Some churches – particularly ‘traditional’ ones – are good at keeping the people they have, but not at recruiting new faces. Some other churches – especially evangelical ones – are so fixated on evangelism that they reach new people but don’t notice they’ve brought them into a building with a revolving door. Retention is one of their problems.
Various people have done work in recent years on the question of those who have left the church. Books such as Michael Fanstone‘s ‘The Sheep That Got Away‘ and Alan Jamieson’s ‘A Churchless Faith‘ come to mind. Now Andy Frost of Share Jesus International has done some research, and is touring it around the UK. It promises to be challenging but accessible material.
So I commend the ‘Rediscovering Faith‘ tour and the accompanying book ‘Losing Faith‘ to you. I hope to be at the Staines leg of the tour on 9th November. I think it could be a highly worthwhile evening for a mere £3 admission.
Big Circumstance 