Church Questionnaire

CHURCH QUESTIONNAIRE RESULTS

St Anne’s Church is currently tasked with writing a “Mission Action Plan”.  As part of this exercise the church consulted the congregation, various community groups and Baslow as a whole via a recent village questionnaire.  This is a (very) brief summary of the responses received. 134 valid part or whole questionnaires were received representing approximately 20% of Baslow households.

About respondents:

• The questionnaire succeeded in attracting responses from both regular and irregular attenders.  55.5% have no interest in the church or only attend annual eventsThe remainder are from more regular churchgoers.

About church:

• Fairly even split on what is the most important function of the church.  Being a village hub and allowing people to start and progress a spiritual journey of faith accounted for more than 50% of respondents.

• The responses suggest that the church should be more community/need focussed. The younger respondents wanted events for the elderly whilst more mature respondents also wanted events for the young!

• Singing/choir based services get a strong endorsement. However, 36.4% of those <50 yrs want a more quiet/contemplative service with talks and discussions on moral issues relevant today. This question drew several comments – requesting both more formal and more informal services!

Optional questions:

• 85.4% feel Christianity has a relevant message for the 21st century - a really encouraging result!

• 75.2% believe in the power of prayer including 34 non churchgoers. This equates to 47.9% of non churchgoers.

• 80.8% believe that the church is open and welcoming to all.  Comments were that the church has/is improving in this area.

Several comments were also received with the questionnaires.  These have all been carefully considered.  Thank you for all the responses received – they form an important contribution to  the church’s planning for how best St Annes serves the village in the future!