THE current generation of school-aged children is likely to be the first in Australia where the majority has had no experience of Church, a research project has found.
Dr Ruth Powell of National Church Life Survey (NCLS) Research said the findings were related to the current low level of church attendance.
Dr Powell indicated the seriousness of the situation with the story of Sally, a religious education teacher who asks her class, ‘What comes to your mind if I say Christmas and Jesus Christ in the same sentence?’
‘The smirks and laughter confirm what she expects. Jesus Christ is better known by her class as a profanity than a deity,’ Dr Powell said.
She said it was a scenario that would become increasingly common.
It meant the majority of current school-aged children may have few or no religious reference points from their upbringing.
Director of the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference’s Pastoral Projects Office, Bob Dixon, who is also a researcher with NCLS, said the situation may not be as grim for the Catholic Church.
‘We’ve got the saving grace of Catholic schools, so the kids are still being exposed to Church teaching,’ he said.
Executive secretary of Brisbane archdiocese’s Commission for Evangelisation and Pastoral Planning, Chris Ehler said the trend for young people who had drifted away from the Church was to reconnect if they had children at Catholic schools and it came time for their children to receive the sacraments.
Reaching families not in Catholic schools was a major challenge in evangelisation, he said.
Dr Powell said NCLS Research’s latest release, Profiling Australians, provided clues to help Churches identify ministry needs and opportunities. One particular group studied was couples with children.
The work drew on national census findings of the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the Australian Community Survey.
About 7200 congregations in 19 denominations across Australia were involved in the 2001 National Church Life Survey. The Australian Community Survey was conducted by researchers from Edith Cowan University and NCLS Research.
