A new survey has found that four out of five non-Christians in the U.K. do not believe that churches are making positive changes in the world today.
The study, conducted by Barna Global in partnership with World Vision UK, focused on how the British public perceives the Christian church as part of efforts to equip believers to "be more effective in transforming lives for the sake of the gospel."
The findings revealed that 81 percent of non-Christians do not think that churches are making a positive difference in society.
Forty percent of non-Christians said that they do not know if churches make positive changes in the world, while 44 percent say they are not aware of the impact of local churches in their communities.
Only 19 percent of non-Christians agreed with the statement "Christian churches in the UK are making a positive difference in the world."
Thirty-three percent of the general population and 49 percent of Christians agreed with the statement, while 20 percent of Christians disagreed with the statement and 31 percent say they did not know.
Among Christians, 31 percent are uncertain of the global significance of churches, while 32 percent are unaware about the churches' local significance.
Thirty-three percent of the general population believe that the church is beneficial to the world, while 35 percent say it helps their own community.
The survey was conducted among 2,054 British adults, 1,170 active Christians and 302 church leaders from various denominations between April 6 to May 9, 2017.
The report, which was unveiled at Lambeth Palace last week, showed that 86 percent of church leaders strongly or somewhat agree that non-Christians still welcome churches in their community. However, the study showed that only 20 percent of non-Christians actually do.
"I think as a researcher who's looked at the ... challenging circumstances — the good, the bad and the ugly of some of the public perception of faith — a lot in the US as well as in the UK now, I think it can be discouraging," David Kinnaman, president of Barna, told Premier.
Kinnaman said that Christians should not be depressed about the public's perception of churches, noting that such religious institutions have been viewed negatively in the past.
"Jesus himself promises that we'll be misunderstood in our society and we actually don't need to overly concern ourselves with the image — good or bad of the culture. We really need to worry about being faithful as Christians," he added.
