Why would anyone become a Christian in Britain today?

Why, when God is dead, religion a cause of global conflict and the church inflexible, illiberal and irrelevant, would anyone in their right mind embrace the Christian faith?

People do. Somewhere upwards of 15,000 a year, at a rough estimate – though surprisingly little research is done to find out how and why.

Over the last two years, LICC has worked with an ecumenical body in Scotland on a research project exploring why people ‘find faith today’. The results were always interesting, often inspiring and, above all, bewilderingly varied. If you didn’t know that everyone was talking about the same thing, you would never have guessed.

Three things stood out, however. First, the importance of people. It is people who bring others to Christ (hold the front page!). But not special or particular people. The research showed that you didn’t have to be a minister, an elder or a theology graduate to play this role. Everyone – ‘our son … my sister … my gran … my ex-girlfriend … this family I teach … my wife’s colleague’ – did their part. There were no extras.

Second, the importance of God. Obvious, you would think, but as a researcher you don’t really want God to turn up. He doesn’t do things your way. He messes up your theories. You can never pin him down. But he was there, nonetheless, making the whole of each person’s story somehow greater than the sum of its parts.

Third, the importance of the church. Time and again, people surprised themselves. They knew all about what was wrong with churches, yet they still spoke glowingly about the impact the church (meaning the body of Christians) had had on them. There was ‘something completely different’ about church, a ‘feeling of togetherness and unconditional acceptance’. ‘They were … the church family in the proper sense,’ one young man said.

Everyone knows how bad churches can be – heaven knows we’re told often enough. But perhaps the reality is different. Perhaps, for all their faults, churches are places of healing and redemption.

Certainly, one of the strongest messages to emerge from ‘Journeys and Stories’ is that a community of believers that is welcoming, joyful, enthusiastic, encouraging and loving presents an enormously powerful testimony, a compelling invitation to a banquet – perhaps even a sign that the Kingdom of God is here.