Pentecostal Congregations Lead Rise in New UK Churches
Churches in the UK have been growing rapidly, with more than 1,000 new Christian churches being created over the last seven years, according to new research.
by Courtney Lee
Posted: Tuesday, February 28, 2006, 19:55 (GMT)
Churches in the UK have been growing rapidly, with more than 1,000 new Christian churches being created over the last seven years, according to new research.
While 481 UK Starbucks branches have been established since 1998, twice as many churches have been established during the same period.
“This is exciting news for the UK church!” declares Graham Cray, Bishop of Maidstone. “It seems that everywhere I look today there is a new Starbucks full of people. It is great to think that the same thing is happening with churches. Jesus has so much more to offer to people’s lives than just a caffeine buzz!”
The black Pentecostal churches revealed the biggest growth, creating half of the new congregations. New initiatives such as "Fresh Expressions", alternative worship services aimed at young people, accounted for a fifth of new congregations.
Since 1998, the Pentecostal Churches started nearly 500 churches, largely drawing African communities in London.
The Redeemed Christian Church of God, a Nigerian-based group, is one of the fastest growing black churches with 210 "parishes" across London.
The Jesus House for all the Nations, based in London, attracts 2,000 worshippers every Sunday. Chairman and leader of the church, Pastor Agu Irukwu, said the secret of church growth was lively worship and meeting the needs of the community.
Meanwhile, research revealed that more churches had closed than had opened, with the Methodists shutting the most. The Methodist Church suffered a net loss of about 300 churches, and the Church of England fell by more than 100.
Peter Brierley, the executive director of Christian Research, said the findings [of new churches] were encouraging "but the losses in the older denominations are faster than the gains in the newer ones".
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Added: Friday, November 2, 2007, 11:31 (GMT)
Speaking to the Challenge of Integration for the African Majority Churches within United Kingdom :
I have in recent times referred to and celebrated the growth of 18% that Black Majority Churches’ have experienced in the past few years.[ ] Of course we have course to rejoice at such levels of growth against the background of the 5% decline of the wider UK Church.
My concern, however, is the growth I celebrate does not appear to come from the conversion or engagement of people from the majority indigenous UK population. It is a growth that primarily comes from the immigrant Africans and Black Christians re congregating themselves into Churches.[ ] The extent of this growth already shows that Black Majority Churches account for 7% of the worshippers in the UK.[ ] And whilst many of these Churches profess and desire to be truly international and integrationist in their vision statements, there appears to be a conspicuous absence of the White majority population and of other nationalities amongst them. The question I ask is why is this the case?
This article intends to lay some basis and reasoning behind a proposed consultation of ‘African Majority’ Church leaders being organised by some agencies and Churches on 5th of November 2007. A consultation which intends to engage with two set questions:
• How can we engage better with British society?
• Is faithful Bible teaching adequate to help us engage with British Society?
For the consultation hopes to create a space that seeks exploration, opening a dialogue which unpacks some of the facts and issues that constantly puzzle us. In the midst of this process I hope meaningful conversations/relationships commence capable of arousing within our congregations and leaderships a deep desire to begin an engagement and fashioning of a strategy that impacts the wider society and also in this expose the need for faithful Bible teaching.
I would in this paragraph lay some of the context in which we must operate in the United Kingdom. The 2002 UK Census indicates that there are about 500,000 Africans in the UK (this does not take into account the 400,000 Caribbeans). [ ] Quite evidently a significant number of these 500,000 are professionals and well educated, working in strategic areas of the UK economy. This places us in areas of impact and influence across the UK society. Another fact revealed by the census is that Africans are the fastest growing minority group and the youngest in terms of composition. [ ]
This fact brings up another concern that there is little or no new renewal of our Church membership coming from the young adults, the older teenagers in these Churches. Anecdotal evidence suggests that many of these Churches are actually beginning to see the gradual haemorrhaging of British born older teenagers and youths (The 2nd generation). It is therefore valid, I think, to ask the question from where the continued growth and the renewal of these Churches would come from when mass immigration and re-congregation eventually grounds to a halt? The answer would seem to lie in engaging with the White majority and other s in the UK population. For the reality is that 66% of the population still have no connection with the Church. [ ]
As Christians and as a people Africans in the UK form a small minority and face the challenges and difficulties that minority cultures have faced when they find themselves placed in a majority culture.[ ] The situation faced by Christians of African extraction residing in the UK today is not unique to history. This situation has been faced by many nations and peoples across the centuries. The most widely noted are the Jews in Europe and most recent are the West Indians and Indians and Pakistanis in the UK.
