I think one would have to go back a very long way in England to get to the point where a person had effectively no choice.
At which point there were various forms of folk belief swirling around, probably not an awful lot of formal teaching in the local church, and people had different conceptions of society, religion and the self.
There has been at least one serious study on church leaving. Unfortunately, the statistical tool used is very easily open to claims of bias, and if you corrected for bias, the result was the exact opposite of the study's outcome.
High turnover is interesting. Some congregations' turnovers are naturally high. While I was studying at Reading, I attended a church on a dormitory estate for London. People lived there for less than five years and then left to live elsewhere with a better work-life balance. The church knew that if new people were not gained, it would be dead in five years. It was thriving. My current congregation has an element of that, with many of those attending either students or early in their careers and likely to move elsewhere. Such congregations have their own challenges even when growing. At the other extreme are churches that never lose anyone except through death. They still can end up being closed due to small numbers. The question is, how does your turnover really fit with your vocation as a congregation? To assess that, you really need to know why people are leaving, and that ain't as easy as it seems.
The problem, at least for us, is when does someone join. When they come through the door for the first time is too soon, and when they are formally entered on the roll is too late and done in such a haphazard way as to be pretty meaningless. Someone missing from the roll one year may simply mean they were not at mass on the relevant Sunday for Fr to stop them at the door, and get them to fill in the form. However, every stage in between is too nebulous. Given that we are in constant flux, we really do not know who belongs. You might like to think of us as a quagmire of belonging. Some of us definitely belong because we are covered in mud (the core), some of us definitely do not belong because we only have a tiny patch on our shoes (the edge), but the rest, who knows? The rest are the biggest contingent, followed by the edge, with the core only growing slowly. So really, it is the boundary between edge and rest that is the one we need to discern, but how to do that? I would say if someone is core or likely to become core, then we know why they leave. If they are choosing to remain more peripheral, then we might not spot them leave, and that is going to increase as we grow.
Maybe before the Industrial revolution when most of the population lived in rural areas there would have been very little choice.
Yes, and I once heard a talk by a Methodist historian that argued that in some industrial towns, such as Huddersfield, where virtually everything was controlled by a small coterie of industrial magnates, 'choice' as to which church or non-conformist chapel to attend was almost the only choice people could freely make.
These choices were also determined to a large extent though by factors such as social class. Religion, like everything else, was highly socially stratified.
I've also heard an historian argue that, grim though the conditions were around the iron-works and later the coal mines of the industrial South Wales Valleys, people wanted to move there from the hill farms not only because of a regular wage - as opposed to subsistence farming - but because there were things to 'belong to' and get involved with - chapels and voluntary associations and groups of various kinds.
There was less chance of that in rural Wales.
I would agree that the 'belomging' thing is very, very important. I got involved with the charismatic evangelical 'house-church" thing partly for that reason. It offered a strong sense of community for someone who was a student and then a young single man living far from where he'd grown up.
It's often said that groups like Hillsongs and other charismatic fellowships are to a large extent places where people find partners before, very often, moving on.
I don't know whether there are any facts and figures or research to back this up.
I s'pose I am using the term 'consumerism' quite broadly but it's not one I'm prepared to abandon because I do think it's what's going on. With all of us to some extent or other.
It's not new and it's not confined to any particular Christian tradition.
Tolstoy alluded to people in 19th century Russia who spent their time going from monastery to monastery, shrine to shrine seeking out a staretz or elder who could 'speak a word to them' or looking for their next spiritual 'hit'.
Such people never did anything 'useful' but simply wandered from place to place skanking and begging off others to fund their religious addiction.
It ain't for me to judge of course - although I am doing - but I do wonder whats going on with people who seem to go from one Christian conference to the next from retreat to convention to pilgrimage or, like a Romanian I met recently, who seemed to want to attend as many Divine Liturgies as possible in a week, both in his own parish and elsewhere at grist expense in time and train travel.
Of course, it's not for me to legislate how people should spend their time or money and a lot of people are lonely and isolated so these things provide an opportunity for them to interact with others.
It's often said that groups like Hillsongs and other charismatic fellowships are to a large extent places where people find partners before, very often, moving on.
But where do they move on to? I suspect the answer to that is "nowhere" as, otherwise, lots of churches would be bulging with 30s/40s ex-Hillsong (etc) people.
Is a danger of churches with "high production values" spoils people for more normal church life? Worshipping with 1000 people, quality visuals and a professional-standard band is a bit different to Mattins at St Agatha's-by-the-Gasworks.
... I decided to make my selection of a church (has to be Church of England, because it needs to be sacramental without being Roman Catholic, and no Orthodox congregations are available to me, to the best of my knowledge) conditional on its full participation in the diocese, and therefore being accepting of both women and non-heterosexuals in all orders of ministry, and of the celebration of non-heterosexual relationships in church, since these are the "mainline" positions. Is that consumerist, because not everyone uses the same criteria, or is it something else, because I'm not basing it purely on my subjective reaction to being in that church?
It sounds like the criteria you describe express values that are important to you. It's no great revelation that we're more likely to want to belong, to feel we belong, in groups that share our values. And while consumer behaviour can be (increasingly) values-driven, I don't think this makes belonging, in itself, a consumerist endeavour. (Although definitions of consumerism vary quite widely.)
I think it's possible for something to be both participatory and a consumption good (arguably it's the idea that underlies things like the homogenous unit principle).
Can you elaborate? I can't as yet see anything that suggests this in the descriptions I've found of the Homogeneous Unit Principle.
In the course of which I did find the following (from stackexchange):
Dr. Donald McGavran's definition of a homogeneous unit is "a section of society in which all members have some characteristic in common."
...
The principle of homogeneous units describes what almost anyone can observe. People like to gather as tribes, and feel part of the group (in). Unfortunately, there are also people outside the tribe (out). Part of Christ's message was to accept all people into one tribe. That part of the message is lost on some Christians.
Which makes me wonder if the concept of consumer choice is sufficiently broad to address belonging to churches in which the shared values incorporate discrimination or bigotry towards others.
...It ain't for me to judge of course - although I am doing - but I do wonder whats going on with people who seem to go from one Christian conference to the next from retreat to convention to pilgrimage or, like a Romanian I met recently, who seemed to want to attend as many Divine Liturgies as possible in a week, both in his own parish and elsewhere at grist expense in time and train travel.
Of course, it's not for me to legislate how people should spend their time or money and a lot of people are lonely and isolated so these things provide an opportunity for them to interact with others.
There is a fair amount of research into the relationship between consumption and belonging, which argues that consumption is related to the desire to belong. I wonder how satisfying interaction is, as a substitute for belonging.
I think interaction has been oversold, personally, and I think that's one of the reasons why the excitement over AI is excessive. I think the need is for reciprocality, and that is where the high production values churches may lose: something that shiny has to have more to it than the shine for an individual to feel any sense of reciprocality with it. The key is that people have to be able to give of themselves, either directly to it or to other people there. A church which is all about the Sunday theatre won't necessarily enable this, if only because everyone goes in their shiny "Sunday best" and is unable or unwilling to receive from the people around them. I've known this happen, actually, both in cathedrals and in very high Anglican churches. The production values were so high it led to everyone wandering around covered in impenetrable psychological varnish, and no humanity could be given or received.
Is a danger of churches with "high production values" spoils people for more normal church life? Worshipping with 1000 people, quality visuals and a professional-standard band is a bit different to Mattins at St Agatha's-by-the-Gasworks.
What is normal church life?
(As an aside, I have been at my large charismatic church for over 20 years and we married before we moved to this church. We moved here from a trad village Anglican Church, not in the other direction. I don’t seem to be fitting the stereotypes discussed in this thread about charismatic churches.)
