Category: National Church Life Survey

Proclaim 2014: Second half of 22 August Keynote Speech

17/9/2014

Finding a Way Forward – Dr Ruth Powell- Part 2

Between talking about the third and fourth trends in the National Church Life Survey, Ruth Powell took us on a tour of the Hillsong website and invited us to compare it to our own parish websites. http://hillsong.com/

When you scroll down the home page you get to a section which reads, 'Free this weekend? Join us in church!' and then shows a page of icons with locations around the world. This website is unashamedly set up with newcomers in mind.

So we'd click on Australia. http://hillsong.com/australia

And what message greets us? 'Welcome home. You belong here!' and 'Find your place' Followed by church locations grouped by state, options to check out the leadership team and options of special events coming soon.

Ruth then showed us the landing page for those who clicked on Sydney Hills http://hillsong.com/hills

Scrolling down you get service times, location with 'plan a visit' option, events coming up, what's available for children, youth etc, answers to frequently asked questions, a look at the pastoral team and more.

If you click on Plan a Visit http://hillsong.com/hills/plan-a-visit/ you find out about a concierge service which (if you fill in your details) will on your arrival show you around the place and introduce you to people.

Of course welcoming newcomers is important, but you also have to take steps to integrate them into the community or else they will leave by the back door and not be seen again.

Ruth then showed us the results of the NCL Survey for what Catholic parishes do to help people integrate compared with what Protestant parishes do. These are the main strategies:

Follow-up visit from clergy or laity
Invitation to join a social group or faith discussion/bible study group
People extend hospitality and invite them to meals
Invitation to take up a task or ministry
Course for new Christians / orientation program
Other

Our Protestant brothers and sisters are twice as likely to provide follow-up visits (a), almost twice as likely to offer an invitation to join a group (b), over three times as likely to offer hospitality (c), a little less likely to tap them on the shoulder and give them a task (d), and four times as likely to offer a course for newcomers (e).

The fourth trend is an increase in acts of service. This trend is clear across both Catholic and Protestant churches where members are more likely to be involved in informal acts of service and church-based acts of service. Informal acts of service include lending money, caring for the sick, helping someone in a personal crisis, visiting a person in hospital, giving away possessions, donating money and contacting members of parliament.

What the survey results cannot tell us is whether this increased busyness is feeding the consumer culture in our parishes or opening up avenues for conversations that lead to discipleship. Is it a case of 'look busy, Jesus is coming'?

These acts of service certainly build bridges between the parishes and the community, but it is worthwhile doing it strategically. For example, why start your own soup kitchen / help for new immigrant service etc when you could join your efforts to the church down the road that has already got a similar initiative up and running?

Then there are many works of church based service that function like non-government organisations and never tell people the reason they serve is because the love of God impels them to. The way forward requires an integration of both words and works, since we know from experience that 'word only' and 'deeds only' doesn't work. A way forward is to get better at testifying to the reasons why we act in Christian service.

The fifth trend is a decline in inviting people to church. Here are the results of how Catholics answered this 2011 NCL Survey question:

Q. Would you be prepared to invite to a church service, here, any of your friends and relatives who do not currently attend a church?

Yes, and I have done so in the past 12 months (27%)
Yes, but I have not done so in the past 12 months (34%)
No, probably not (18%)
No, definitely not (2%)
Don’t know (20%)

The decline is happening in Protestant churches too. Some of the decrease in Catholic willingness to invite others to church may be attributed to the Royal Commission into Child Abuse. It is the e) Don't know category that has gone up and the a) Yes, and I have invited someone in the last 12months category that has gone down, the rest are more or less stable. Overall 3 out of 5 people in Catholic pews would be willing to invite someone along compared to 4 out of 5 people in Protestant pews (with 2 of those 4 actually doing so).

