The network aims to plant 300 new churches in Australia by 2030

Recent data from the Statista Research Department confirms previously published figures showing a decline in the number of Australians identifying with the Christian faith, but churches are still motivated to reach the country with the gospel.

The 2021 Australian Census found that less than half of all Australians, 44%, said they were Christian. This is 8% less than five years earlier in a comparable national census.

At the same time, more and more people do not identify with any religion: 10 million in 2010, which is an increase of 2 million from the previous census. This means that 40% of respondents in the survey have no religion.

Receive our latest news for FREE

Subscribe to receive daily/weekly email with the best stories (plus special offers!) from The Christian Post. Be the first to know.

“The younger age groups in Australia are more likely to have no religious affiliation or to hold other spiritual or secular beliefs,” Statistica said. “This move away from religion is also highlighted by the increase in the number of civil weddings involving celebrants rather than religious ceremonies, with the vast majority of weddings being performed by a civil celebrant.”

More than 120 religions exist in the country, but the traditional “Christian” label is arguably less relevant, as Statistica considers it a “secular country with a diverse migrant population.”

Meanwhile, other majority world religions have grown in Australia, boosting the numbers of Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists.

“While Christian faiths in Australia are slowly declining, there has been a steady growth of other faiths in the country,” Statistica confirmed.

The number of Muslims has grown “significantly” across all age groups since the last national census.

Attitudes toward certain religious groups are fairly neutral, but the report highlighted “a more negative attitude in the country toward Christians and Muslims than any other religion.”

Although there are fewer ties to well-known religions, Australians show ‘high satisfaction with religious belief or spiritual life’. Religious beliefs of any kind are still a key principle for identities and everyday life.

Despite the seemingly negative facts of the recent Census, some churches and church networks in Australia are intensifying their efforts to reach people with the Gospel.

Reach Australia, a network of more than 260 churches, works hard to reach Australians with the Gospel. At the network’s national conference in May, Derek Hanna, Plant director and advocate for Gospel-centered church leaders, discussed the issue of maintaining a consistently positive view of evangelism moving forward.

In a talk entitled ‘State of the Nation in Church Planting’, Hanna outlined a vision for planting 300 churches in Australia by 2030. The network has planted 145 to date, creating a need to expand within the next six years 155 churches to start, which requires 800 churches. new gospel ministry leaders.

Hanna recognized the psychological challenges of seeing the magnitude of the vision as impossible or improbable.

“You may think that’s impossible, but we are sitting in a room where each of us believes that God raised Jesus from the dead,” he told delegates at the May conference. “That’s impossible! Each of us is convinced that we were dead, but now we are alive in Christ.”

However, looking at the network’s multiplication rate over the past twenty years is encouraging for imagining the future. Hanna calculated that the average multiplication rate for churches in the network is 4% annually and that through that trajectory the goal of 300 new churches will be achieved.

“The lie is, ‘We believe in a God who can, but probably won’t,’” he said. ‘Look around this room. There are 1,300 people here this week from different denominations with a shared gospel conviction about reaching Australia. That is the work of God.

“This is not triumphalism, this is simply recognizing what God is doing at this point, at this moment in history.”

Originally published at Christian Daily International