Posts by John Hayward
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The Eyam Plague of 1666
At present, the news is full of the rather frightening Ebola outbreaks in West Africa. Other infectious diseases also get into the news often, for example, AIDS/HIV and flu. What is less well known is that such infectious diseases spread […]
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Is the Charismatic Revival Over?
The Changing Nature of Worship Songs In a recent article for Christian Today, worship leader Noel Richards passed commented on the style of worship songs written in the 1990s and those written now[1]. His central thesis is that there were […]
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Decline of the Church of England – Update 2001-2012
A year ago, I applied the Limited Enthusiasm Model of church growth to the decline of the Church of England, based on its published attendance figures 2001-2011 [1]. Since then, Statistics for Mission 2012 has been published by the C […]
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Conversion – Hearts Strangely Warmed
The Meaning of “Conversion” in Church Growth Models When I present my models on church growth, I invariably refer to the process by which a person joins, or starts attending, a church as their conversion. Like the words “believer” and “unbeliever”, […]
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Membership Decline in the Southern Baptist Convention
Every year, the new edition of the Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches publishes the membership figures for all the Christian denominations in the USA [1]. Heading up the list of protestant churches is the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), very […]
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George Carey and Church Decline
It is not often that church decline makes the national newspapers, but when a former Archbishop says the church is on the brink of extinction, I guess such news is too hard to resist, even for a largely non-religious media […]
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The Decline of the Church of England
The decline of the Church of England has been well-publicised for many years. Because of the connections between church and state, the future survival of the church is of interest to many agencies, both Christian and otherwise. Any new attendance […]
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Update on the Welsh Outpouring 2013
It is now five months since the phenomenon that has become known as the Welsh Outpouring started in Victory Church Cwmbran, Wales. Although I, and others, have referred to this as the “Cwmbran Outpouring”, Welsh Outpouring is a better description. […]
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Liberal and Conservative Churches Part 1
Recently I came across two comments about liberalism within the Christian church that struck me: Liberal theology cannot sustain a local congregation. It kills churches. In fact, it only survives due to tenured academics. Rick Warren [1] Congregationally speaking, Protestant […]
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The Singing that Ended the Dance
Modelling the growth of the church in times of revival is fraught with difficulties. The work of the Holy Spirit is so unpredictable: “The wind blows where it wishes”, John 3:8. Social modelling, like my church growth work, depends on […]
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A Bad Night for Foxes: A Meeting at the Cwmbran Outpouring
The Cwmbran Outpouring, aka Wales Outpouring, has been running five nights a week since April 10th 2013, at Victory Church which meets in a converted warehouse in Cwmbran [1]. I have written a number of blogs on this outpouring from […]
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Are We in Revival? – Wales 2013
Ever since the Cwmbran Outpouring [1] started people have been speculating whether this is revival; whether this is “it”, the one we have been waiting for. It has prompted much discussion as to what revival really is, and it is […]
In 1904-5, Moriah chapel was the centre of massive church growth in Wales through a God-sent revival.