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    G K Chesterton once wrote, “four times in the last 2,000 years the church has gone to the dogs, and it is the dogs which have perished.” The UK may be approaching a fifth time, and the statistics given in the next edition of Religious Trends suggest that the dogs may temporarily be gaining the upper hand!
    The fifth edition of Religious Trends focuses on the future. The first four editions have all extrapolated the basic figures 2 or 5 years ahead but in this volume virtually every statistic is forecast through to 2020. In the final section the figures are cumulated and then drawn forward to the year 2040.
    Where is the Church in the UK going if present trends continue? Some will immediately reply that present trends never continue, and that is true! So perhaps the caveat behind all forecasts should instead be, “This is what will happen if nothing changes”. This has the implication that if we don’t like what we see, which is often the case, then now is the time to take action so that what might be won’t be! As Christian Research’s unofficial vision statement is, “To do everything we can to make sure that the trends we forecast don’t come true!”

Church membership
So what are some of the trends if nothing changes? We were surprised (and delighted!) that when we asked the 258 denominations in the UK for their estimates for 2020 membership, two-fifths, 37%, gave them to us. While the definition of membership varies from one denomination to another, within any particular group the numbers mean more or less the same thing. Membership figures have been collected for several centuries and are likely to continue to play a significant part in evaluating the church scene.
    Total UK church membership is given in Table 1 where it is also shown as a percentage of the population. In the 40 years covered by this Table, the proportion of the population who are church members roughly halves, down to 7% in 2020, and rather different from the peak 31% in 1920!

Table 1: UK Church Membership

Some denominations are growing
The impression given in Table 1, which the press always picks up, is that of constant and complete decline. Religious Trends, for convenience, groups the many denominations into 10 broad categories, shown in Figures 1 (declining groups) and 2 (growing groups) using just the membership numbers for 1980, 2000 and 2020. Note that Figure 2 is on a different scale from Figure 1.

 

    Some churches are growing. This is especially true for the Pentecostals, largely due to the black majority churches which are mainly close to London, and for the New Churches whose growth is driven by the continued expansion of Newfrontiers and the Association of Vineyard Churches. The various overseas national churches are likewise set to grow further, doubling in size between 2000 and 2040, making the Other Denominations category expand slightly. The Orthodox churches are also seeing growth, though much more slowly.
    Elsewhere, however, the situation is bleak. If nothing changes, Presbyterian members are forecast to drop 42% in the period 2000 to 2020, Methodists 37%, Anglicans 34%, Catholics 28%, Independents 22%, and the Baptists 17%. This accumulated forecast decline is of some 1.7 million church members, which the growing groups do not reverse since collectively the Orthodox, New Churches, Pentecostals and Other Denominations only add 300,000 members between them. Thus in 20 years 1.4 million members are predicted to leave from a 2000 total of 5.9 million, a loss of 23%.

Church attendance
Church membership is, however, only one measure of where future trends are taking us. Religious Trends No 5 gives others. Church attendance is in some ways a more important variable, even though the essential information has been gathered less often. People are going to church less frequently than they used to, and at different times - sometimes during the week rather than on Sunday, and in some churches not at the traditional times of 11.00am and 6.30pm.
    The worry for the future, however, is the cumulative impact of the loss of so many children from the churches during the 1990s. Half a million young people under 15 years of age left the English churches in that decade, and if this pattern continues the consequential loss of teenagers, and eventually parents will be considerable.
    It isn’t just that the estimated percentage of the population attending church drops from 11% in 1980 to 4% by 2020, but that the average age of the congregations increases quite dramatically - from 37 in 1980 to 43 by 2000 and 56 by 2020. This ageing of congregations has many implications in terms of energy within a particular church, candidates for future ministry, and the financial viability of churches when so many attenders are pensioners.
    The drastic reduction of young people in Figure 3 captures the problem. From being 26% of the churchgoing population in 1980, those under 15 drop to just 7% by 2020 if present trends continue. They are already in 2005 down to 16%, and their numbers are changing at the rate of -7% per year.

Other factors
There are many facets of church life, of which numerical assessments catch only one part. There is a long Table in the book which seeks to capture some of the other factors which are relevant to the church scene now and in the years ahead. Here is a brief extract from it - if readers want the other factors and the 2040 predictions ... they’re in the book!

 

More in Religious Trends
These items are not the only ones in the next Religious Trends! There is plenty more.

