Ian Mobsby, post-secular culture and mission

On this month’s podcast I headed down to the Scooterworks cafe in London to meet up with Ian Mobsby.

Ian is an ordained Anglican priest who is one of the founding members of, and works full time with the Moot Community in London. Ian is also an associate Missioner of the Church of England Archbishop’s Fresh Expressions Team, and an associate lecturer of a number of Ordination training institutes in England.

I thoroughly enjoyed interviewing Ian. Perhaps more than anyone we’ve interviewed, I think Ian’s ministry combines a deep spirituality, intellectual rigour, and a real practical, hands on, loving concern for people.

I was left contemplating a lot after the interview, but the idea of living in a post-secular, yet post-religious society has stayed clearest in my mind. How could our mission be shaped by a culture that when searching for meaning is seemingly less interested in knowledge and facts, and increasingly interested in spiritual experience?

This rise in interest in spirituality certainly seems to be the case in my city of Nottingham. The Centre for the Study of Human Relations at Nottingham University produced a report called Understanding the Spirituality of People who Don't Go to Church. It compared the spiritual experiences of those in 2000 with those in 1987. They found that on average, people’s awareness of the spiritual dimension of life had risen from 48% in 1987 to 76% in 2000.

The report concluded by saying that ‘people increasingly see themselves as ‘spiritual but not religious’’ and that they don’t see the church as a vehicle through which they might meet a genuine spiritual world.

Again, statistics back this up, as during the same period that this study was conducted, church attendance in Nottinghamshire fell from just under 8% in 1989, to just under 6% in 2000 (and I suspect these trends have continued over the subsequent 10 years).

So I’m starting to give some serious thought and prayer to how we might go about engaging with these trends in mission, and what sort of church might be required for this context.

I really don’t know what the answers are yet, but I’m going to start by researching the spirituality of my particular corner of Nottinghamshire, Sherwood. In this relatively small suburb we’ve got two magic shops, a physic healer, clairvoyant, a yoga centre (and not the typical watered down western variety, one that actually teaches Hindu spirituality), Tai-Chi, a spiritualist church, and a short drive away we’ve got a Buddhist meditation centre. So I thought I’d begin by visiting these spiritual centres and hopefully understanding how they perceive the spirituality of this area.

I’ll let you know how I get on over the next few months.