Our changing world

Late last month Mark McCrindle released new research on Faith and belief in Australia (http://mccrindle.com.au/the-mccrindle-blog/faith-and-belief-in-australia).

There was much to encourage us and to challenge us in the research, but one thing was shouting out loud to us: our world is changing. We are in a new world. Look at these statistics …

Here are three changes worth noting …

Those Australians who identify with ‘no religion’ have grown from 0.4% to 22% in 20 years. McCrindle suggests it will be 25% in the 2016 census.

Although 45% of Australians note themselves as ‘Christian’ (his result – the census will have it closer to 60% as it does to give the “spiritual but not religious” option), only 7% are active practitioners – and this means attending church once a month.

All other religions amount to only 8% of the Australian population: the next religion after Christianity is Buddhism (2.5%) and Islam.

Her are three implications for you to think about from these findings …

Never presume people know anything about Christianity when you talk about it – never presume they know or accept the Bible as an authority on spiritual matters

Remember the active practitioners of faith are only once a month!! It seems a low definition of active to me – how do you define ‘active practitioner”?

In all the fear and media focus on Islam, remember they are a small percentage of the Australian population. Do not let the sensationalist media feed a fear in your heart, but, like Daniel, have a winsome, warm trust in God in control with his gracious sovereign power.

There is a lot more in this new report and we will report on it later in the year, along with our church’s National Church Life Survey report.