THE first Beatitude, addressing those “poor in spirit”, has a recent echo in a recent survey published by the Evangelical Alliance. It found adult converts to Christianity saying “I needed help with life”, “Looking for meaning”, and “A difficult or painful experience” because the catalysts for his or her exploration of religion.
The results are published in Finding Jesus: Identifying paths to faith in maturity, published on Tuesday. In 2024, 280 people aged 18 and above accomplished a web based survey, having been recruited through Evangelical Alliance networks and social media. This was followed by in-depth interviews with 20 of the participants.
The authors acknowledge that this cohort is proscribed to those attending Evangelical churches, but say that “a sample of this size and interviews of this depth can helpfully indicate some patterns and illustrate the range of experiences individuals and different demographic groups can have and help us take into consideration methods to share the gospel in our time.”
Of the 280, 55 per cent were women, and 38 per cent were aged 45 and above. When it got here to denominations, the biggest number were attending an Anglican church (27 per cent), while 16 per cent didn’t know the denomination. Almost half (45 per cent) had an annual household income of lower than £35,000.
The authors note that 72 per cent had “some kind of historic reference to Christianity”, including members of the family, friends, Sunday school, church school, or youth and student groups. “Although those associations weren’t at all times positive, for number, residual Christianity played an element of their journey.”
But one fifth had no such connections, and these had “little or no idea what Christianity was about and had tended to see it as something marginal and irrelevant”. The authors observe that, “because the ‘residue’ of cultural Christianity continues to diminish across society, their experiences will grow to be more common.”
Of the 280, 38 per cent described themselves before coming to faith as “cultural Christian but not practising” (defined as “I’d tick Christian on a survey but wasn’t committed to following Jesus”); 21 per cent as “spiritual but not religious”; and just 12 per cent as atheist.
Asked “What prompted you to start exploring Christian faith?”, 37 per cent chosen “I needed help with life”, followed by “I used to be in search of meaning” (34 per cent); “Difficult or painful experience” (32 per cent); “Impact of religion on someone I do know” or “Christian spoke to me” (each 29 per cent); and “Spiritual experience” (28 per cent). A complete of 19 per cent referred to a church service, and 17 per cent a Christian event or course.
For 59 per cent of participants, their conversion had taken lower than a yr. This number rose to 76 per cent for those with a low income, and 74 per cent for those with no faith background.
The authors say: “Listening to people describe how they got here to faith, we noticed that a big variety of them were making some type of commitment with only a really limited understanding of the gospel . . . many made some type of commitment before they’d fully understood exactly what they were committing to.
“This tended to be in response either to the overwhelming love they’d received inside the Christian community, or to some type of encounter with God. For these people, they did a whole lot of what we would consider exploring Christian faith after they’d already committed to it, illustrating the necessity for intentional discipleship of recent believers.”
Asked what had helped their exploration, participants were almost certainly to say attending church in person (59 per cent), followed by reading the Bible (47 per cent), and attending a course or small group (42 per cent). Spiritual experiences (39 per cent) and answered prayer (37 per cent) were also necessary aspects.
The survey conveys positive experiences of church attendance and call with Christians: ”Participants described how the people they met in church spaces really cared about them and listened attentively to them. They weren’t hurried, distracted or coming with an agenda. They asked questions and listened well. Participants commented that that is different from how people generally relate to them in other spaces.”
When asked, “What finally prompted you to make the choice to follow Jesus?” the preferred answer (39 per cent) was “an experience of God”, with just nine per cent choosing “it made mental sense”.
The authors write: “It became clear from the interviews that individuals had experiences they might not explain. These caused them to look for answers in places they’d not considered before. Having had these encounters, they often approached a Christian they knew, searched the web, or sometimes just wandered right into a church in search of understanding on what had happened to them.”
Spiritual experiences included “physical healing, physical sensations, intense emotional experiences, hearing God and/or a tangible sense of God’s presence.”
Digital media, the authors conclude, “seems to play more of a supporting role, somewhat than initiating our interviewees’ journeys to Jesus”. During faith exploration, 15 per cent of survey respondents said that online resources had helped, rising to 23 per cent of younger people.
The survey highlights different themes across the demographics. For example, when asked about challenges on the journey to faith: “Among participants with lower incomes, nobody struggled with the existence of God, and just one reported no support from Christians. However, the concept of being forgiven, combined with personal struggles, lifestyle changes they felt they would wish to make, and what others would consider them, were most difficult . . .
”The challenges facing those with no faith background were more theological, including the existence of God and person of Jesus.”
Among the recommendations made are: “Remember the gospel is for everybody. All sorts of individuals are becoming Christians: people of various ages, ethnicities,
faith backgrounds, education levels and geographical locations. There isn’t any ‘type’
of one who will or won’t find Jesus.”
