Windy London

Gritty inner city areas and wealthy suburbs feature more evenly among the churches in this week’s analysis – in contrast to the focus on the Salvation Army and RCCG in my previous blog.

The FIEC and Gospel Partnerships have a combined membership of more than 900 churches and have much in common in their doctrine – in fact, some churches are members of both organisations. So it is unsurprising that their churches can be found in similar areas.

However, there are some differences. Overall, about half (50.2%) of FIEC churches are located in the poorer half of the country, while slightly fewer (46.3%) Gospel Partnership churches can be found in these areas. And if you live in an area within the most deprived 10% of the country, it’ll be harder for you to find a congregation linked to the Gospel Partnership as this is where they have the fewest churches (7.8%).

The Church of England is retreating from poorer areas in favour of the rich. That’s according to someone on the inside – the Bishop of Burnley.

So do any church networks or denominations invest the other way around – focusing more heavily in poorer areas?  In the next few blogs I intend to dig out the data that shows who has churches in which areas.

First up, it’s one of the largest Black Majority Church (BMC) networks in the UK, and another denomination that’s possibly one of the most well known.

RCCG  – or to give its full name, The Redeemed Christian Church of God – first started in Nigeria, but analysis shows they now have a strong presence in some of the most deprived parts of this country.

In fact, the more deprived the area, the more likely you will find one of their churches, with 78.1% in the…