@Heavenlyannie I think you might be answering your own point: you moved towards a highly charismatic church, not away from one. You have set out your journey, and I respect it, but it is not what @Gamma Gamaliel is talking about. He's talking (or at least, I think he is, and I certainly am) about those who are attracted specifically by high production values, then need to, or decide to, move on, and (or so the theory goes) find themselves unable to accept being in another church where the experience of being part of it is very different. This can happen at any point and for many reasons, but I think it is worth pondering whether there are elements of that first experience which make it so difficult to move on from, and if so, what they are and why. They might be the production values; they might be some other part of the whole experience of being there.
From a wider sociological viewpoint, "normal" and "church" don't belong together.
From averages, I expect there's a binormal distribution with avhump at a couple of hundred congregants with average age around 55 with loose liturgy and modern music, and another hump at 20 congregants with an average age around 75 and traditional music, either set liturgy or hymn-prayer sandwich.
And of course everyone else pointing out their church is nothing like that.
My ideal would probably look not unlike Dibley, as in Vicar Of, if I'm honest. I grew up in something not totally unlike it...
There's an underlying logic of consumerism that remains regardless of whether you move the 'consumption' from 'experience' to 'belonging'. The pitch many churches - and other participatory organisations - make is that there is already a community of people like you that you could join.
From a marketing perspective the transaction is smoothed by joining a community that doesn't involve crossing any significant social barriers (Or in the words of McGavran, which sound incredibly crass when repeated in 2025 "People like to become Christians without crossing racial, linguistic, or class barriers. The world’s population is a mosaic, and each piece has a separate life of its own that seems strange and often unlovely to men and women of other pieces.").
Obviously there are merits of looking at representation within the church, and thinking on how it reflects the immediate community in which it is placed, but there's the other side of designing marketing material and websites etc with an eye on the type of demographic a church wishes to attract (and that usually tends to be young nuclear families, with a smattering of older people).
@Heavenlyannie I think you might be answering your own point: you moved towards a highly charismatic church, not away from one. You have set out your journey, and I respect it, but it is not what @Gamma Gamaliel is talking about. He's talking (or at least, I think he is, and I certainly am) about those who are attracted specifically by high production values, then need to, or decide to, move on, and (or so the theory goes) find themselves unable to accept being in another church where the experience of being part of it is very different. This can happen at any point and for many reasons, but I think it is worth pondering whether there are elements of that first experience which make it so difficult to move on from, and if so, what they are and why. They might be the production values; they might be some other part of the whole experience of being there.
Do we actually have evidence of this phenomenon, though? It appears to be hearsay.
Not entirely. I've seen it happen, and nearly done it myself. I can't point you to research, but then only certain positions attract money at the moment. Research only happens when someone is willing to pay for it - I'm sure I don't have to tell you this, but it does seem to be forgotten by a lot of fans of the "evidence-based" - the funding playing-field is NOT level.
The concept of "resource churches" is entirely untested in terms of its long-term efficacy, but that doesn't stop the church chucking vast amounts of money at it.
@Heavenlyannie I think you might be answering your own point: you moved towards a highly charismatic church, not away from one. You have set out your journey, and I respect it, but it is not what @Gamma Gamaliel is talking about. He's talking (or at least, I think he is, and I certainly am) about those who are attracted specifically by high production values, then need to, or decide to, move on, and (or so the theory goes) find themselves unable to accept being in another church where the experience of being part of it is very different. This can happen at any point and for many reasons, but I think it is worth pondering whether there are elements of that first experience which make it so difficult to move on from, and if so, what they are and why. They might be the production values; they might be some other part of the whole experience of being there.
Do we actually have evidence of this phenomenon, though? It appears to be hearsay.
I cited an example in the OP. People apparently moving from what had been seen as the 'happening' church in a town I know to another that was apparently becoming the 'happening' church in that town.
Incidentally, I'm thinking aloud and going on observations.
I don't just go on hearsay and what I'm saying can be applied to other settings and not only charismatic evangelical ones. Heck, I've given examples from my own Tradition.
So please don't assume I'm singling out churches like yours, @Heavenlyannie. I'm not.
There's not a lot of research around this sort of thing but I can remember talk of 'revolving door' syndromes back in the '90s.
What I would recognise as hearsay is the oft-repeated charge that people find partners in Hillsongs style churches then 'move on.'
As @Baptist Trainfan says, if this is the case then they must be disappearing into the ether.
I've not met many ex-Hillsongs people in other churches. It may be that some of them drop out of church involvement entirely but there are no reliable figures for that as far as I am aware.
I have met plenty of former broadly charismatic evangelical people in other settings, whether liberal or more sacramental but I wouldn't hazard a guess as to what proportion of the total that represents.
As has been said, people head in a charismatic evangelical direction too, as well as away from it.
I once read that there are more former charismatics in the RC Church than current participants in RC charismatic renewal.
I can't comment on that as I have very little experience of charismatic Catholics.
I would stress again that I am thinking aloud about these matters and not sitting in judgement on any particular movement, church or denomination.
The bottom-line for me, whatever my own proclivities in theology, worship style and so on, is that we have 'intentional' Christian communities of whatever kind - be they organised in a congregational way, or a confessional way or whether they are sketes, monasteries or however else.
I s'pose that involves a judgement of some kind but as I've repeatedly said - seemingly to no avail - that I'm not making value judgements about where or how individual Shipmates choose to worship.
It's a little difficult to find studies, because the various Church of England sites are quite badly organised in terms of presenting reports but starting here:
Page 3, would show that the largest proportion of attendees in the 25 resource churches under consideration come from other churches (38%), with an additional 10% attending in addition to their existing church.
"the ‘Who’s there’ research published by the Church Army and commissioned by the
SDU, suggests that 59% of disciples in Fresh Expressions of Church are from existing churches (not necessarily the Church of England) of whom about 40% continued to also attend their existing church" (page 28)
I've not met many ex-Hillsongs people in other churches. It may be that some of them drop out of church involvement entirely but there are no reliable figures for that as far as I am aware.
My indirect experience of Hillsongs is that the churches tend to be dominated by NZ/Aus folk on their OE and expats who may be working abroad for a few years. The people I know who remained in the UK by and large married someone who lived here (though some mixed origin couples moved to Aus/NZ), and usually attend local charismatic churches as they started families and so on. I'm not sure how often being ex-Hillsongs would come up in conversations.
Not entirely. I've seen it happen, and nearly done it myself. I can't point you to research, but then only certain positions attract money at the moment. Research only happens when someone is willing to pay for it - I'm sure I don't have to tell you this, but it does seem to be forgotten by a lot of fans of the "evidence-based" - the funding playing-field is NOT level.
The concept of "resource churches" is entirely untested in terms of its long-term efficacy, but that doesn't stop the church chucking vast amounts of money at it.
As a professional qualitative researcher I totally agree. All sorts of interesting research isn’t done, simply because you do the research you’re paid for. Which means both the evidence base and the decision making process are inevitably coloured.
There's an underlying logic of consumerism that remains regardless of whether you move the 'consumption' from 'experience' to 'belonging'. The pitch many churches - and other participatory organisations - make is that there is already a community of people like you that you could join.
Thanks. Part of the logic of consumerism being that consumption is related to the desire to belong, making a switch between the consumption of "experience" and "belonging" isn't quite that straightforward. I think there's still something to be gained from looking at this in terms of churches operating in a marketplace, but it won't capture the question of belonging very well.
From a marketing perspective the transaction is smoothed by joining a community that doesn't involve crossing any significant social barriers (Or in the words of McGavran, which sound incredibly crass when repeated in 2025 "People like to become Christians without crossing racial, linguistic, or class barriers. The world’s population is a mosaic, and each piece has a separate life of its own that seems strange and often unlovely to men and women of other pieces.").
