Apocalypse now: re-evangelising the North (Part 1)

The year is 2050. The only surviving churches in Yorkshire & the North East are located in university towns and cities. How would you re-evangelise Yorkshire and the North East?

That feels like a far-fetched scenario. But without wishing to be apocalyptical that’s a possibility. A recent survey of FIEC churches found that:

• few churches experience growth of more than 1% a year.
• 4 FIEC churches a year are closing.
• Of those that are still going 46% have seen no conversions in the past year.
• 45% have had no baptism
• And 53% have fewer than 35 church members.

My hunch is that’s slightly better than figures for the Church of England as a whole and broadly replicated among other groups, though some will be bucking this trend.

Add to that: the vast majority of those who are converted are under 25, and the majority of those are children of Christian parents or are converted at university. Many of those young people who are converted in their home churches are part of the 1 million young people who migrate to university every year.

And few of those graduates will return. 25% of graduates end up in London and many others stay in their university town or city. One church leader at a recent working party I was at when asked what the biggest migration factor affecting their church was said without bitterness the biggest impact for us is that “our students all head off to university and few return.”  That would be our experience too.

Those factors mean that churches are shrinking and ageing in towns that send their students to university. Even when they get jobs in towns they will often commute from a university town or city where they choose to live. A significant number of recent graduates who work in Doncaster chose to live in Sheffield so they can go to churches with lots of 20’s and 30’s.

Church planting has picked up steam in recent years and it’s been great to see churches planted. But how many have been planted out of cities or university towns? Very few. How many have been planted to reach working class areas? And yet the North is predominantly working class in outlook if not social class.

That scenario we started off with sounds apocalyptic but it might not be a million miles from the truth. Many churches outside cities and student towns in the North are declining. Some have shut, others are only a generation away.  Leaving vast swathes of people facing a lost eternity without hope of hearing the gospel.

So how would we re-evangelise Yorkshire and the North East?