Archives For research

Faith and belief in New Zealand: McCrindle Report May 2018

19 May, 2018 — 12 Comments

The latest research on faith and belief in New Zealand has just been released: commissioned by the Wilberforce Foundation, undertaken by Australian research company McCrindle. It explores attitudes towards religion, spirituality and Christianity.

I love this stuff! Research like this helps clarify the picture of the state of things, which can then lead to greater and more sensible engagement.

Firstly, thank you to the Wilberforce Foundation for taking the initiative and making this happen. Secondly, don’t just read my blog post about this, please download the actual report and read it for yourself (it’s a 67-page free PDF online at https://faithandbeliefstudynz.org). Share it with your church leaders, small groups, and denominational leaders – talk about it!

The report is hot off the press – in this post below I share some initial thoughts and reflections. Continue Reading…

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New research shows women can make a difference.

30 January, 2014 — 15 Comments

I read an article last week in which I saw parallels with the church context so thought I would write about the same topic. The article by Olga Kahzan in The Atlantic is titled: “The Easiest Possible Way to Increase Female Speakers at Conferences.” The quick summary is: having just one woman on the organizing committee for a conference greatly increases the likelihood of women appearing at the front of the room.

woman-idea-church-communication-570

The contribution of women is a topic that concerns me because I am part of a Christian ‘movement’ that struggles with this: the New Zealand Baptist Church. This also appears to be a widespread problem for the church in general. Three points come to mind and I outline them below. Continue Reading…

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The disconnected church

26 November, 2013 — 21 Comments

My PhD thesis has been signed off and it is now public on the university’s online scholarly commons. It is called:

The disconnected church: a critical examination of the communication of the Christian church in New Zealand.

Below is the 500 word abstract from the start of the thesis which gives a concise picture of what it’s all about. If you’re interested in reading more, you can download the entire thesis from AUT here: http://hdl.handle.net/10292/5922

Crudge-PhD-Thesis-The-Disconnected-Church Continue Reading…

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