Obviously there are merits of looking at representation within the church, and thinking on how it reflects the immediate community in which it is placed, but there's the other side of designing marketing material and websites etc with an eye on the type of demographic a church wishes to attract (and that usually tends to be young nuclear families, with a smattering of older people).
I note that McGavran's principle (and the Church Growth Movement) has in more recent times come in for an amount of criticism, including for the assumption that a church's success (in God's economy) can be measured in terms of numerical growth.
I don't understand why so many people seem to be wanting to critically examine other people's religious habits.
It's kind of why this site exists. From the Ancient history part of the FAQs:
What is Ship of Fools about?
The subtitle of the site is ‘the magazine of Christian unrest’, which is the flag we sail under. The ship is here to provide space for Christians to look at their faith critically...
I do think that people are generalising about charismatic evangelicals in a way that they wouldn't generalise about other traditions. I think comparing the average suburban charismatic evangelical church to Hillsong is a mistake - I don't think that the so-called "high production values" in the average suburban (or indeed urban) charismatic evangelical church are anywhere near the spectacle people are labelling them as, or a particularly big draw in and of themselves. There's a huge mix of factors. The issues of Holy Trinity Brompton type "resource churches" in the CoE is also completely unrelated to independent charismatic churches who have nothing to do with HTB and whose success or failure is not connected.
In my experience, 9 times out of 10 people are drawn to auxiliary activities like children's groups, church-run cafés, English language classes etc - or having things on at Christmas, especially if a lot of churches locally don't do much at Christmas outside of Sunday services. A lot of churches (of all different types) either don't run anything like that or do so in a very shoddy and amateurish way. I will say that one area in which a lot of charismatic evangelical churches do have an advantage is not usually having the burden of an expensive listed building - new buildings that can easily be made accessible with toilets etc from the start are definitely a benefit.
There's an underlying logic of consumerism that remains regardless of whether you move the 'consumption' from 'experience' to 'belonging'. The pitch many churches - and other participatory organisations - make is that there is already a community of people like you that you could join.
Thanks. Part of the logic of consumerism being that consumption is related to the desire to belong, making a switch between the consumption of "experience" and "belonging" isn't quite that straightforward.
I'm not sure that's true; once people think in somewhat transactional terms about how they spend their time, we are more than halfway there. There's the parallel trend of thinking of oneself as a kind of investment portfolio, and program orientated churches deliberately tap into that trend.
I note that McGavran's principle (and the Church Growth Movement) has in more recent times come in for an amount of criticism, including for the assumption that a church's success (in God's economy) can be measured in terms of numerical growth.
It's true that churches are unlikely to set themselves up along the lines of the McGavran quote above, but these things are embedded quite deeply, and existing church movements are anyway getting McGavran second hand via places like Willow Creek/Saddleback etc. and there's a lag between critique and practice. Even if there isn't an explicit focus on numbers, it tends to creep back via concepts like 'viability' and the fact that church planting movements tend to be run along the same time frames as startups (there are some interesting parallels between church movements and contemporary business thinking).
I don't think that the so-called "high production values" in the average suburban (or indeed urban) charismatic evangelical church are anywhere near the spectacle people are labelling them as, or a particularly big draw in and of themselves.
It's not that they are a draw in themselves, but that e.g middle-of-the-road music with reasonable competent musicians becomes the bar, against which one person on a piano is a turn off.
I'd also argue that auxiliary activities run well constitute 'high production values' in themselves (and they either require a lot of volunteers and/or additional staff, both of which map to larger congregations).
The issues of Holy Trinity Brompton type "resource churches" in the CoE is also completely unrelated to independent charismatic churches who have nothing to do with HTB and whose success or failure is not connected.
Those just happened to be reports I could easily dig up, independent charismatic churches don't operate in a completely dissimilar manner btw, they are often drawing from the same set of thinking when it comes to how they operate, grow and plant new churches.
I don't think that the so-called "high production values" in the average suburban (or indeed urban) charismatic evangelical church are anywhere near the spectacle people are labelling them as, or a particularly big draw in and of themselves.
It's not that they are a draw in themselves, but that e.g middle-of-the-road music with reasonable competent musicians becomes the bar, against which one person on a piano is a turn off.
I'd also argue that auxiliary activities run well constitute 'high production values' in themselves (and they either require a lot of volunteers and/or additional staff, both of which map to larger congregations).
@Pomona, I only cited Hillsong as I've heard people make the claim I commented on. I made no comparison between them and your average suburban charismatic evangelical church.
I also dismissed the claim as hearsay.
I wish people would read what I write rather than what they assume I've written.
Perhaps the onus is on me to make myself clearer.
I repeat. I am not making generalisations about charismatic evangelical churches, a tradition I know well as a former participant and now as an outside observer.
I do know what I'm talking about, although my exposure to this particular scene is less now than it was in the past. I am not 'knocking' it. I am examining it. I also hold my own Tradition up to scrutiny.
I agree with @chrisstiles's observations about 'production values' extending to the kind of auxilliary activities mentioned. Churches of this kind are very good at running social or outreach programmes such as debt counselling, food banks and so on and that's great.
It does take a lot of time, effort and resource. In the church I had in mind on one of my visits they devoted the time usually allocated for the sermon to a presentation about these activities and an appeal for volunteers.
I am grateful to @chrisstiles for taking the time and effort to look up facts and figures. I can't 'prove' this but my impression in the instance I'm referring to is that most of newcomers are transfers from other churches but with a number of new converts from unchurched backgrounds or among asylum seekers who have had some kind of contact with the social/auxiliary programmes.
Back in my restorationist 'new church' days we had a goodly number of converts too, mainly friends, relatives or people who'd started to 'go out' with members of the church - even though 'dating' non-Christians was discouraged.
We did have people come along who were contacted through the various 'auxilliary' initiatives we pursued, sometimes badly, sometimes very professionally.
Looking back, we had very few converts from full-on evangelistic activity. But we did have a good number of conversions that stood the test of time.
That particular church no longer exists. It folded a few years ago. Most of the core members haven't disappeared into the ether but are still involved with churches of one form or another.
So then invest in programmes the local community actually needs. Have competant musicians (surely this should just be the default?). It's not rocket science.
@chrisstiles I don't see how what you describe is materially different to those attending Anglo-Catholic shrine churches for the pageantry there.
So then invest in programmes the local community actually needs. Have competent musicians (surely this should just be the default?). It's not rocket science.
I'm no expert on Anglo-Catholic parishes but I do know one in South Wales that attracts people from a wide area rather than its own doorstep on account of its pageantry and 'high-production values.'
Literally 'High' ...
I don't think anyone here is saying, 'Anglo-Catholic pageantry = good' / 'Contemporary worship songs and bands = bad' - wherever our particular sympathies lie or our own preferences.
The issue is 'consumerism' and I'm saying that none of us are immune to that and yes, of course it exists in more sacramental and liturgical churches as well as 'seeker-friendly' or 'contemporary' ones.
Nobody has said otherwise.
I'm increasingly of the opinion that few people are actually reading this thread properly and are getting the wrong end of the stick.
The issue is 'consumerism' and I'm saying that none of us are immune to that and yes, of course it exists in more sacramental and liturgical churches as well as 'seeker-friendly' or 'contemporary' ones.
Nobody has said otherwise.
I'm increasingly of the opinion that few people are actually reading this thread properly and are getting the wrong end of the stick.
Perhaps it's me ...
I think what we're doing is disagreeing with each other, which is kind of traditional for Purgatory.
And you're making a number of assertions and assumptions.
The subject of the thread is "Consumerism and Christianity", but what
you're talking about is consumerism and churchgoing, which in turn seems to assume a certain correspondence between belief and practice in relation to churchgoing.
We need the freedom to worship wherever we please, or where God leads us - which might not always be the same ...
Why do we need the freedom to worship wherever we please?
