04.04.2007

Ali Bishop speaks to the BBC about bringing the Church into the 21st Century

Ali Bishop talked exclusively to BBC Radio Lancashire’s Brett Davison today about how the popularity of the Church of England can be raised following the recent reports of a declining congregation.

Christian charity, Tearfund, conducted a survey which revealed that more people in the UK would attend church if they were given the “right invitation” and perhaps more encouragement.

Brett Davison asked Ali Bishop what she thought of the church and how it could do better to attract people.

Ali Bishop said: “Marketing and public relations is all about communication and I think from that point of view the church is guilty of not communicating its message effectively to all the different types of audiences it wants to attract. For example, I always say to my clients that in order to attract people to their business they must consider in detail what language their target audience communicates in.”

Brett also asked Alison whether bringing the church too far into the modern day would realistically work.

She said: “ To be honest no it wouldn’t work, but using modern forums like the Internet would help communicate the message to the younger generation. I would concentrate on the positive things the church has which is a sense of community and tradition. According to the survey 3 million people still want to go to church, people still want tradition and instead of shying away from this the church should capitalise on that more in their marketing message.”