The research has not found any single stand out value that attracts newcomers. Rather it is a range of things that together make an impact. The good news is that working on even one of these values will have a positive flow on effect to the whole church community. For example…

Discover a sense of vision and direction
Promote a strong sense of belonging
Focus on those beyond church life (on the fringe)
Encourage those that attend to invite others to church
Be an empowering leader
Nurture growth in faith and movement toward commitment
Aim for joyful, inspiring services
Introduce contemporary worship
Encourage informal acts of helping
Look after the young
Be willing to try new things

Summary

With the notable decline in society's belief in God it is important to learn about what authentic and effective evangelisation looks like in this time and in this place. Churches need to reflect and to experiment.
Happily there has been an increase in willingness to share faith with others. Since family members are so significant for sharing faith, how is your parish supporting them and equipping them for this role? There are people whom God has called and gifted to be evangelists in your parish. So identify them, support them, celebrate with them, and learn from them.
Healthy, growing churches have been orienting themselves to newcomers. For many parishes doing this will require a major cultural shift and this shift will take a long time to do.
There has been an increase in acts of service. They help build bridges between the church and community where authentic connection can happen. However we must guard against being busy serving consumers rather than being busy building relationships as we serve and taking advantage of the opportunities that arise to invite those we serve to discipleship.
There has been a worrying decline in people inviting others to church. We need to find out what is stopping them from inviting others. If some of those reasons are parish based, we need to find out what needs to change and do something practical about it.

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The next blog-post will be about the panel discussion on what is working in other Christian churches.

Some of the workshops have been made available as podcasts via www.xt3.com

To access them visit http://www.xt3.com/library/view.php?id=17454

Some of the talks and workshops are now available from http://www.proclaimconference.com.au/resources. Several video clips, transcripts, handouts and slide presentations are downloadable.

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Proclaim 2014: First half of 22 August Keynote Speech

15/9/2014

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Finding a Way Forward – Dr Ruth Powell

Dr Ruth Powell is the director of the National Church Life Survey and Associate Professor at Australian Catholic University. The National Church Life Survey is conducted at 5 yearly intervals and the 2011 Survey involved 22 denominations, 3000 parishes, over 260,000 adult attenders and around 6000 clergy.

http://www.proclaimconference.com.au/resources/item/88 will get you to the 35 min video clip of the keynote talk and to the 40 slides she used in her talk. Thankfully you will be able to go through those slides much slower than we did. Some of those slides contained cartoons which brought home the message stronger than the graphs and numbers were able to. The cartoons came from Chris Morgan at CXMedia, http://www.cxmedia.com/ . His work is free to share for personal use, and can be licensed at very reasonable rates by churches and institutions by the image or by an annual fee.

Ruth began her presentation by talking about her father-in-law's ministry, which in equal measure inspired her and filled her with guilt and embarrassment. He could talk to anyone anywhere about Jesus. In particular he loved to pick up hitch-hikers and would take them anywhere they wanted to go – on one condition – that they let him tell them about Jesus.

1996 was the first time Catholic parishes participated in the NCLS. There is now enough survey data to talk about trends.

The first trend is about the context in which we evangelise. There has been a notable decline in belief in God, in Christian identification and in church attendance. 20 years ago 4 in 5 people would be familiar with Christian concepts if you spoke to them, now it is 3 in 5 people and dropping. This is not just an Australian trend. We now have a big cultural gap between the churched and the unchurched. This means that you have to reconsider where and how you fish for souls.

The second trend is about readiness to share your faith with others. One of the 2011 NCL Survey questions went like this:

Q. Which of the following best describes your readiness to talk to others about your faith?

a) I do not have faith, so the answer is not applicable

b) I do not like to talk about my faith; my life and actions are sufficient

c) I find it hard to talk about my faith in ordinary language

d) I mostly feel at ease talking about my faith and do so if it comes up

e) I feel at ease talking about my faith and look for opportunities to do so

15% of Catholics answered e) and 52% answered d). Results over the 2001 to 2011 period showed a small increase in e) and a small decrease in b). What this means is that in any given parish you have 15% of your parishioners who are gifted evangelists. The interesting thing is that the average e) answer for Protestants was 18%. The numbers are so similar that you could infer that the Holy Spirit gifts people to be evangelists at a constant rate across all believers. With the good news that these people are already in your pews, the question then becomes 'What are you doing to train these people with the talent to be evangelists to be better and more effective evangelists?'