The issue is 'consumerism' and I'm saying that none of us are immune to that
Consumerism in relation to churchgoing is eminently avoidable. Most of the churchgoers that I know continue attending their local parish church for the simple reason that it's their local parish church.
Hmmm ... perhaps. But, in cities at any right, parish churches vary hugely. One may be top-of-the-candle Anglo-Catholic, another "traditional Low Church", another happy-clappy evangelical, another 1970s-trendy liberal (etc). If they are relatively near each other, and transport is available, people will go where they wish.
If each parish church could - somehow! - satisfy everyone, that would be a different story.
Ok. I accept that the OP would have been better worded 'Consumerism and Churchgoing' rather than 'Consumerism and Christianity.'
Why is freedom of religion a good thing?
Well, look at the alternatives.
On the thing about most church-goers attending their local parish because it's the nearest ...
I don't think that generally applied any longer. For one thing it assumes that those church-goers are Anglican. For another, I know plenty of people here who live closer to one or the other of the two Anglican churches in this town but who who choose not to go to the closest but to the one further away.
Equally, I know people who travel outside of our small town to attend rural parishes which offer more traditional forms of service.
There are also people from surrounding villages who come into town because they want something different to what's on offer in their village parish church.
Heck, I even know RCs who travel to other towns because they prefer the priest there.
And that's before I even start to think about the non-conformist churches.
I cross-posted with @Baptist Trainfan and would say that what he describes no longer applies only to cities.
We are hardly a city here and the parish system doesn't function the way @Pease describes. Heck, even in rural Herefordshire according to a vicar friend, people travel for their church of choice rather than attending their village parish church or non-conformist chapel.
Walking to church, in a city famous for its number of church buildings, I can only practicably get to five C of E churches, one RC, one Methodist and one Baptist church. That envisages a walk of no more than two miles. My point is that choice isn't infinite, unless you're in the City of London or somewhere like that. Or at least it isn't if you don't have a car. Public transport in the UK is pretty terrible on Sundays outside very major cities. Even in the Fine City it's pretty dreadful.
If I have a Sunday "off", do I go to the ecumenical church round the corner which I can see out of my bedroom window? No, I drive to Newport Cathedral 10 miles away.
Enough said (though I might do differently when I retire).
So then invest in programmes the local community actually needs. Have competant musicians (surely this should just be the default?). It's not rocket science. <snip>
It might as well be. Many small town/ large village churches have very sparse resources for investing, and are dependent for music on volunteers of varying competence. I’d have given my eye teeth any time in the last twenty plus years for competent musicians who could do a bit more than just support the singing of a range of familiar music.
And as custodians of a listed building that needs something in the order of £1M work done on it, and an annual turnover of under £100K, more than half of which goes towards the cost of local ministry, resources are a continual challenge.
Hmmm ... perhaps. But, in cities at any right, parish churches vary hugely. One may be top-of-the-candle Anglo-Catholic, another "traditional Low Church", another happy-clappy evangelical, another 1970s-trendy liberal (etc). If they are relatively near each other, and transport is available, people will go where they wish.
If each parish church could - somehow! - satisfy everyone, that would be a different story.
Out in the sticks they cluster however. We're right in the middle of Anglo-Catholic FiF land here as far as the CofE is concerned. One reason our current church home is URC.
So then invest in programmes the local community actually needs. Have competent musicians (surely this should just be the default?). It's not rocket science. <snip>
It might as well be. Many small town/ large village churches have very sparse resources for investing, and are dependent for music on volunteers of varying competence. I’d have given my eye teeth any time in the last twenty plus years for competent musicians who could do a bit more than just support the singing of a range of familiar music.
We have no musicians at all and have to rely on recorded backing tracks.
And as custodians of a listed building that needs something in the order of £1M work done on it, and an annual turnover of under £100K, more than half of which goes towards the cost of local ministry, resources are a continual challenge.
Not my current situation, but I've been there in the past.
"Consumerism" has a perjorative and judgemental ring that I don't like. People have emotional needs and strongly held theological positions that inform the kinds of churches they attend, and these are a long way from the short-term, wasteful and superficial connotations of consumerism.
"freedom of religion" is a fundamental human right, a secular liberal principle, that refers to allowing people of different faiths (or of no faith) freedom to worship (or not worship) without fear of discrimination or persecution. It is unrelated to consumer choice, so is not what I understand you to be referring to when you write "we need the freedom to worship wherever we please", in the context of Christian churchgoing.
On the thing about most church-goers attending their local parish because it's the nearest ...
My comment was about most of the churchgoers that I know. I was relating my personal experience, of the people I know who are regular churchgoers attending their local parish church (which isn't always the nearest).
Hmmm ... perhaps. But, in cities at any right, parish churches vary hugely. One may be top-of-the-candle Anglo-Catholic, another "traditional Low Church", another happy-clappy evangelical, another 1970s-trendy liberal (etc). If they are relatively near each other, and transport is available, people will go where they wish.
If each parish church could - somehow! - satisfy everyone, that would be a different story.
A good proportion of the churchgoers I know only occasionally find their local parish churches satisfying - this isn't why they keep going. From what I've been able to gather about their reasons, I would identify a mix of factors (not often articulated very coherently), including the following:
A sense of duty - that Christians are called to worship in their local church.
A parochial understanding of church - that church is where Christians in a given locality gather together to worship, or that "church" comprises the Christians in a given locality (typically in more ecumenical contexts).
A belief that churches exist to serve and witness to their local community.
A somewhat existential fear that if they stop going, the church will close, Christian service and witness will diminish, and that their local community will suffer.
I think some of these overlap with comments that you and others have made.
"Consumerism" has a perjorative and judgemental ring that I don't like. People have emotional needs and strongly held theological positions that inform the kinds of churches they attend, and these are a long way from the short-term, wasteful and superficial connotations of consumerism.
Given that this website once achieved some notoriety for the idea and implementation of "the Mystery Worshipper", I think it's worth considering what Steve and Simon had in mind...
One of our reporters put into words why so many people have signed up for the project: ‘For me, your Mystery Worshipper campaign is a brilliantly positive way to find out exactly what is wrong with the church and put it right. And I would like to be a part of that. I want to be inspired again. And it seems like getting involved in something like this – instead of just staying at home and bellyaching – is exactly the right thing to do.’
As I read it, it was about using a consumer tool to pursue the more unrestful aims of the site, rather than enabling Christians to make consumer choices.
Apologies Alan29, this really isn't intended to be criticism of your post.
Sure. Have you a better suggestion for a term other than 'consumerism'?
I agree that it's pejorative but we live in a Western consumerist society. We can't escape it.
I'm not sure what term to use though, for poor or developing countries. I visited Madagascar last year, one of the five poorest nations on earth. Grinding poverty. Many people at subsistence level and 75% of the population deemed to be in 'extreme poverty.'
By 'extreme', I mean extreme.
Yet in almost every small town there were at least half-a-dozen churches competing for adherents, usually a range of mainstream churches, indigenous churches and weird prosperity-gospel groups from South Africa and East Africa.
Coming back to the UK, the US and other Western capitalist countries, I know that people choose churches and other voluntary groups for a whole range of reasons - many of them very personal and highly complex.
As I've repeatedly said, I'm not sitting in judgement on any Shipmates for exercising their right to worship how and where they please.
Heck, I've moved around various churches at various stages in my life so I'm hardly in a position to point the finger at anyone else.
As I keep saying, I'm thinking aloud - thinking allowed - and considering the 'dynamics' of all this as we enter a post-Christian era where the kind of resources we've been talking about aren't always going to be generally available.
I seem to remember a comment from John Wesley when he encountered a religious 'society' which met in a room above a pig pen. 'They must truly love the Gospel who meet in this place!'
