16 April 2025

A very encouraging report has just been issued by the Bible Society. It relates to two surveys which it commissioned – one in 2018 and the other in 2024. YouGov conducted both in samples of the adult population of England and Wales. The report says nothing about Scotland.

As a result, the Bible Society discovered that Church attendance in England and Wales is on the rise. What is more interesting is that the most dramatic increase is seen among young people and, in particular, young men.

‘In 2018, just 4% of 18-24 year olds said they attended church at least monthly. Today this has risen to 16% with young men increasing from 4% to 21% and young women from 3% to 12%.’ the Society summarises adding, ‘This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.’

More than this, it is the young people in the national sample who show higher levels of spiritual discipline. This group of 18-24 year olds (Gen Z) are more likely to pray regularly and are more interested in learning more about the Bible with 37% saying that they are curious to discover more.

Young people who attend church are also more connected to their community and are less likely to feel anxious or depressed. ‘63% of 18-24 year old churchgoers say they feel close to people in their local area, compared to 25% of non-churchgoers their age.’

Astonishingly, 31% of non-churchgoers say they would attend church if invited by a friend or a family member. This rises to 34% among 18-24 year olds. Relationships are key to spiritual development. The final recommendation of the research is, ‘The Church should recognise the importance and impact of authentic personal relationships.’ Jesus certainly did!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

  15 April 2025 Ever since a definable liturgy began to emerge in the nascent Church, it has been traditional to read the Passion narrative from one of the four gospels on Palm Sunday or Good Friday. It was the beginning of the dramatic arts which emerged with the Mystery Plays in the Middle Ages. Throughout my ministry, I incorporated the Passion narratives in three ways. Firstly, at the   Good Friday service, we read the Passion often from St. John’s Gospel with different voices taking the roles of narrator, Christ and Pontius Pilate. On Palm Sunday, I always told the children the story of Christ’s Passion beginning with the donkey ride into Jerusalem and ending with Christ’s moving burial in the garden belonging to Joseph of Arimathea. This was accompanied by artefacts of the Passion or pictures illustrating the events. This all came back to me on Sunday when we went to St. John’s Kirk in Perth to hear the St. Matthew Passion composed by JS Bach for Palm Sunday or G...
Read more
  27 March 2025 When we arrived at Coventry Cathedral, we noticed a very powerful welcome statement tied to the gates of the cathedral. It read: WELCOME TO COVENTRY CATHEDRAL We extend a special welcome to those who are single, married, divorced, widowed, straight, gay, questioning, well-healed or down at heal. We especially welcome wailing babies and excited toddlers. You’re welcome here if you’re just browsing, just woken up, or just out of prison. We don’t care if you’re more Christian than the Archbishop of Canterbury or haven’t been to church since Christmas ten years ago. We extend a special welcome to those who are over 60 but not grown up yet, and to teenagers who are growing up too fast. We welcome keep-fit mums, football dads, starving artists, tree-huggers, latte-sippers, vegans, junk-food eaters. We welcome those who are in recovery or still addicted. We welcome you if you’re having problems, are down in the dumps or don’t like organised religion (we’re not th...
Read more
  6 March 2025 I have been reading the report ‘Lost Boys’ which has just been produced by the Centre for Social Justice. The headline statistics are concerning – 550,000 young men are not in work, education nor training, 96% of the prison population is male and 2.5 million UK households are without a father figure. In the report, there is a chapter entitled, ‘Families and Fathers’. It puts down the crisis in masculinity to fatherlessness. British parents are more likely than their European counterparts to have a child outside a union and in almost nine-tenths of these households, the single parent is the mother. Among older children, increased emotional problems are apparent for both boys and girls who live without their father. However, ‘heightened behavioural issues were observed in boys only’. A boy’s behaviour is adversely affected by fatherlessness regardless of age. In 2023, one-third of young men aged 20 to 34 years i.e. 2.2 million in total, were living at home with...
Read more