To the 2006 NCL Survey question 'Has this parish offered significant training for lay people in outreach/evangelisation roles in the past 2 years?' 11% of Catholics said yes, 28% of Pentecostals and 24% of Baptists said yes. There is a major opportunity here.

Evangelisation requires the whole community working together. You need to think in terms of fishing nets not fishing lines. Your parish is the fishing net.

The churches that have been effective at evangelisation have some core qualities:
Internal : Worship, Faith, Belonging
Inspirational : Vision, Leadership, Innovation
Outward : Service, Faith-sharing, Inclusion

The third trend is that effective churches are orienting towards 'newcomers'. A newcomer is classed as someone who wasn't attending church 5 years ago, and this includes both first-timers and those returning after a long absence.

What does the average Catholic newcomer look like? The results from the 2011 NCL Survey tell us that she looks a lot like Nerida. Nerida is 46 years old, married, employed and has a university degree. Her mother was a significant faith influence, but Nerida hasn't been to church for many years. However, lately in her life she has been feeling that something is missing, and she would like her children to know something about God. She didn't shop around for a church, but went to the local parish church because a friend invited her. She is not sure what she believes in, but she goes to Mass to worship God, to share in the Eucharist and to get some time to pray and reflect. Nerida has been growing in her faith this year, and she puts that down to the life and witness of everyone at her parish.

In any congregation the average population of newcomers is 5%. That's a bit lower for Catholics at 3.4% and higher for the Pentecostals at 11% (Ed. Strong correlation here between outreach/evangelisation courses and newcomers).

Half of all Catholic newcomers are in their 30s and 40s. The average age of a Catholic newcomer is 46, for a Baptist newcomer it is 40 and for a Pentecostal newcomer it is 35.

Catholic newcomers are 56% female, 68% married, 36% university educated, 68% Australian born.

The average Catholic Mass attender is 39% male, 6% separated/divorced, 33% have degrees.

Catholic newcomers are close to the average Australian, at 44% male, 10% separated/divorced, 39% have degrees.

What else do we know about Catholic newcomers?

The most significant people in their lives to show them what faith is about were mothers 77% fathers 48% followed by grandparents/spouses/other family all at 16% and teachers, friends, clergy, chaplains at lower levels. This tells us that the role of parents and family is crucial for faith development and that childhood involvement in church is the best predictor of future church attendance in adult life.

Unlike our Protestant brethren, Catholic newcomers do not shop around when looking for a church to attend. In the 12 months prior to going to their current Catholic parish 34% did not go to any other church and 34% visited one other church.

And what are the triggers that bring Catholic newcomers in the door?

The top 5 NCL Survey answers were – after choosing 2 options out of 10

Felt something was missing in their lives 19%
Moved to a new area 17%
Wanted children to have a religious upbringing 14%
Spouse invited me / I accompanied my spouse 11%
I felt guilty for not attending 8%

Catholic newcomers are almost twice as likely to say that the church was the source of their growth in faith in the previous year, than the rest of the parish.

And what are the top 5 reasons Catholic newcomers give for becoming church attenders – after choosing 2 options out of 12?

To worship / experience God 58%
To share in the Eucharist 35%
For a time of prayer and reflection 30%
To make sure my children are exposed to the faith 15%
To learn more about the faith 10%

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

The next blog-post will be about the other two trends in the National Church Life Survey, and a look at what is working on other Christian churches.

Some of the workshops have been made available as podcasts via www.xt3.com

To access them visit http://www.xt3.com/library/view.php?id=17454

Some of the talks and workshops are now available from http://www.proclaimconference.com.au/resources. Several video clips, transcripts, handouts and slide presentations are downloadable.

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Proclaim 2014: Second half of 22 August Keynote Speech

Proclaim 2014: First half of 22 August Keynote Speech

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