I'm interested in exploring these issues, that's all. I'm not out to criticise anyone who prefers worship bands and choruses to the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom (an acquired taste!) or who worships with the URC rather than an FiF Anglo-Catholic parish or whatever else.
There are other factors at play rather than preferences of style. There are theological, sociological, personal and all sorts of other elements in the mix.
I keep saying that and yet people keep acting as if I'm out to criticise their particular church or their particular choice.
A few reflections. Yes, I know people who strongly believe in supporting their local parish church come-what-may. I've done that myself until I found it became personally unsustainable for various reasons.
I also know people who take a principled stand in supporting whatever their nearest evangelical expression of church happens to be, irrespective of label.
I respect those positions.
I think they are becoming less common though.
On the freedom of religion thing. Yes, it's a fundamental human right in liberal terms.
Whether we choose to 'waive' that right and all do the same thing churchwise is another issue and it's hard to envisage how that would be the case. Who decides?
How would such a scenario be 'enforced' or regulated?
It's not as if, to take @KarlLB's example at random, the FiF Anglo-Catholic parishes in his area are all suddenly going to disband and join the URC. Or that the URC there are all going to unilaterally decide to shut up shop and attend one or other of the FiF parishes.
If the FiF parishes were the only game in town then @KarlLB wouldn't have the option to go elsewhere and might not engage with church at all.
Which would be his free choice of course, although one conditioned by 'market-forces'.
American friends tell me of small towns in the Mid-West where the only ecclesial options are one form of fundamentalist Protestant church on one side of the road and another form of fundamentalist Protestant church on the other.
If you aren't a Protestant fundamentalist and can't drive somewhere else you've had it.
Equally, if you are a Roman Catholic in Russia you don't have that many options either.
So then invest in programmes the local community actually needs. Have competant musicians (surely this should just be the default?). It's not rocket science. <snip>
It might as well be. Many small town/ large village churches have very sparse resources for investing, and are dependent for music on volunteers of varying competence. I’d have given my eye teeth any time in the last twenty plus years for competent musicians who could do a bit more than just support the singing of a range of familiar music.
Yeah, it's all a bit 'amateurs talk tactics', as @Baptist Trainfan points out, even the latter is a stretch (doubly so if the popular register of your tradition requires multiple musicians, and once you factor in burnout, moves etc. multiple *teams* of people is what is generally sustainable, which entails practice times and then the requirement to play particular instruments etc.). Across wider activities, just going from the EAUK report alone (which is necessarily a subset of churches) a large number have challenges staffing all activities:
I also know people who take a principled stand in supporting whatever their nearest evangelical expression of church happens to be, irrespective of label.
I respect those positions.
I think they are becoming less common though.
I think you'll find some support in the data - looking at both the Bible Society and EA reports there's obviously a shift in attendance from the smallest churches (0-90 people) towards larger ones (generally in the 90-165 people range).
That was an interesting read, thanks.
There are some stats here on attendance in various denominations but they are about a decade out of date so don’t show the post-pandemic impacts https://faithsurvey.co.uk/uk-christianity.html
In the interests of balance, here, it occurs to me that I know of one town where there are two Serbian Orthodox parishes in very close proximity.
I have no idea why there are two and why people would choose one over the other as both use Serbian in their liturgies as far as I'm aware.
On the sustainability thing, I understand why people may gravitate towards the larger churches as there is likely to be more 'going on' and the resources to support the style of worship they are accustomed to.
In my own setting, I've been called upon to read the Epistle or some seasonal reading - but not the Gospel - or the post-communion prayers if nobody more experienced is available.
They won't have me in the choir though! Well, the choir would but the priest won't and I can't say I blame him!
We don't go in for musical instruments in worship so we need at least a handful of people who know the eight tones.
Perhaps we should lift our restrictions on using recorded music then we could have Rachmaninov's 'Vespers' or some basso-profundo.
Visitors can be disappointed when they don't hear that. Perhaps I ought to get some vocal training to fill the gap ...
Anyhow, I wasn't at church this morning as I'm off to a friend's book launch soon.
So apologies for the double-post ...
Recent comments have set me thinking about how our various traditions can shape our expectations and how these can be thwarted or frustrated if the resources aren't there to sustain them.
This applies across the board.
If what we expect to find isn't here, we may assume there's something 'wrong'.
I remember reading an account of a visit to an Orthodox parish by a US fundamentalist who was horrified that nobody 'got up to give a testimony.'
Equally, I've known Romanians and other Eastern Europeans who've been shocked at how comparatively bare and sparse Anglican and RC worship spaces can be and assume there must be 'Baptist' influence at work.
I think we've all come across 30 people in a room acting as if they are at a huge Christian convention of some kind. Or a priest, altar-server and 3 old ladies acting as if the service is taking place in a cathedral with full choir and all the trimmings.
I don't mean this critically but am thinking aloud, but most services of whatever tradition I've attended in recent years have pretty much been highly predictable in terms of format and content.
I'm not saying there's anything 'wrong' in that, as long as we all know and recognise that we're working to a pre-set pattern.
Incidentally, I attended a funeral of a lovely Christian lady in a non-conformist chapel in North Wales this last week.
It was all in Welsh (they provided sheets with English translations) and as anticipated they sang 'Gwahoddiad.'
And did they sing it too!
The hair stood up on the back of my neck. I can't remember the last time I heard four-part harmony in Chapel.
I'm digressing, but sometimes the familiar can creep up on us and catch us unawares.
Anyhow, I think there is room for adaptability and flexibility whatever tradition we inhabit or 'consume' occasionally.
That was an interesting read, thanks.
There are some stats here on attendance in various denominations but they are about a decade out of date so don’t show the post-pandemic impacts https://faithsurvey.co.uk/uk-christianity.html
And different denominations calculate attendance differently, so comparative figures between them are not that useful. As for religious affiliation ..... what sort of weight should we attach to self-identification with zero evidence of associated activity?
So then invest in programmes the local community actually needs. Have competant musicians (surely this should just be the default?). It's not rocket science. <snip>
It might as well be. Many small town/ large village churches have very sparse resources for investing, and are dependent for music on volunteers of varying competence. I’d have given my eye teeth any time in the last twenty plus years for competent musicians who could do a bit more than just support the singing of a range of familiar music.
And as custodians of a listed building that needs something in the order of £1M work done on it, and an annual turnover of under £100K, more than half of which goes towards the cost of local ministry, resources are a continual challenge.
And yet charismatic evangelicals (even independent local ones not backed by rich founders) can use a school gym or community centre on a new-build estate and do incredible things, apparently out of sheer willpower. How are they able to apparently do more with sparse resources? I'm genuinely wondering what causes such a difference.
I have previously mentioned that I recognise the problems faced by churches in listed buildings and older buildings in general. I also understand that choices will be limited in rural areas. But I've encountered city centre churches in prime locations that could do so much with a bit of imagination, yet have never given thought to eg offering things in the evening when the local area is busier (and I'm thinking of cases when the churches in question have said that they have never given that any thought, not just that they considered it but weren't able to do it).
For all the criticism of people who come in with new ideas (and rather unfairly assuming their motivations), sometimes it's a case of congregations being reluctant to even try new things out. Churches eg ignoring the local night-time economy seems like purposely wasting the resources they do have.
@Gamma Gamaliel I promise you that I have read and inwardly digested what you have written. Disagreement doesn't mean that I haven't read what you've written - a different reading of your words doesn't mean that people haven't read those words properly.
To me, "consumerism" suggests not just shopping around but shopping around unnecessarily. To be honest, given the title I was expecting a post on more literal Christian consumerism - Christian knick-knacks (tchotchkes as I think Americans call them), endless Christian books, conferences, travel mugs etc etc etc.
Comments
At which point there were various forms of folk belief swirling around, probably not an awful lot of formal teaching in the local church, and people had different conceptions of society, religion and the self.
