NATIONAL CHURCH LIFE SURVEY
From the Sydney Morning Herald, 10 May 1997
Church alarm at aging, wavering congregations
By Helen Pitt, Religious Affairs Writer
The traditional sandstone church may become a thing of the past if trends showing aging and less committed congregations continue, church observers say.
The 1996 National Church Life Survey (NCLS), the biggest study ever done of Australian Christian church life, has found that one-third of congregations are aged over 60. But, in a more worrying trend, two out of three church goers said they were not committed to the direction their congregation and could not see a clear vision for the future.
"When you place this alongside the fact that more than one in five attenders feel their congregation needs to rethink where they are heading...then it is clear there is still much work ahead for many congregations in times of such rapid change," the survey said.
The Catholic Church took part for the first time in the NCLS, to be released to churchgoers on May 20. The survey, done on August 25 last year, covered 6,700 Christian congregations.
The general secretary of the National Council of Churches, the Rev David Gill, said the results showed that "the Church has big problems". While church attendance had plateaued rather than declined in the five years since the last NCLS, Mr Gill said the figures showed that "church life has been marginalised in mainstream Australian society".
The survey also found that one in two churchgoers saw denominational loyalty as no longer important, accounting for the high number who had switched denominations in the past five years.
An NCLS researcher, Ms Ruth Powell, said that while it was difficult to say exactly how many people were drifting out of the churches, it was most likely to happen during the teen years and young adulthood. "Many churches are bleeding," she said. "While some of these young people may return later in life, existing evidence about the likely rate of return is not encouraging."
The director of Sydney's Centre for the Study of Australian Christianity, Dr Mark Hutchison, said the results posed major questions about the structure of traditional churches. "Churches will have to look at turning their investment away from traditional church buildings to places such as sports centres and community halls and other places where people can meet in small groups," he said. "We are seeing the church become more of a mediating institution on matters of social injustice. In the next 15 years the institution won't necessarily be the sandstone church on the corner."
A snapshot from the NCLS Survey
Source: 1996 National Church Life Survey, carried out in 6,700 congregations from 23 denominations on August 25
Of church congregations surveyed:-
Worshippers who had switched denominations:-