At the instigation of London City Mission (LCM) a comprehensive study of churches in London was carried out last year. The results have now been published and there is much which is encouraging.
The research was carried out by the Brierley Consultancy and LCM were particularly interested to see what information could be gathered which related to the extent and effectiveness of church planting in the capital.
Big increase
The first headline fact is that there has been a 16% increase in church attendance in seven years. The numbers of people going to church in London on a typical Sunday has increased from 620,000 in 2005 to just over 720,000 in 2012. That figure of a 16% rise is against the background that the population of London only grew by 10% in the ten years up to 2011 according to the census. Nowhere in the UK has attendance grown so rapidly. The growth is especially seen in the Black Majority churches, which tend to be Pentecostal, and various immigrant churches.
