Strategic Investment in the Future

Last Sunday (1st February) I shared something of my own heart for the gospel in Wales. A passion for Highfields to invest strategically in the future of the gospel. So that we reach, build and send people from Wales to the world, from Cardiff to China.

This week I want to put a little science behind that passion:

People know the nation of Wales by the three R’s – rugby, rain and religion. I guess we’re still pretty good at the first, we’ll always have plenty of the second. But the third R, “Religion”, we’ve all but lost.  Yet there was a time when the Christian faith shaped the nation and churches and chapels were vibrant, integral parts of the community.

But such days have gone as Peter Brierley author of the UK Christian Handbook Religious Trends observes.  In 2006 of the 3 million population in Wales , only 6% attended Church . 1,800 ministers served 4, 300 churches. But that itself represents a significant national decline in just six years from 2000. 300 fewer churches, 20 fewer ministers, 47,000 fewer members and 44,000 fewer attendees. If that graph continues to slide downwards we have about a generation, perhaps two at most, before the Christian church, as we know it in Wales, goes into terminal decline.

I say that because of what’s happened in the last 25 years... Sunday church attendance in Wales has halved.  In 1980 it was 400,000 in 2005 it was 190,000.

If you take just one snap shot of that big picture. It’s this : half of the churches in Wales have fewer than 25 turning up. And most would be glad to see 10 people on a Sunday.

Here’s a couple of examples. Pentyrch Mission, north of Cardiff. Pentyrch. has been one of those churches which the student programme Revive has been committed to for the past 8 years. Revive teams take summer missions in places like Pentyrch and help run a mid week youth club through the year. Only that won’t be happening for much longer if the Mission Hall in Pentyrch accepts an offer to sell the property and the land to developers.

Here’s another example of a Church which came out of the great move of God’s Spirit in 1904- the Rhondda Apostolic Mission Revive teams have been working there too. But the doors will be shut for good in a few months.

There was a time when the Apostolics had next door neighbours who worshipped in the Welsh Congregational tradition. But they sold up long ago. So the commercial housing sector has taken out of use not one but two Christian congregations. And yet a 100 years ago churches couldn’t be built quickly enough to cope with the numbers of people wanting to come to Christ and be part of a Church community. Places like the one we’re in today.

In fact the history of the Presbyterian Forward Movement which Geraint Fielder chronicles in his book Grace Grit and Gumption, is the narrative of a visionary strategic investment in the gospel by people who weren’t afraid of taking risks because they believed in the power of Christian truth. “It began without a following, in a borrowed tent, on a piece of waste ground. Yet in fifteen years it built forty eight well equipped centres seating 43,000 people, had 7,000 born again members, 11,000 Sunday School scholars and 22,000 hearers, (regular attenders)“

Could it happen again ? Well the answer lies in another question- is the gospel and the power of God still the same? A week last Saturday we met as a group of leaders in ministry to begin to explore how Highfields might make a strategic contribution to the re evangelisation of Wales in our generation.

For that’s what it’s going to take. That doesn’t mean we have to keep alive at any cost those churches and church buildings who for whatever reason are sadly struggling. Nor does it mean that Highfields bears the sole responsibility for the huge task.

We need to work with others in a new coalition of like minded Christians, who are more committed to Christ than they are suspicious of each others differences, more persuaded by the needs of the lost than they are the comfort of the saved, a gospel partnership in which together we reach, build and send.

 It’s our job this year to work out those priorities so that we can make a strategic difference to the gospel in Wales and the world. And through all our careful planning and sincere praying which , we must never forget out motto "Not by ..... "

In Christ alone

Peter

See also the February edition of Baker's Blog