High turnover is interesting. Some congregations' turnovers are naturally high. While I was studying at Reading, I attended a church on a dormitory estate for London. People lived there for less than five years and then left to live elsewhere with a better work-life balance. The church knew that if new people were not gained, it would be dead in five years. It was thriving. My current congregation has an element of that, with many of those attending either students or early in their careers and likely to move elsewhere. Such congregations have their own challenges even when growing. At the other extreme are churches that never lose anyone except through death. They still can end up being closed due to small numbers. The question is, how does your turnover really fit with your vocation as a congregation? To assess that, you really need to know why people are leaving, and that ain't as easy as it seems.
The problem, at least for us, is when does someone join. When they come through the door for the first time is too soon, and when they are formally entered on the roll is too late and done in such a haphazard way as to be pretty meaningless. Someone missing from the roll one year may simply mean they were not at mass on the relevant Sunday for Fr to stop them at the door, and get them to fill in the form. However, every stage in between is too nebulous. Given that we are in constant flux, we really do not know who belongs. You might like to think of us as a quagmire of belonging. Some of us definitely belong because we are covered in mud (the core), some of us definitely do not belong because we only have a tiny patch on our shoes (the edge), but the rest, who knows? The rest are the biggest contingent, followed by the edge, with the core only growing slowly. So really, it is the boundary between edge and rest that is the one we need to discern, but how to do that? I would say if someone is core or likely to become core, then we know why they leave. If they are choosing to remain more peripheral, then we might not spot them leave, and that is going to increase as we grow.
British or American usage on the latter?
My coworker was American, but either works to slightly different effects.
British feels a more attractive future of the two alternatives tbh!
Yes, and I once heard a talk by a Methodist historian that argued that in some industrial towns, such as Huddersfield, where virtually everything was controlled by a small coterie of industrial magnates, 'choice' as to which church or non-conformist chapel to attend was almost the only choice people could freely make.
These choices were also determined to a large extent though by factors such as social class. Religion, like everything else, was highly socially stratified.
I've also heard an historian argue that, grim though the conditions were around the iron-works and later the coal mines of the industrial South Wales Valleys, people wanted to move there from the hill farms not only because of a regular wage - as opposed to subsistence farming - but because there were things to 'belong to' and get involved with - chapels and voluntary associations and groups of various kinds.
There was less chance of that in rural Wales.
I would agree that the 'belomging' thing is very, very important. I got involved with the charismatic evangelical 'house-church" thing partly for that reason. It offered a strong sense of community for someone who was a student and then a young single man living far from where he'd grown up.
It's often said that groups like Hillsongs and other charismatic fellowships are to a large extent places where people find partners before, very often, moving on.
I don't know whether there are any facts and figures or research to back this up.
I s'pose I am using the term 'consumerism' quite broadly but it's not one I'm prepared to abandon because I do think it's what's going on. With all of us to some extent or other.
It's not new and it's not confined to any particular Christian tradition.
Tolstoy alluded to people in 19th century Russia who spent their time going from monastery to monastery, shrine to shrine seeking out a staretz or elder who could 'speak a word to them' or looking for their next spiritual 'hit'.
Such people never did anything 'useful' but simply wandered from place to place skanking and begging off others to fund their religious addiction.
It ain't for me to judge of course - although I am doing - but I do wonder whats going on with people who seem to go from one Christian conference to the next from retreat to convention to pilgrimage or, like a Romanian I met recently, who seemed to want to attend as many Divine Liturgies as possible in a week, both in his own parish and elsewhere at grist expense in time and train travel.
Of course, it's not for me to legislate how people should spend their time or money and a lot of people are lonely and isolated so these things provide an opportunity for them to interact with others.
But I am thinking aloud ... thinking allowed.
Is a danger of churches with "high production values" spoils people for more normal church life? Worshipping with 1000 people, quality visuals and a professional-standard band is a bit different to Mattins at St Agatha's-by-the-Gasworks.
Can you elaborate? I can't as yet see anything that suggests this in the descriptions I've found of the Homogeneous Unit Principle.
In the course of which I did find the following (from stackexchange): Which makes me wonder if the concept of consumer choice is sufficiently broad to address belonging to churches in which the shared values incorporate discrimination or bigotry towards others.
There is a fair amount of research into the relationship between consumption and belonging, which argues that consumption is related to the desire to belong. I wonder how satisfying interaction is, as a substitute for belonging.
(As an aside, I have been at my large charismatic church for over 20 years and we married before we moved to this church. We moved here from a trad village Anglican Church, not in the other direction. I don’t seem to be fitting the stereotypes discussed in this thread about charismatic churches.)
From averages, I expect there's a binormal distribution with avhump at a couple of hundred congregants with average age around 55 with loose liturgy and modern music, and another hump at 20 congregants with an average age around 75 and traditional music, either set liturgy or hymn-prayer sandwich.
And of course everyone else pointing out their church is nothing like that.
My ideal would probably look not unlike Dibley, as in Vicar Of, if I'm honest. I grew up in something not totally unlike it...
From a marketing perspective the transaction is smoothed by joining a community that doesn't involve crossing any significant social barriers (Or in the words of McGavran, which sound incredibly crass when repeated in 2025 "People like to become Christians without crossing racial, linguistic, or class barriers. The world’s population is a mosaic, and each piece has a separate life of its own that seems strange and often unlovely to men and women of other pieces.").
Obviously there are merits of looking at representation within the church, and thinking on how it reflects the immediate community in which it is placed, but there's the other side of designing marketing material and websites etc with an eye on the type of demographic a church wishes to attract (and that usually tends to be young nuclear families, with a smattering of older people).
Maybe just concentrate on yourselves. What do you gain from complaining about the things others do that you wouldn't do?
The concept of "resource churches" is entirely untested in terms of its long-term efficacy, but that doesn't stop the church chucking vast amounts of money at it.
I cited an example in the OP. People apparently moving from what had been seen as the 'happening' church in a town I know to another that was apparently becoming the 'happening' church in that town.
Incidentally, I'm thinking aloud and going on observations.
I don't just go on hearsay and what I'm saying can be applied to other settings and not only charismatic evangelical ones. Heck, I've given examples from my own Tradition.
So please don't assume I'm singling out churches like yours, @Heavenlyannie. I'm not.
There's not a lot of research around this sort of thing but I can remember talk of 'revolving door' syndromes back in the '90s.
What I would recognise as hearsay is the oft-repeated charge that people find partners in Hillsongs style churches then 'move on.'
As @Baptist Trainfan says, if this is the case then they must be disappearing into the ether.
I've not met many ex-Hillsongs people in other churches. It may be that some of them drop out of church involvement entirely but there are no reliable figures for that as far as I am aware.
I have met plenty of former broadly charismatic evangelical people in other settings, whether liberal or more sacramental but I wouldn't hazard a guess as to what proportion of the total that represents.
As has been said, people head in a charismatic evangelical direction too, as well as away from it.
I once read that there are more former charismatics in the RC Church than current participants in RC charismatic renewal.
I can't comment on that as I have very little experience of charismatic Catholics.
I would stress again that I am thinking aloud about these matters and not sitting in judgement on any particular movement, church or denomination.
The bottom-line for me, whatever my own proclivities in theology, worship style and so on, is that we have 'intentional' Christian communities of whatever kind - be they organised in a congregational way, or a confessional way or whether they are sketes, monasteries or however else.
I s'pose that involves a judgement of some kind but as I've repeatedly said - seemingly to no avail - that I'm not making value judgements about where or how individual Shipmates choose to worship.
https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2021-05/topic-summary-new-resource-churches.pdf
Page 3, would show that the largest proportion of attendees in the 25 resource churches under consideration come from other churches (38%), with an additional 10% attending in addition to their existing church.
