his informed assessment as someone who has perhaps studied the impact of various factors on decline more than anyone else.
There are churches that are growing.
There are a few very small churches that are growing, especially ones that benefit from splits in other churches or from large numbers of immigrants. But these are so small in the overall figures as to have negligible impact. Brierley comments:
The number found in 2005 includes some of the early results of the many "fresh expression" churches, and the results of the explosion of ethnic churches. If these were removed from the overall numbers, there would be at least 125,000 fewer people in church, giving a total of 3.04 million, or just 6.0% of the population. In other words, the decline of most churches is accelerating. The results are therefore very serious. (page 13)
So instead of the few churches that are increasing providing solace in any way, they are in actual fact the exceptions that prove the rule - largely being the result of the importation of more reliious communities from overseas. Their only real effect is to mask to some extent the true level of decline!
Your statistics, if validated, say that the GROWTH of THESE churches has not stopped the OVERALL decline.
That is correct, but I don't see how it provides much comfort. And what is "if validated" supposed to mean?
Slim
Alpha is a failure, and the other initiatives too
We have just had a meeting at my church for plans for various churches to run the Alpha course next year.
We had a speaker the North West rep for Alpha. Telling us how Alpha has gone from strength to strength they are running more courses than ever before nationwide.
One of our local churches has run the course 17 times.
Another church had 1,000 people attend over the three courses it ran during one year.
Aniron,
We had a speaker the North West rep for Alpha. Telling us how Alpha has gone from strength to strength they are running more courses than ever before nationwide.
But what about actual results, i.e. more people getting involved in the church thereafter?
More and more courses and initiatives with fewer and fewer people attending church as a result is only "strength to strength" in a rather sort of tenuous way.
Slim
Or is it that the JWs are bucking the trend among all other churches and therefore they must be the "right" religion, which is the argument they themselves have often made?
The JW's had a 1% increase in members in Britain according to the 2006 report. For every 100 JW's it gained 1.
From where did that 1 come from? Mainly internally from within congregations, the children of JW's being a major part of it.
Yet the figures from the Watchtower report show that for every 1 they gain they lose 1.5.
60 countries reported 0% or -% thats approx 25% of the countries that JW's are in.
The insinuation that Britain is smarter therefore it is less religious as shown by these statistics is just another lie and twisted stat. this country is also suffering increases in divorce, family break up, abortion, sexually transmitted disease, drug abuse, increases in violent crime and are increasingly in debt to pay for our greed. Smarter??? Give me a break. More cynical, more materialistic, less hard working, more carnal maybe but let's not pretend smart people are in any great abundance in this country and that is why people are seeking their joy elsewhere. These stats. are a sad marker as the love of man grows colder and our spiritual side get's replaced by computer games and instant texts.
Aniron,
The JW's had a 1% increase in members in Britain according to the 2006 report. For every 100 JW's it gained 1.
Yes, pretty uninspiring - especially compared to their past growth. Yet still an damn sight better than other churches in general who are losing 2 out of every 100 every year, not gaining 1!
Slim
Aniron,
Yet the figures from the Watchtower report show that for every 1 they gain they lose 1.5.
That's not quite true. If that were so they would be declining overall! It is more like, for every two they gain they lose one - after taking into account those who have died.
Slim
slimboyfat,
Thanks for the interesting topic. In all fairness, I find you are not telling the whole story, maybe due to a personal bias. I'm sure your intentions are good, and certainly relevant in light of the 2005 WT figures posted recently. Here is the full summary directly from "the horse's mouth" for those who are interested:
http://www.christian-research.org.uk/pr180906.htm
PULLING OUT OF THE NOSEDIVE
Many churches in England are in a healthier state now than seven years ago. Some local churches as well as a few denominations are doing very well, more churches are growing, and overall they are not losing nearly as many people as they were.
These are the major findings from the 2005 English Church Census, undertaken by Christian Research and published today.
The Census showed that in the 1990s 1 million people left church in nine years, but in the seven years from 1998-2005 only ½ million left, a much slower rate of decline, showing that churchgoing in England is beginning to pull out of the ‘nosedive’ decline seen previously. There are two major reasons for this slowing decline: the number of churches which are growing, and a considerable increase of ethnic minority churchgoers, especially black people.
Over a third of churches, 34%, are growing (compared with 21% in 1998), 16% are now stable (up from 14%), while the proportion which are declining has fallen from two thirds to only half (65% down to 50%). A quarter, 25%, of the churches which were declining in the 1990s have not only stemmed their losses, but have turned their church around and are now growing. This includes churches of all denominations and sizes.
However, the declining churches are still losing more people than the growing churches are gaining. The net effect is that overall 6.3% of the population are now in church on an average Sunday (7.5% in 1998), with others attending midweek. A major factor in this decline is that churchgoers are significantly older on average than the population - 29% of churchgoers are 65 or over compared with 16% of the population.
Black people now account for 10% of all churchgoers in England (increased from 7%), with a further 7% (previously 5%) from other non-white ethnic groups. This is most obvious in Inner London, where 44% of churchgoers are now black, 14% other non-white, and only 42% white.
"Christian Research has never shirked from telling us unpalatable truths about church decline. At last they have some good news for us!" comments Ven Bob Jackson, the Church of England Archdeacon of Walsall and author of The Road to Growth. "Decline has slowed and far more individual churches are growing. In fact the data I see for the Church of England confirms this. Pulling out of the Nosedive is an apt and justified title for a report with some statistical good news for all the churches."
"Statistics like these give both the church and wider society the helpful opportunity to look at how church attendance has changed over time" says Rev Katei Kirby, CEO of ACEA (African and Caribbean Evangelical Alliance). "For example, while it is significant to see the increase in the numbers of Black people attending church in England, it is equally important to see where they are attending - in the independent and Pentecostal sectors as well as in the nominal or mainstream denominations. I think that this will continue to have a major impact on the picture of church attendance trends in the future."
"This is a helpful, though challenging, analysis of the state of the Church in England" responded Rev John Glass, General Superintendent Elim Pentecostal Churches, one of the denominations which has done better than others.
Dr Peter Brierley, who undertook the Census, says, "It is a great joy to have some good news at last. Although the overall numbers are still going down there are many signs of hope in the statistics. It is important that church leaders, both nationally and locally, pick up on these positive things, learn from those who are doing well, and build for the future. If that happens we could see the church in this country once again having a major impact on our nation."
The results of the 2005 English Church Census are published today in Pulling out of the Nosedive and a volume of statistics which is No 6 in the Religious Trends series.
~Sue
Qcmbr,
You may be right regarding STDs and drug use, but I am sure you wouldn't want to repeat untrue assertions. The UK divorce rate is falling - it is at a five year low.
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/14/119672/1.ashx
Rachel