Most African Christians though through default but also some through design have found themselves constituted into conclaves or ghettoes of Churches which consists of people from their own nationality or race. Whilst a number of understandable and excusable reasons exists for this trend, one queries whether this seems to ignore God’s call to Christians to be acculturated in their identification with surrounding society whilst maintaining the call to remain uncompromisingly pure and holy? Does the conscious or unconscious separation into ‘conclaves’ indicate we might be failing in following the footsteps of Jesus Christ who perfectly identified with the Jewish culture in which He found himself? [ ] Do we betray Paul’s assertion in 1 Corinthians Chapter 9 that we should reflect all cultures in order to win some to Christ?
Is it not possible that in our default separation we hide our light and our potential to positively impact society? History already reveals to us that a minority, no matter how officious in its propaganda or skilful in its public relations, no matter how many important contacts it has made, it cannot affect, unless it, either neutralises the majority or wins it over to active support of its cause.[ ] And the winning I suggest can only be accomplished by acculturisation and culturally sensitive evangelism and faithful Bible teaching.[ ]
It is easier and more comfortable for us as Christians of African extraction from a minority culture to remain in cultural ‘Christian’ ghettos because we are in an alien culture. But it raises the question of how do we then bring the good news to the 66% unchurched? However, if we accept the fact that cultural identification is vital for the effective communication of the good news of Jesus Christ, then we must open the doors to evangelising with our lives as well as with our words. We must explore ways to emerge out of our exclusive mindsets to an expansive mindset.
For it is suggested that just as Jesus Christ immersed himself in first-century Jewish culture, so we Christians of African extraction, as His followers are required to immerse, understand and relate closely to the society in which we are called to be witnesses for Jesus Christ. [ ]
If the status quo in which most of our ‘African Majority’ Churches find themselves is accepted then it could imply that we are in fact replicating the Old Testament people of Israel who were not sent out in the proclamatory mission to the Gentile nations around them but called to remain in the ‘promised land’ and attract peoples to them.
In other words we could be in danger of restricting our outreaches to demonstrating that through the magnificence of our buildings, wealth and lives that we are living according to God’s word. We could then expect the beauty and holiness of our lives to shine out like a light to those around them, drawing them in like moths to a light or like bees to nectar. However, it is clear that Christians of African extraction as indeed all other Christians are called to a task of missions which is not simply evangelisation or primary witness among the unchurched, although such work has its place, the emphasis is the need to bring people to such a discipleship so that they can learn. This implies an ongoing relationship with Jesus Christ that will lead to a growing maturity in Him. [ ]
In many respects it would appear that this raises the potential need for organisations which by reason of vision, history and ethos is positioned to assist Christians of African extraction in bringing about a change of perspective.[ ] For only organisations that have capacities to reflect a broad spectrum of evangelical Christians and has as its sole purpose, working together to equip its membership for effectiveness in their Churches, with the abilities to encourage their membership to play constructive roles in developing the country of residence, UK in this instance, are able to play such a vanguard role. It is submitted that such organisations should have the capacities to develop partnerships and linkages with other organisations and Churches in playing a more formal role in equipping and preparing their Churches in finding ways to engage more cross-culturally and impact the unchurched and unevangelised in the United Kingdom. One is certain that there are many potentially like minded individuals, groups and organisations out there which this consultation will reveal.
The means and modus operandi for achieving this should be a subject of more in-depth analysis which comes out of mutual consultation and exchange on the 5th of November 2007 at Jesus House, Brent Terrace, Brent Cross, London, NW2 1LT from 9am to 5pm. The enduring test, however, is not the one ‘event’ but the emergence of a process which leads into a movement.
The writer, is a Member of the Boards of Evangelical Alliance UK and the African and Caribbean Evangelical Alliance and a Field Director of Friends International.
olu ojedokun, Long Eaton, England