• The context of the UK figures is given against the background of the two main trends which dominate world Christianity at this time. The first is the shift to the majority of Christians being in the Third World. The second is the growing emergence of evangelicals. These latter are a growing proportion of the total: in the First World because the non-evangelicals are declining faster than they are, and in the Third World because of the number of conversions. The only other religious group growing as rapidly is Islam.

• Coloured maps show the UK’s religious community and its diversity. There is also a discussion of the discrepancy between a high Christian percentage (72%) against a low rate of attendance (8%).

• The overall number of Mission Workers is declining, which is likely to continue if present trends among young people leaving the church remain, since young Christian men and women in their 20s and 30s simply won’t be around to volunteer for missionary or ministerial service.

• Demographic information about the population is given in detail to 2040, and in outline to 2070. The proportion of births outside marriage is increasing (likely to be 50% in 2012), as is the age of first-time mothers - more women are having children after their 35th birthday. Society is ageing: there will be 39,000 centenarians in 2036 against only 7,000 in 2001. Marriages in church will drop as the popularity of other “approved premises” grows, from 36% of the total in 2000 to perhaps 15% by 2020.
  There are summaries of several denominational surveys, and statistics from a number of different studies, including the date of Easter over 6 centuries, the average income of a local church, characteristics of older people and information about Christian bookshops and religious books (which unlike the market they serve, continue both to flourish and expand).

• The usual section on recent research reports with its own subject index is included.

• One whole section details the growth of the non-Christian religions, with Islam set to increase rapidly over the next two generations in the UK.

• This edition also carries the final series of maps by John Whitehorn of denominational boundaries and their relationship to current civil boundaries throughout the UK.

What if revival comes?
The introduction to The future of the Church seeks to look at the implications of the changes detailed in the many statistics. For example, suppose a revival occurred in which, say, 75% of all the evangelical churches in the country doubled their congregation in one year and 25% of all the non-evangelical churches. If that happened in 2005 church attendance would increase from 6.8% of the population to 9.8%, putting the percentage back to what it was in the late 1980s, an encouraging situation, but not a revolution for the church.
    On the other hand, while the decline is real it is not as rapid as some expect. When John Major declared in 1995 that “fifty years from now Britain will still be the country of long shadows on county grounds, warm beer, invincible green suburbs, dog lovers and pool fillers and - as George Orwell said - ‘old maids cycling to Holy Communion through the morning mist’” he was probably correct, and so was George Orwell! However of the 2% of the population still going to church then, two-thirds, 65%, will be 65 or over.
    So what can be done? One major survey of churches has shown that the key for growth was clear vision, having specific objectives, and knowing where one was going. Sir Terry Leahy, Tesco’s chief executive, says that strategic planning is only part of the battle. “The difference between success and failure is the difference between implementing, say, 80% or only 50% of your plans.” Such vision has to be implemented by leaders who are capable of making things happen.
    The obstacles are formidable. There are likely to be huge losses by the institutional churches and a dramatic decline of young people over the next few years. The implications of this get worse with every passing decade if it is not corrected. There will be large numbers of non-viable rural churches with single digit congregations, and a rate of decrease which is accelerating not lessening. Most leaders would blanch at such a challenge! Meanwhile the larger churches will continue to flourish and become increasingly the key units of operation.
    “Watchman, what of the night?” asked the prophet Ezekiel. Unless there is a macro change in church culture, in leadership thinking and in a willingness to engage in evangelism, the UK Church is headed for difficult days.
    Who will fill the gap by developing and implementing strategic, God-given plans that will change the trends forecast in The future of the Church and give the church a future, not just a history? Are there men and women who can do the impossible? Or rather are there men and women who are so close to Christ that with Him they can know, “With God all things are possible” (Mark 10:27), and then say, “Here am I! Send me” (Isa 6:8)?
    Is there therefore no hope? Behind the gloom many will see in the statistics in this volume are these unassailable, unshakeable, unchanging truths:

• 1) God is Sovereign;

• 2) The Lord Jesus is building His church and the devil’s worst will never overcome it or obliterate either the visible or the invisible church (even if many churches are closed); and

• 3) The Spirit’s power in bringing people into the Kingdom is limit-less and not subject to statistical forecasting!

The future of the Church, Religious Trends No 5 will be published shortly at £20 (£15 for Personal members of CRA, £10 for Corporate). To order your copy:
- use the link at the top to go to our online shop or
- phone Christian Research on 020 8294 1989.
 

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