Times might be difficult, but isn’t that when we see the very best of the Church?

Between uncertainty in the monarchy, stirkes in many industries and the cost-of-living crisis, we’re in tough times. But Warm Welcome Campaign’s David Barclay explains that this is when the Church can really step up.

In the last few weeks, we’ve had a lot of news headlines shaking our traditional image of Britain. Prince Harry’s book was released casting even more shadows over our established monarchy, various of our national services are striking to have their voices heard, and the recent census highlighted the percentage of people identifying as Christian in Britain has fallen below 50 per cent for the first time. The subsequent rush of negative headlines was entirely predictable. “The Church is over,” screamed the various columnists and writers and social media was full of pessimism as the grave of British Christianity was dug even deeper.

They say statistics don’t lie, and I’m not suggesting we should ignore the census results, but there is another angle to this story. Instead of focusing on the number of people who have ticked a box on a piece of paper, we can look at the amount of impact that the Church has contributed and continues to contribute. There are always difficult seasons, but it seems that with Covid, the war in Ukraine and now the cost-of-living crisis, this is the most challenging time we’ve had in a generation. I certainly can’t remember so many significant challenges across the world at one time in history.