From a study on the various Fresh Expressions:
https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2022-03/irls-final-report-2.pdf
"the ‘Who’s there’ research published by the Church Army and commissioned by the
SDU, suggests that 59% of disciples in Fresh Expressions of Church are from existing churches (not necessarily the Church of England) of whom about 40% continued to also attend their existing church" (page 28)
My indirect experience of Hillsongs is that the churches tend to be dominated by NZ/Aus folk on their OE and expats who may be working abroad for a few years. The people I know who remained in the UK by and large married someone who lived here (though some mixed origin couples moved to Aus/NZ), and usually attend local charismatic churches as they started families and so on. I'm not sure how often being ex-Hillsongs would come up in conversations.
As a professional qualitative researcher I totally agree. All sorts of interesting research isn’t done, simply because you do the research you’re paid for. Which means both the evidence base and the decision making process are inevitably coloured.
It's kind of why this site exists. From the Ancient history part of the FAQs:
In my experience, 9 times out of 10 people are drawn to auxiliary activities like children's groups, church-run cafés, English language classes etc - or having things on at Christmas, especially if a lot of churches locally don't do much at Christmas outside of Sunday services. A lot of churches (of all different types) either don't run anything like that or do so in a very shoddy and amateurish way. I will say that one area in which a lot of charismatic evangelical churches do have an advantage is not usually having the burden of an expensive listed building - new buildings that can easily be made accessible with toilets etc from the start are definitely a benefit.
I'm not sure that's true; once people think in somewhat transactional terms about how they spend their time, we are more than halfway there. There's the parallel trend of thinking of oneself as a kind of investment portfolio, and program orientated churches deliberately tap into that trend.
It's true that churches are unlikely to set themselves up along the lines of the McGavran quote above, but these things are embedded quite deeply, and existing church movements are anyway getting McGavran second hand via places like Willow Creek/Saddleback etc. and there's a lag between critique and practice. Even if there isn't an explicit focus on numbers, it tends to creep back via concepts like 'viability' and the fact that church planting movements tend to be run along the same time frames as startups (there are some interesting parallels between church movements and contemporary business thinking).
It's not that they are a draw in themselves, but that e.g middle-of-the-road music with reasonable competent musicians becomes the bar, against which one person on a piano is a turn off.
I'd also argue that auxiliary activities run well constitute 'high production values' in themselves (and they either require a lot of volunteers and/or additional staff, both of which map to larger congregations).
Those just happened to be reports I could easily dig up, independent charismatic churches don't operate in a completely dissimilar manner btw, they are often drawing from the same set of thinking when it comes to how they operate, grow and plant new churches.
I also dismissed the claim as hearsay.
I wish people would read what I write rather than what they assume I've written.
Perhaps the onus is on me to make myself clearer.
I repeat. I am not making generalisations about charismatic evangelical churches, a tradition I know well as a former participant and now as an outside observer.
I do know what I'm talking about, although my exposure to this particular scene is less now than it was in the past. I am not 'knocking' it. I am examining it. I also hold my own Tradition up to scrutiny.
I agree with @chrisstiles's observations about 'production values' extending to the kind of auxilliary activities mentioned. Churches of this kind are very good at running social or outreach programmes such as debt counselling, food banks and so on and that's great.
It does take a lot of time, effort and resource. In the church I had in mind on one of my visits they devoted the time usually allocated for the sermon to a presentation about these activities and an appeal for volunteers.
I am grateful to @chrisstiles for taking the time and effort to look up facts and figures. I can't 'prove' this but my impression in the instance I'm referring to is that most of newcomers are transfers from other churches but with a number of new converts from unchurched backgrounds or among asylum seekers who have had some kind of contact with the social/auxiliary programmes.
Back in my restorationist 'new church' days we had a goodly number of converts too, mainly friends, relatives or people who'd started to 'go out' with members of the church - even though 'dating' non-Christians was discouraged.
We did have people come along who were contacted through the various 'auxilliary' initiatives we pursued, sometimes badly, sometimes very professionally.
Looking back, we had very few converts from full-on evangelistic activity. But we did have a good number of conversions that stood the test of time.
That particular church no longer exists. It folded a few years ago. Most of the core members haven't disappeared into the ether but are still involved with churches of one form or another.
@chrisstiles I don't see how what you describe is materially different to those attending Anglo-Catholic shrine churches for the pageantry there.
It's not particularly, I don't think I said it was.
I'm no expert on Anglo-Catholic parishes but I do know one in South Wales that attracts people from a wide area rather than its own doorstep on account of its pageantry and 'high-production values.'
Literally 'High' ...
I don't think anyone here is saying, 'Anglo-Catholic pageantry = good' / 'Contemporary worship songs and bands = bad' - wherever our particular sympathies lie or our own preferences.
The issue is 'consumerism' and I'm saying that none of us are immune to that and yes, of course it exists in more sacramental and liturgical churches as well as 'seeker-friendly' or 'contemporary' ones.
Nobody has said otherwise.
I'm increasingly of the opinion that few people are actually reading this thread properly and are getting the wrong end of the stick.
Perhaps it's me ...
And you're making a number of assertions and assumptions.
The subject of the thread is "Consumerism and Christianity", but what
you're talking about is consumerism and churchgoing, which in turn seems to assume a certain correspondence between belief and practice in relation to churchgoing.
Why do we need the freedom to worship wherever we please?
Consumerism in relation to churchgoing is eminently avoidable. Most of the churchgoers that I know continue attending their local parish church for the simple reason that it's their local parish church.
If each parish church could - somehow! - satisfy everyone, that would be a different story.
Why is freedom of religion a good thing?
Well, look at the alternatives.
On the thing about most church-goers attending their local parish because it's the nearest ...
I don't think that generally applied any longer. For one thing it assumes that those church-goers are Anglican. For another, I know plenty of people here who live closer to one or the other of the two Anglican churches in this town but who who choose not to go to the closest but to the one further away.
Equally, I know people who travel outside of our small town to attend rural parishes which offer more traditional forms of service.
There are also people from surrounding villages who come into town because they want something different to what's on offer in their village parish church.
Heck, I even know RCs who travel to other towns because they prefer the priest there.
And that's before I even start to think about the non-conformist churches.
We are hardly a city here and the parish system doesn't function the way @Pease describes. Heck, even in rural Herefordshire according to a vicar friend, people travel for their church of choice rather than attending their village parish church or non-conformist chapel.
Enough said (though I might do differently when I retire).
And as custodians of a listed building that needs something in the order of £1M work done on it, and an annual turnover of under £100K, more than half of which goes towards the cost of local ministry, resources are a continual challenge.
Out in the sticks they cluster however. We're right in the middle of Anglo-Catholic FiF land here as far as the CofE is concerned. One reason our current church home is URC.
Not my current situation, but I've been there in the past.
My comment was about most of the churchgoers that I know. I was relating my personal experience, of the people I know who are regular churchgoers attending their local parish church (which isn't always the nearest).
A good proportion of the churchgoers I know only occasionally find their local parish churches satisfying - this isn't why they keep going. From what I've been able to gather about their reasons, I would identify a mix of factors (not often articulated very coherently), including the following:
- A sense of duty - that Christians are called to worship in their local church.
- A parochial understanding of church - that church is where Christians in a given locality gather together to worship, or that "church" comprises the Christians in a given locality (typically in more ecumenical contexts).
- A belief that churches exist to serve and witness to their local community.
- A somewhat existential fear that if they stop going, the church will close, Christian service and witness will diminish, and that their local community will suffer.
I think some of these overlap with comments that you and others have made.Given that this website once achieved some notoriety for the idea and implementation of "the Mystery Worshipper", I think it's worth considering what Steve and Simon had in mind... As I read it, it was about using a consumer tool to pursue the more unrestful aims of the site, rather than enabling Christians to make consumer choices.
