A new survey has found fewer people in the UK know someone who identifies as Christian than ever before. As part of the Talking Jesus report commissioned by five Christian organisations, more than 3,000 people were surveyed. In 2015 68% of non-Christians in the UK said they knew someone who was an active or practising Christian, in 2022 that had fallen to 53%. Dr Rachel Jordan-Wolf is executive director of Hope Together, one of the organisations involved in the research. She said the findings are disappointing: “It’s a significant drop that shows that our reach has diminished, and we’ve got less contact. There are more non-Christians who don’t know an active or practising Christian. So that’s something really to watch. It could be because of the pandemic as we’ve all not been out and about as much. But these are often significant relationships, so someone they call a friend or family member.
“It’s a little bit of a warning that we might have somehow shrunk the people we’re connected to. So as churches, we need to look out and as individuals, we need to expand our friendship circle and make sure that we’ve got some great life-giving friendships with people who don’t yet know Jesus.” Other findings of the survey revealed that 45 per cent of people questioned believe in the resurrection, and one in three non-Christians wanted to know more about Jesus Christ after a conversation with a Christian. Dr Jordan-Wolf said this is good news: “It’s so encouraging, it’s gone up. In 2015, it was one in five, now it’s one in three. I wonder if the pandemic and a slightly more wobbly world when people don’t know what’s happening, has actually made people more interested in faith, but it makes this an even more important moment for us to talk about our faith.”
Source: Premier Christian News
Print This Post
Comments are closed