ABSTRACT
Gill offers clear evidence from the Northern Ireland Social Attitudes (NISA) and British Social Attitudes (BSA) surveys of 1991 that between 91 and 95 per cent of adult weekly churchgoers went to church weekly as children, whether or not they subsequently had a conversion experience (Gill: 1999: 139). It would appear from this evidence, and from studies such as those by Finney and the British Weekly, that patterns of regular adult churchgoing are heavily dependent upon the socialization of children into a culture that nurtures Christian belief and provides adults with a faith to return to in later life. It would also appear that the claim in Mission-shaped Church that mission strategies of the past have relied on a childhood experience of churchgoing is substantially correct.
