A few months ago a report came out about people changing faith in Britain. It provides an important insight into how and why people are leaving or joining faith communities. It feels important to me to see this complex picture. There's a lot of talk about "young people are doing this or that" and I'm always sceptical of such generalisations. Certainly there are trends. Christianity is dropping as an overall trend but within that there are thousands of people who are joining and leaving faith communities and faith positions all the time. Many different things can be true at once. The report is here . It involved surveying 2774 adults who had self-identified as changing their faith position. And there's plenty to chew on in it. Here is my summary of what I think is interesting. The primary reason for people becoming Christian in modern Britain are: Personal connection with God A sense of purpose A sense of community. Life events associated with becoming Christian N...
I think a lot about Art Lester's anniversary sermon in 2008 , especially since Art died last year. In it he talks about the problems of the declining Unitarian denomination (that has only declined further since 2008) and asks us a simple question - have we prayed about it? And he suggests that if we haven't prayed about it, and if we have stopped viewing God as someone you can really talk to, then this might point to the very cause of our decline. We are not nourishing the soul. And so the most important thing we could possibly do - is pray, is to recognise our need for a Higher Power, and invite the Living Presence into our midst. When I was asked recently on a podcast what's the one thing I would change about Unitarianism I said - "I just want us to pray more." Someone later challenged me - what would it mean to make that happen? How could it happen? I've pondered on that for a few months. And I think how it could happen is to gather those who would like...