After 28 years in Philadelphia, USA, Dr Coz Crosscombe, the Assistant Minister at Mt Druitt Anglican in Western Sydney, has fresh eyes on how we do Church in Australia. He is “loaned out” four days a week to work with the Sydney Anglicans Ministry in Marginalised Areas Committee. His research shows that less wealthy people may want a different style of church.
Crosscombe responded to NCLS (National Church Life Survey) results showing that people who go to church have University degrees and postgrad degrees at a much higher rate than Australians in general. This is an edited text of his discussion as part of an NCLS webinar last week.
I work for the Anglican Diocese of Sydney. I have two roles. One is a local ministry in the Mount Druitt area out of a church. And the second is with the diocese, (region) looking at our work in marginalised or what are generally poor communities across the region and how we do those things.
I’ve been asked by NCLS to speak a little bit about what we’re seeing in the educational elements of the latest surveys.
Just briefly what we’ve seen is a gap between those who come to church and their education levels, and those who are in the surrounding communities where we find that those who go to church generally have a higher level of education or tertiary education. In 2006, about 27% of people who attended churches and filled out the surveys came from higher education backgrounds.
That’s now grown to 44% for churches and we know within the Anglican churches actually over 50%. So over 50% of all people 15 years or older have a tertiary education and go to church.
Now there are some great things in that and some positive things and differences in the rest of the world and so there are some things to celebrate there. Great university ministries going on, perhaps helping people move upward, and creating good support systems for immigrant communities. Those things are all really great.
However, there are also challenges, and what we’re finding is that a limited number of churches are working in poor communities. Certainly, a limited number of effective ministries are taking place and we find that even those churches in those communities, tend to be dominated by those with a higher education background and often by those who might drive into that community.
There’s a disparity there that we want to look at and look at addressing. It’d be nice to share like what are some of the thoughts on how we change that, and it’s such a complex system and, and so many dynamics going on. But I think one of the big issues is how we train people in that we use a higher education training [method] for ministers across the city.
This is not restricted just to the Anglican church but is prevalent in other churches. We tend to find people who are attracted to higher education and while they’re in seminaries, we tend to grade them based on how well they do in higher education styles.
So we affirm that background and then we deploy them into communities. Most often they’re going to want to go back into communities similar to where they came from, which tend not to be the lower educated and poor communities in the city.
We also often are teaching what’s called a homogenous principle, or a sweet spot ministry might be another way of putting it, where we help people say, “Well, you’re gonna reach people most like you” and well, if we’re already deploying people who have a higher education level, and inclined that way, most likely they’re going to be reaching out to people who also have a higher education background. And so that will continue that disparity.
They’re also most likely to put other people in leadership who like them because [they] see that strengths and giftings in others.
So the leadership of the church, not just the minister, but the actual leadership will tend to skew in that direction. I think what we miss in this is misunderstanding the people in poor communities. People who haven’t been to higher education can be just as phenomenal leaders.
In fact [I have] just been studying through the book of James, James 2. He says “you know, hasn’t God made those who are coming from poor backgrounds the poor to be spiritually rich?”
They’re the ones who are given rich spirituality.
And I found that around the world that the thriving communities in most of the world, spiritually, are poor communities. So I think we’ve gotta re-look at our training systems and our deployment systems.
I think we’ve also got to recognise that a lot of churches, not all, but a lot of churches are designed for the middle class. The service time, the way the services run, the style of preaching, and the transactional nature are all there. I think we’ve seen that in Covid, where for some the online church replaced in-person church because it’s continued that transaction or that intellectual side.
I think we’ve missed that those in poor communities and those with lower education levels tend to be far more relational. And when they go to church, they are looking for longer times [for interaction] where they can build relationships.
They’re often coming in with larger relational needs, so needing a stronger network, uh, more familiar in their structure. So they’re looking for more of a family atmosphere. I’d say they tend to react more and, and develop more around preaching that goes to the heart, into the emotion rather than to the head, the intellect.
I’ve heard numerous times from people who come from low education backgrounds who say they go to church and they feel like they’re in school and sitting in the back, being the dumb kid who doesn’t know the answers.
In fact, on Sunday, I watched somebody walk out of a church because they’d started a trivia and they said, “that just makes me feel dumb.”
We need to think and understand, that perhaps our whole style has been slanted more towards one group and because of that, others don’t feel welcome in our churches.
They don’t feel like the church, engages them where they’re at. That can be a language thing, it can be a cultural and contextual thing for some of our communities.
It [can be] just the fact that we don’t have churches in locations where people can access them. If you’re using public transportation to get to church on a Sunday morning, it’s about the worst time to try and catch public transport. So what might be a five or 10-minute drive for one person, could be an hour-long journey for another to get to church.
So we’ve gotta recognise those factors. There’s a whole bunch more. It’s very complex. It’s certainly a, a really challenging thing and one that we want to address and want to address with other churches and other denominations well outside ours.
The Other Cheek will follow up with Crosscombe as his team’s research progresses.
Yes I find this as a pastor and mission worker in muslim Bangladesh with very large numbers exMuslim converts.
A truck driver as Newcasle City Mission where I was Superintendent said he would talk to me about Christianity if we discussed ot over a drink at the pub. This was difficult for me as a reformed alcololic. I had lemon squash which he was fine with. We had s very good time. He said he liked me as i did not use “two dollars words. I asked “what are they?” He said “big long words that don’t make any sense.”.
Another time at Long Bsy Jail I was doing a christian seminars to inmates in Aids Drug users in the early days of Aids with no cures. They invited me to have lunch with them which they were cooking so we could talk it over. I accepted. I asked they during the meal they cooked wjy did they invited me. They said “to sre whether you and your words were genuine or not”. We had a very honest discussion about Christians and their attitudes and values. A humble and honest time.