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Out with the Old, in with the New? 
An Introduction to the Phenomenon  
of New Churches in Glasgow, Scotland

Sheila Akomiah-Conteh
Sheila Akomiah-Conteh is a researcher at Brendan Research, a Christian Research 
organisation based in Edinburgh.  She also teaches Religious Education in Scottish 
Secondary Schools. She holds a PhD in Divinity from the University of Aberdeen 
in Scotland. 
Contact: sheila.akomiah@brendanresearch.com

Abstract

The prospects of the church in Britain have been defined by an 
enduring narrative of regression for many decades, but something 
new is happening. The presence and influence of old and estab-
lished institutions are waning, but many new groups are emerg-
ing to keep the heritage of the church alive. This quantitative and 
qualitative study presents the new changes which have occurred 
in the Christian landscape of the city of Glasgow in Scotland in 
recent years, which are often hidden from other forms of research 
such as national church surveys. It reports the formation of 110 
new churches in Glasgow between 2000–2016, and the key charac-
teristics and impact of these groups on Christianity in the city. The 



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51

presence and effect of new churches in Glasgow indicate seismic 
changes and presents new challenges in the spiritual landscape of 
this post-Christian city, not least around the homogeneity of the 
majority of them. 

Introduction

The outlook of the church in Britain has been defined by an en-
during narrative of decline for over fifty decades (Brown, 2001; 
Bruce, 2002), but something new is happening. The landscape of 
Christianity in post-Christendom British society is undergoing a 
transformation. The presence and influence of old and established 
Christian institutions are undoubtedly waning, but many new and 
innovative groups are emerging to keep the heritage of the church 
alive. Against the receding tide of faith and practice, new patterns 
of growth and revitalization are beginning to emerge. Using em-
pirical research methods, this article investigates the phenomenon 
of new churches in the city of Glasgow in Scotland, to add to the 
growing body of knowledge on this emerging trend in contempo-
rary British Christianity. 

In the first part of this paper, I will establish the background 
and rationale for implementing this kind of study in the chosen 
context. This will be followed by a detailed explanation of the 
chosen methodology and how data was collected and used in this 
study. This then lays the foundation for understanding the report-
ing and analysis of key findings which follow, and the conclusions 
drawn from them. 

Background

A renewed theological and academic interest in church growth in 
contemporary Britain is generating some unanticipated results. 
They reveal upsurges in both the variety and size of congregations 
in many parts of the country (Gwanmesia, 2009; Goodhew, 2012; 
Brierley, 2014; Rogers, 2013). This development has been largely 



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attributed to the formation of various new churches and Christian 
groups, although some historic institutions, such as the Church 
of England and the Roman Catholic Church, have also shown 
significant gains in attendance and membership in recent times, 
particularly those located in major cities (Goodhew 2012; Brierley 
2014; Goodhew and Cooper 2018). 

New churches simply refer to recently founded congregations. 
The specific criteria for definition as a new church in this article 
will be discussed in detail later on, but generally, new churches can 
represent new Christian denominations, individual groups, new 
“plants” by existing denominations, re-foundations of declining or 
previously closed churches and various innovative groups widely 
known as “fresh expressions” and “emerging’”churches (Cray, 
2009; Moynagh, 2012). Novel sociocultural occurrences, experi-
ences and changes in the social order in recent years, have led to 
the creation of many such congregations across Britain. These new 
groups usually attract a highly diverse demographic of followers 
and may have little or no connections with existing or historic 
church institutions.

The majority of studies that exist so far on the phenomenon 
of new churches in Britain have been focused on and conducted 
in the context of the southern half of the country, particularly in 
England (Goodhew, 2012; Osgood, 2012; Walker, 2014; Goodhew 
and Symmons 2015; Paas, 2016). There is currently very limited 
research on the question of the presence and scope of the phenom-
enon in other areas of the United Kingdom, especially in Scotland. 
Current and localised research is vital to any attempts to perceive 
and map the true nature of growth or decline in congregational 
life. Accordingly, this paper investigates the presence and nature of 
new churches in Scotland by studying recent changes in the City of 
Glasgow in the years 2000 to 2016.

Why Scotland?

No study of this nature has yet been conducted anywhere in 
Scotland. The Scottish region has consistently reported some of 



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the lowest statistics in Christian belief and church attendance in 
the United Kingdom in the past and in recent times (Brierley, 
2017). Various polls and surveys conducted over the years have 
all pointed to the fact that Scotland’s “historical reputation as a 
particularly religious nation” is rapidly fading (Field, 2001). Find-
ings from the most recent national census in 2011 reinforced this 
recurrent theme. For the first time since census figures begun, the 
proportion of people describing themselves as having ‘no religion’ 
in Scotland (37 percent of the population), overtook the Kirk (as 
the established Church, the Church of Scotland is known) as the 
most popular national “religious” stance. In this census, just 32 
percent of Scots identified with the historic Church of Scotland 
(Scotland’s Census 2011). A comparison with the preceding 2001 
census indicated a loss of nearly half a million Church of Scotland 
(CofS) adherents, and experts predict this downward trend is set 
to continue (Brierley, 2011).

Undeniable, wide-scale regression over many years, there-
fore, sets the scene for Christianity in Scotland, but it is important 
to question whether such decline remains the dominant issue of 
interest in congregational life in modern-day Scotland. This article 
sets out to capture a purposefully concise and substantially current 
glimpse of the present situation in Scotland to contribute to the 
ongoing discourse about the status and future direction of Christi-
anity in Britain as a whole.

