Reasons for Giving Up Church-going

This week, both The Methodist Recorder[1] and The Church Times[2] contained articles about a study done by Leslie Francis and Philip Richter on the reasons that British people have given for giving up on church-going. It was infuriatingly frustrating that The Methodist Recorder only reported the existence of the study and gave no indication of its contents.

The reasons cited for leaving add up to more than 100% presumably because individuals were allowed to give more than one reason. The top reason given by a 'high proportion' of church-leavers was 'Church irrelevant'

The second most important reason given for leaving - cited by half of church leavers - won't be surprising to anyone who goes to church but it is rarely cited by people ranting about church decline: about half the church-leavers said they gave up going to church because they were excluded by cliques.

Social exclusion was one of the most important reason people gave up church-going! What a challenge to all congregations. Exclusion is so easily done.

Other reasons included:

• Churchgoing was part of growing up (40%)
• Moving to a new area and family commitments (33%)
• Tensions with work (25%)
• Church was too feminine for some men, and too difficult for those sexually active outside marriage.
• Inadequate return for time and money (40%)
• Disillusionment
• Hurt by pastoral failure (14%)
• Disliked change - e.g. of hymns (20%)
• Worship too formal/informal and teaching too high/low (33%)
• Church leader too authoritarian (RC) or too unclear (Anglicans) (25%)
• Church was too conservative (20% to 33%)
• Lack of boundaries between the Church and the world (25%)

The authors suggest that churches need to 'multiplex' - to meet different needs, but people need to work together.

I wonder where this leaves small churches?

The study is called Gone for Good and is published by Epworth Press. Cost is £19.99.

[1] Does not carry the article online.
[2] Article online for subscribers only.

What People Said Today

I paraphrase two things that were said to me today:

At a Funeral Visit Mum was a good person. We don't believe you have to go to church to believe. Church people aren't any better than anyone else and a lot of times they are worse. (Female, estimated age 40)

At a Communion Service in a Residential Home All this business about 'inclusion' is something you didn't hear 30 years ago or even 15 years ago. I wish I could say that it's Christians who are promoting 'inclusion' but it isn't. Christians, by and large, are still promoting 'exclusion' and 'inclusion' is being promoted by the government and the world at large. (Female, estimated age 80+, staunch church-goer)

These remarks reminded me of a comment on this blog post on the ‘Preaching Peace’ blog:

I can't seem to go to worship any longer or be anything but a fringe participant in my semi-former faith community because of exactly what you say here, that institutional religion is designed to contain violence; and, I'd add, from my observation and experience, it often (maybe always?) does so by mandating and maintaining circles of exclusion and inclusion. I don't want to scapegoat 'church' and yet I don't see how I can be part of it, either, because of the way it operates and its intention in so operating.

I see that a separate blog entry on the 'Preaching Peace' blog is attempting to address this question.

As a minister, this is an important question for me and one which I find that I don't have a coherent answer to. I know why a faith community is important to me, but it's hard to answer the question as to 'Why church if it is an excluding institution?