Church in Oz: A club nobody bothers to go to?

From "Downunder"

So I’ve mended my heathenish ways and started going back to church again. After last year’s less than happy encounter with low church Anglicanism, I found another church more to my liking, more traditional — so much so that I have joined the choir.

So far I am enjoying going to church more than I had expected I would. It is certainly helping to assuage my sense of loneliness and isolation. The people are genuinely nice and it’s comforting and familiar, going through the rituals I know so well in the company of others.

The company of others … and there is the catch. Because, in this part of Sydney at least, people don’t go to church. I’ve just come back from singing at evensong. As we walked, robes swishing, out of the church, one of the sopranos blurted out, “I made a bet that there would be more people in the choir than in the congregation this evening and I was right!” One of the men shushed her in case the worshippers inside overheard, but she had a point.

There were twelve of us in the choir, eleven in the congregation. It was the same on Ash Wednesday, traditionally an important service. (By way of contrast, my mother told me that at the service she sang at back in Joburg, people were queuing out the door.)

Is it this bad for the Catholics, the Uniting Church, the Presbyterians? Why don’t Australians, especially Anglican Australians, go to church? As in other first world countries, pentecostal churches such as Hillsong are showing rapid growth. At the same time, the number of Australians who claim no religious affiliation is growing. Not to mention the growth of other religions in line with increased immigration from Lebanon and Asia.

The rest is here-

http://www.thoughtleader.co.za/sarahbritten/2009/03/29/church-in-oz-a-club-nobody-bothers-to-go-to/