We thought it would be good to end 2007 on a positive (albeit slightly late) note, by flagging up the results of a recent (last month) survey on prayer conducted by Tearfund.
According to the survey (based on a representative sample of 2000):
Of the 42% (20 million) of UK adults who pray, 13 million pray at least once a month and 12 million at least once a week. Nine million adults pray every day.
Perhaps one of the most surprising statistics is that London is the ‘prayer capital’ of the UK, with 73% of adults praying.
There seems to be little correlation between prayer and church attendance since “while 42% of UK adults pray, the figure for church attendance (at least once a year) is 22%.”
These results seem to suggest that the UK is not quite such a ‘secular’ place as the commentators generally observe (see for example this American take on the UK’s religious attitudes in the light of Blair’s recent public conversion to Catholicism).
Whichever one is more realistic, we hope and pray that 2008 will be a year of great blessing for you.