Go forth and multiply ~ Planting Churches

London supplies England with wealth, culture—and, increasingly, Christians

When Jodi and Steve Luke decided to move from Surrey to Brighton to help revive St Peter’s, then a mouldering Victorian church, everything seemed set against them. Their house sat on the market for six months; their daughter did not get in to the school they wanted. Despairing, they fasted and prayed for two days. “I had such a headache for the lack of caffeine,” remembers Mrs Luke. But her trials have been worthwhile. Since the couple moved to St Peter’s in 2009 along with 30 other Christians, the congregation has swelled from 15 to almost 1,000 people.

Since the late 1960s overall church attendance in Britain has dropped steadily, along with adherence to the Christian faith. The proportion of people calling themselves Anglican fell from 40% in 1983 to 20% in 2012. But in pockets, mostly in London and the south-east, churches are thriving. Much of the energy has come from large African Pentecostal churches and from an influx of Roman Catholic immigrants from Eastern Europe. But there is growth in the Church of England, too. Most of this comes from “church plants”, based on a model imported from America in which a group of people move from a thriving, often evangelical, church to an ailing one, and turn it around.

The rest here: The Economist http://tinyurl.com/q63mc8p

Anyone have any experience of this in their country?