Archives For Perceptions of church

The church is not a spiritual place

31 July, 2014 — 9 Comments

The heading of this post is the first perception of my list of nine perceptions of the church from people outside of the church. It comes from the idea that spirituality is seen as being outside of religion and Christianity. If you situate yourself within the church, try for a moment imagining being someone outside of the church who has never been Christianised yet has an appreciation of spirituality.

the-church-is-not-a-spiritual-place-mike-crudge-570

One person outside of the church that I interviewed articulated a key issue for locating spirituality and religion (Christianity) like this: Continue Reading…

In church , , , , ,
 permalink

2014 Christian/not-Christian comparison survey

20 May, 2014 — 23 Comments

I have surveyed 1079 people asking them to respond to thirteen statements about the church and Christians (in New Zealand). The statements are based on the results of my PhD research. There are striking differences between what Christian people think and those who are not Christian, but there are a couple of surprising results that break the usual comparison pattern between these two groups. I believe the information visually shown by the graphs below is of critical importance to 21st century missiology: how the church engages with society.

2014-Christian-not-Christian-comparison-survey-Mike-Crudge-570l

In an earlier post I described one way to think of communication as being the establishment of common ground in terms of shared understanding. If there is no common ground, there is an inability to reach shared understanding, which means there will be an inability to communicate effectively. Continue Reading…

In communication , , , , , , , , , , , ,
 permalink

Perceptions of church

12 December, 2013 — 10 Comments

How some New Zealanders view the church

In this post I list the nine perceptions of the church discovered in my recent doctoral research titled The disconnected church. This involved qualitative research where I talked to some people who were not what I call Christianised. This means they had never had any intentional engagement with the church throughout their life. The people I talked to also defined themselves as “spiritual”.

money-collage-mike-crudge-570

In previous posts I’ve attempted to get you thinking about how people outside the church see or perceive the church. In this post I start talking about what I actually found out. Continue Reading…

In church, communication, local context, mission, New Zealand, PhD, society , ,
 permalink