Constant change is here to stay

The Greek philosopher Heraclitus (535-475 BC) famously stated that change is the only constant. “Change”, said John F. Kennedy on 25 June 1963 in St Paul’s Church, Frankfurt, “is the law of life. And those who look to the past or present are certain to miss the future”.

Certainly, my experience of church life in the past 80 years of my life has been marked by constant change. For instance:

• When I was 3 years old I began to attend Sunday School in the afternoon, but today in almost every British church afternoon Sunday School no longer exists. Instead, in most churches ‘Junior Church’ takes place on Sunday mornings
• When I was 6 years old I began to attend Life boys, but that name no longer exists, instead it is now known as the Junior Section of the Boys’ Brigade
• When I was 6 years old I began to attend Crusaders, a British evangelical Bible class for boys. But Crusaders no longer exists, for it changed its name and was rebranded as Urban Saints in 2006.
• When I was 7 years old I began to attend on Wednesday evenings what was called ‘Junior Christian Endeavour’, but that no longer exists.

Another change which has taken place in most British churches is that many of the members come from many ethnic communities. For instance, the church in South London which I attended as a young boy had only one person of colour – he was an Indian. Today 40% of all churchgoers in London are black. Sadly, many Baptist churches are now much smaller than they used to be. To my surprise, I discovered that the church in South London I used to attend has only 27 church members whereas in the in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s it had 100 church members.

Many British theological colleges have also ceased to exist. One of the strongest of Anglican theological colleges was St John’s, Nottingham, but that was closed in 2019. Another major theological college which closed in 2025 is Spurgeon’s College, the college of which I was principal 1986-1992. To be fair, not all is ‘doom and gloom’. For instance, St Mellitus theological college was founded in 2007 and now has centres not only in London and Chelmsford (the two original centres) but also in Nottingham, Oxford and Plymouth, with over 700 students, 3000 of whom are training for ordination.

The three bodies which with others I founded, but are no longer, were Mainstream (1979-2011), Ministry Today (1994-2018), and the College of Baptist Ministers (2013-2021).

However, as I have often said, change is not an option. As long ago as 1994 Robin Gill, a British sociologist and theologian, wrote:

Churches in Britain need to make urgent choices about structure and direction…. They need to be much clearer about how they might be effective in present-day Britain. They need to be more single-minded ab out growth… about how they might reach the nine out of ten people in Britain who seldom or never go to church.

Furthermore, it is not enough for a church to change its way of ‘doing church’. It needs to constantly change. Although the overall goal may not change, the tactics churches used to achieve that goal will have to change, if they are to be successful. Or to put it another way, churches are like sailing ships, which need to tack first in one direction and then in another direction if they are to catch the wind of God’s Spirit.