Faculty of Education - Theses

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Type: Masters Research thesis × Start date: 2000 × End date: 2000 × Subject: Victoria × Author: Buchanan, John Roy ×

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    Victorian by name, Victorian by nature: a preliminary investigation into the decline of the Presbyterian Church of Victoria with suggestions on how this decline may be arrested
    Buchanan, John Roy ( 2000)
    The aim of this thesis is to make a preliminary investigation into the present state of the Presbyterian Church in Victoria. My hypothesis is that, since this denomination has shrunk in size from over 9,000 members in 1988 to a little over 6,500 members in 1999, it is a church in crisis. This thesis researches the place of the Presbyterian Church within an ever-changing society. My goal is to provide insights into how a theologically conservative denomination may positively interact with the various communities around it. I recognise that church structures and practices which are meaningful to the Presbyterians of Victoria may have less relevance to non-Presbyterians. Recent statistics show that 83% of people now attending Presbyterian Churches across Victoria were nurtured in it as children. A further 14% have joined the denomination from other denominations. While this has its own encouragements, it also means that the denomination has not been very successful in reaching the genuinely non-churched. Only 3% of the attenders at Presbyterian Churches have joined because of effective evangelism within their community. New forms of church life attuned to the needs of post World War II, post-Christian generations and less formal styles of church are required to develop and maintain a connectedness to the communities in which the church finds itself. The research indicates that it is the congregations within the Presbyterian Church of Victoria that have adopted new styles of worship and high levels of evangelical community involvement that are growing. Further, the "Church Growth Movement" offers a number of well researched steps that, if adopted, may assist Presbyterian congregations to adapt to the new situation in which they find themselves.