Evangelical Projects fill Pews in North-West

Christmas has been a time of joy and celebration for many churches this year after heartening evangelistic projects to get back into churches proved to be successful.

A carol service that starred Sir Cliff Richard, Russell Watson, and the Bishop of Manchester, Rev McCulloch was broadcast live from the north-west city of Manchester, gathering thousands of people together.

People tuned into the broadcast from homes, hospitals and even prisons.

The service was organised by Real Christmas, which is an inter-denominational charity, and this helped to increase congregations across the region greatly.

Many of the 150 churches that took part reported that they had run out of seating completely, and that they had to use overflow rooms to ensure that everyone managed to join in some way or another.

'Back to Church Sunday'; a unique service with traditional hymns aimed at the older generation, saw nearly 900 people join the campaign in the Manchester diocese.

Of the attendees that rejoined services, a huge 91% reported to a survey that they would consider coming back again.

The Bishop of Manchester, McCulloch said, "I am greatly encouraged by the results so far which show overwhelmingly that people had a positive experience of church."

However, in the Manchester region, statistics have predicted that attendances to church services over Christmas may be less than 20% more worshippers. However, in Guildford the same statistics predicted that the churches there may be able to see a trebling of numbers over Christmas.

University of Manchester specialist, Dr David Voas, who heads the religious change in modern societies team, found that the fact of whether people celebrate Christmas as a secular or religious holiday varies greatly across the various regions in the UK.

Voas said, "If you want to find the Christmas spirit in your parish church, go to Hereford. More than 10 per cent of the population in the diocese will be in an Anglican church at Christmas. That is three times as many as in London, four times as many as in Birmingham, and five times as many as in Manchester."

Also in response to a report stating that the number of nativity plays in schools has declined, the Church of England stated that there is no foundation to these findings at all.

A Church spokesperson said, "The Nativity play is alive and well. Nativity plays are held in almost all primary schools including those with many children from different faith backgrounds."