Depressing read in many ways. Immigration and school entrance… hardly the turn to faith that one might be hoping for.
One wonders (as a stats graduate surely must 😉 what the methodology of the survey was, and whether it would pick up ‘churchless faith’ at all. If it’s pure church attendance, then I guess I’d probably show up as a leaver in some studies too…
i think the story of the black churches in london is far from depressing – it’s pretty amazing… but i know what you mean – i’m sure there are lots of things under the radar of measures of church attendance.
I’d like to hear more about it… One of the questions I’d have is the extent of the positive impact on the wider black community. Are we seeing this?
As a teacher who has worked in Inner London – though my current school is very cushty – one of the familiar situations we see is that of the young black student who comes into Year 7 and does brilliantly. They are clearly heavily involved in church and are model students. But then around Year 8 (age 13 or so) this begins to erode heavily, and church is openly and heavily critiqued in the classroom and among their peers, just as their relationships with their mothers are (‘Your mum!’ etc.) Behaviour and attainment drops off, and the familiar problems of social exclusion begin to cycle.
So my question about a resurgent black church movement – and I genuinely mean this as I genuinely don’t know anything about it – is whether this is a movement beyond mothers and young children, with a smattering of men. From my experience in education (something I went into having been frustrated with the limitations of ‘youth work’) church must go beyond the maternal if we are going to see some movement towards solving some of the problems that exist in these communities – ours included.
The obvious problem is that there is so much ‘under the radar’ – and our major radar is the media, who are guilty over bias in reporting stuff in this area…
Sitting here in North Yorkshire it certainly looks bleak according to that. I would prefer to take iot as a challenge myself. It is a statistical ‘pull your finger out’.
Thanx, Jonny! Met Moby in NYC in 2003 and he is really one of the most genuine people i have ever met! Happy Christmas to you and yours! Adele
Depressing read in many ways. Immigration and school entrance… hardly the turn to faith that one might be hoping for.
One wonders (as a stats graduate surely must 😉 what the methodology of the survey was, and whether it would pick up ‘churchless faith’ at all. If it’s pure church attendance, then I guess I’d probably show up as a leaver in some studies too…
i think the story of the black churches in london is far from depressing – it’s pretty amazing… but i know what you mean – i’m sure there are lots of things under the radar of measures of church attendance.
I’d like to hear more about it… One of the questions I’d have is the extent of the positive impact on the wider black community. Are we seeing this?
As a teacher who has worked in Inner London – though my current school is very cushty – one of the familiar situations we see is that of the young black student who comes into Year 7 and does brilliantly. They are clearly heavily involved in church and are model students. But then around Year 8 (age 13 or so) this begins to erode heavily, and church is openly and heavily critiqued in the classroom and among their peers, just as their relationships with their mothers are (‘Your mum!’ etc.) Behaviour and attainment drops off, and the familiar problems of social exclusion begin to cycle.
So my question about a resurgent black church movement – and I genuinely mean this as I genuinely don’t know anything about it – is whether this is a movement beyond mothers and young children, with a smattering of men. From my experience in education (something I went into having been frustrated with the limitations of ‘youth work’) church must go beyond the maternal if we are going to see some movement towards solving some of the problems that exist in these communities – ours included.
The obvious problem is that there is so much ‘under the radar’ – and our major radar is the media, who are guilty over bias in reporting stuff in this area…
Sitting here in North Yorkshire it certainly looks bleak according to that. I would prefer to take iot as a challenge myself. It is a statistical ‘pull your finger out’.