How to live out the good news in our cultural conversations - part 1
From a video by the Evangelical Alliance
The EA recently held a Perspective Conversation where Jo Frost from the EA, co-author of 'Being Human: A new lens for our cultural conversations' and Aaron Nayagam from Fusion shared their perspectives, testimonies and tips for meaningful conversations in the present challenging culture.
In this part of the blog, let's take a look at some of the research on the cultural landscape in the UK from Talking Jesus that were briefly touched on in the session. The findings were published in August 2023.
48% of the UK population describe themselves as Christians with 6% defined as practising Christians.
20% of the UK population think that Jesus is God in human form, 33% think he was a spiritual leader but not God. 25% a normal human being.
54% of the UK population think Jesus was a real human being, 28% believe he is a mythical or fictional character. This rises to 49% of 18-24 year olds.
45% of the population believe in the resurrection. A further 41% say they don’t believe.
Searching on Google is the top way that non-Christians say they would find out about the Christian faith (26%). The next top ways were reading the Bible (22%), going to a local church (22%), talking to a friend or family member who they know to be a Christian (15%) and talking to a Christian leader in the community (12%).
53% of those who are non-Christians know someone who is a practising Christian in the UK. 35% said the practising Christian they knew was a friend; 31% said a family member, 12% an acquaintance, 11% a workmate, 8% a neighbour.
What questions are they asking?
‘What happens when you die?’ was the highest scoring question for non-practising Christians at 22%, followed by
'Will everything be OK?' at 19%.
55% of non-Christians who know a practising Christian have had a conversation with that Christian about that person’s faith in Jesus Christ. 44% said they had not had a conversation about faith.
36% of those non-Christians who don’t know a practising Christian have had a faith conversation about Jesus with a practising Christian that they didn’t know.
75% of practising Christians report agree or strongly agree that it is every Christian’s responsibility to share their faith. 77% of practising Christians feel confident to talk to non-Christians about their faith, but 42% of practising Christians say they don’t feel that they know any non-Christians well enough to talk to them about Jesus Christ.
40% of practising Christians say they don’t feel able to answer difficult questions and therefore don’t speak about their faith.
75% of non-Christians felt comfortable during the faith conversation and 33%, because of the conversation, wanted to know more about Jesus Christ. A further 36% were open to an encounter or experience of Jesus for themselves after the conversation.
The top things that non-Christians remembered from the conversations they had had about faith were; they were asked what they believed (33%), the person shared about their personal faith (30%), they were invited to a church service (19%) and the person offered to pray for them (13%).
Lots to think about, discuss and apply to your context.
Part 2 of this blog including the video of the session is here.
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From a video by the Evangelical Alliance, 09/01/2024