Apologies Alan29, this really isn't intended to be criticism of your post.
I agree that it's pejorative but we live in a Western consumerist society. We can't escape it.
I'm not sure what term to use though, for poor or developing countries. I visited Madagascar last year, one of the five poorest nations on earth. Grinding poverty. Many people at subsistence level and 75% of the population deemed to be in 'extreme poverty.'
By 'extreme', I mean extreme.
Yet in almost every small town there were at least half-a-dozen churches competing for adherents, usually a range of mainstream churches, indigenous churches and weird prosperity-gospel groups from South Africa and East Africa.
Coming back to the UK, the US and other Western capitalist countries, I know that people choose churches and other voluntary groups for a whole range of reasons - many of them very personal and highly complex.
As I've repeatedly said, I'm not sitting in judgement on any Shipmates for exercising their right to worship how and where they please.
Heck, I've moved around various churches at various stages in my life so I'm hardly in a position to point the finger at anyone else.
As I keep saying, I'm thinking aloud - thinking allowed - and considering the 'dynamics' of all this as we enter a post-Christian era where the kind of resources we've been talking about aren't always going to be generally available.
I seem to remember a comment from John Wesley when he encountered a religious 'society' which met in a room above a pig pen. 'They must truly love the Gospel who meet in this place!'
I'm interested in exploring these issues, that's all. I'm not out to criticise anyone who prefers worship bands and choruses to the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom (an acquired taste!) or who worships with the URC rather than an FiF Anglo-Catholic parish or whatever else.
There are other factors at play rather than preferences of style. There are theological, sociological, personal and all sorts of other elements in the mix.
I keep saying that and yet people keep acting as if I'm out to criticise their particular church or their particular choice.
A few reflections. Yes, I know people who strongly believe in supporting their local parish church come-what-may. I've done that myself until I found it became personally unsustainable for various reasons.
I also know people who take a principled stand in supporting whatever their nearest evangelical expression of church happens to be, irrespective of label.
I respect those positions.
I think they are becoming less common though.
On the freedom of religion thing. Yes, it's a fundamental human right in liberal terms.
Whether we choose to 'waive' that right and all do the same thing churchwise is another issue and it's hard to envisage how that would be the case. Who decides?
How would such a scenario be 'enforced' or regulated?
It's not as if, to take @KarlLB's example at random, the FiF Anglo-Catholic parishes in his area are all suddenly going to disband and join the URC. Or that the URC there are all going to unilaterally decide to shut up shop and attend one or other of the FiF parishes.
If the FiF parishes were the only game in town then @KarlLB wouldn't have the option to go elsewhere and might not engage with church at all.
Which would be his free choice of course, although one conditioned by 'market-forces'.
American friends tell me of small towns in the Mid-West where the only ecclesial options are one form of fundamentalist Protestant church on one side of the road and another form of fundamentalist Protestant church on the other.
If you aren't a Protestant fundamentalist and can't drive somewhere else you've had it.
Equally, if you are a Roman Catholic in Russia you don't have that many options either.
Yeah, it's all a bit 'amateurs talk tactics', as @Baptist Trainfan points out, even the latter is a stretch (doubly so if the popular register of your tradition requires multiple musicians, and once you factor in burnout, moves etc. multiple *teams* of people is what is generally sustainable, which entails practice times and then the requirement to play particular instruments etc.). Across wider activities, just going from the EAUK report alone (which is necessarily a subset of churches) a large number have challenges staffing all activities:
https://www.eauk.org/assets/files/downloads/Changing-Church-2025-FINAL.pdf (page 12)
I think you'll find some support in the data - looking at both the Bible Society and EA reports there's obviously a shift in attendance from the smallest churches (0-90 people) towards larger ones (generally in the 90-165 people range).
https://www.eauk.org/assets/files/downloads/Changing-Church-2025-FINAL.pdf (page 5 - bearing in mind the general increase in attendance from the Bible Society report).
There are some stats here on attendance in various denominations but they are about a decade out of date so don’t show the post-pandemic impacts https://faithsurvey.co.uk/uk-christianity.html
In the interests of balance, here, it occurs to me that I know of one town where there are two Serbian Orthodox parishes in very close proximity.
I have no idea why there are two and why people would choose one over the other as both use Serbian in their liturgies as far as I'm aware.
On the sustainability thing, I understand why people may gravitate towards the larger churches as there is likely to be more 'going on' and the resources to support the style of worship they are accustomed to.
In my own setting, I've been called upon to read the Epistle or some seasonal reading - but not the Gospel - or the post-communion prayers if nobody more experienced is available.
They won't have me in the choir though! Well, the choir would but the priest won't and I can't say I blame him!
We don't go in for musical instruments in worship so we need at least a handful of people who know the eight tones.
Perhaps we should lift our restrictions on using recorded music then we could have Rachmaninov's 'Vespers' or some basso-profundo.
Visitors can be disappointed when they don't hear that. Perhaps I ought to get some vocal training to fill the gap ...
So apologies for the double-post ...
Recent comments have set me thinking about how our various traditions can shape our expectations and how these can be thwarted or frustrated if the resources aren't there to sustain them.
This applies across the board.
If what we expect to find isn't here, we may assume there's something 'wrong'.
I remember reading an account of a visit to an Orthodox parish by a US fundamentalist who was horrified that nobody 'got up to give a testimony.'
Equally, I've known Romanians and other Eastern Europeans who've been shocked at how comparatively bare and sparse Anglican and RC worship spaces can be and assume there must be 'Baptist' influence at work.
I think we've all come across 30 people in a room acting as if they are at a huge Christian convention of some kind. Or a priest, altar-server and 3 old ladies acting as if the service is taking place in a cathedral with full choir and all the trimmings.
I don't mean this critically but am thinking aloud, but most services of whatever tradition I've attended in recent years have pretty much been highly predictable in terms of format and content.
I'm not saying there's anything 'wrong' in that, as long as we all know and recognise that we're working to a pre-set pattern.
Incidentally, I attended a funeral of a lovely Christian lady in a non-conformist chapel in North Wales this last week.
It was all in Welsh (they provided sheets with English translations) and as anticipated they sang 'Gwahoddiad.'
And did they sing it too!
The hair stood up on the back of my neck. I can't remember the last time I heard four-part harmony in Chapel.
I'm digressing, but sometimes the familiar can creep up on us and catch us unawares.
Anyhow, I think there is room for adaptability and flexibility whatever tradition we inhabit or 'consume' occasionally.
And different denominations calculate attendance differently, so comparative figures between them are not that useful. As for religious affiliation ..... what sort of weight should we attach to self-identification with zero evidence of associated activity?
And yet charismatic evangelicals (even independent local ones not backed by rich founders) can use a school gym or community centre on a new-build estate and do incredible things, apparently out of sheer willpower. How are they able to apparently do more with sparse resources? I'm genuinely wondering what causes such a difference.
I have previously mentioned that I recognise the problems faced by churches in listed buildings and older buildings in general. I also understand that choices will be limited in rural areas. But I've encountered city centre churches in prime locations that could do so much with a bit of imagination, yet have never given thought to eg offering things in the evening when the local area is busier (and I'm thinking of cases when the churches in question have said that they have never given that any thought, not just that they considered it but weren't able to do it).
For all the criticism of people who come in with new ideas (and rather unfairly assuming their motivations), sometimes it's a case of congregations being reluctant to even try new things out. Churches eg ignoring the local night-time economy seems like purposely wasting the resources they do have.
To me, "consumerism" suggests not just shopping around but shopping around unnecessarily. To be honest, given the title I was expecting a post on more literal Christian consumerism - Christian knick-knacks (tchotchkes as I think Americans call them), endless Christian books, conferences, travel mugs etc etc etc.