Why Glasgow?

The city of Glasgow has certain features which make it particu-
larly suitable for the present investigation. These are its Christian 
heritage, its commercial capabilities, and its cosmopolitan nature. 
Glasgow is a city located in the central belt of Scotland along the 
River Clyde in the country’s West Central Lowlands. Its Christian 
heritage is believed to have started in the sixth century, when the 
conurbation was founded by the Christian missionary, Saint Mun-
go (Hale, 1989). In the following years, the town blossomed as a 



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54

religious centre and later grew to become one of the key economic 
centres of the United Kingdom.

Currently, it is Scotland’s biggest city and the fourth largest 
in the United Kingdom by population (Population UK Statistics 
2018). It is also the most ethnically diverse and remains the prin-
cipal commercial and industrial hub of Scotland, enclosing major 
trade and transport routes. These are all qualities which Good-
hew and Symmons (2015) found to be key to the location of new 
churches in Britain. 

Glasgow has one further advantage for the purposes of the 
present study - the city was crucial to studying the impact of ur-
banisation on the Scottish religious system in the past (Brown, 
1981). As Callum Brown described in his study on the effects of 
urbanisation on religious development in Scotland in the nine-
teenth and twentieth centuries, 

In few other countries did any one city affect so greatly 
the outlook and distribution of the resources of “nation-
al” churches. In the Scottish churches as in other spheres 
of civil life, Glasgow became synonymous with indus-
trialisation and urbanisation. Ecclesiastical responses to 
the development of Scottish urban society were increas-
ingly drawn from Glasgow’s experience as the industrial 
revolution proceeded. In the city of Glasgow, therefore, 
the progress of religious development and secularisation 
can be illuminated not only by local reactions but also by 
the national responses to the growth of a city that acutely 
affected the social and economic life of the country. 
(1981: 7).

Glasgow continues to have economic, demographic and oth-
er influences over the rest of Scotland in the twenty-first century. 
Since developments in the city defined the religious landscape of 
the whole country in the pre-Christendom and Christendom eras, 
studies of current events in its spiritual sphere, especially in the 
post-Christendom age, can similarly have key implications for the 
church in wider Scottish society. 



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Why 2000–2016?

Key texts which discuss the subject of new churches in Britain 
usually cover its chronology in the UK from the 1980s (Goodhew, 
2012). This enquiry, however, strictly focuses on and evaluates the 
twenty-first-century trends in the development of new churches 
by studying churches founded in or after the year 2000 and up till 
2016. This serves to present a very fresh and current glimpse of the 
phenomenon in this unresearched region. 

Much more importantly, the chosen timeframe, 2000 to 
2016, covers periods of key statistical significance and points of 
reference for the study. These are the two most recent national 
population censuses in Scotland in 2001 and 2011, and also, the 
most recent national church surveys held in the area in 2002 and 
2016. Referrals to these crucial data pools will appear in ensuing 
discussions for comparative and analytical purposes. 

This time frame is also long enough for any recent changes 
in the Christian landscape to be noticeable and compact enough 
to be practicably manageable by a solo researcher working within 
a limited timeframe. Consequently, the study is limited in scope 
and scale. Nonetheless, it contributes to the data and dialogue 
about contemporary ecclesiological trends in post-Christendom 
societies. 

Methodology and Methods

The overarching aim of this research is to study the phenomenon 
of new churches in the city of Glasgow in the years 2000–2016. 
Specifically, it seeks to investigate the scale of occurrence and the 
characteristics of new churches which have appeared in the area 
during the period under review. Because it is a novel and develop-
ing phenomenon, existing research about new churches are usually 
exploratory and descriptive in nature, seeking to unearth informa-
tion about their operations, nature, and ethos, and subsequently to 
postulate about the significance of these findings (Goodhew 2012; 
Goodhew and Symmons 2015). This study aims to apply a variety 



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of procedures including the exploration of original views and ex-
periences in its evaluation of new churches; thus a quantitative and 
qualitative research design was adopted. 

In his study of new churches in Seattle, James (2018) em-
ployed a similar approach to “counting” the number of churches 
which had been founded in the city between 2001–2014 and go-
ing further to study in-depth their characteristics using qualitative 
methods.

Data Collection 

Locating new churches

A significant aspect of this research, and one of my key research 
enquiries, involved locating and counting the number of new 
churches established in Glasgow in the years 2000–2016. This ex-
ercise relied significantly on exploring several public data sources 
such as websites and social media pages. Using the search terms 
“church Glasgow” and “new church Glasgow” interchangeably 
on web and social media sites, I generated a list of potential new 
churches for further investigation. I then extensively researched 
and studied their Facebook pages and other online accounts, such 
as websites and blogs, for clues on when they were established, 
their meeting times and venues, the contact details of their leaders 
and even pictures and videos of their meetings where available. 
The church websites usually also provided extensive histories of 
the churches, their activities and their core theological beliefs 
among others. Using this information, I started to build a database 
of the churches which would meet the criteria of the study.

One of the most important secondary resources I consulted 
to locate new churches was the database of the Office of the Scot-
tish Charity Regulator (OSCR). According to the Charities and 
Trustee Investments (Scotland) Act 2005, all charitable organisa-
tions in Scotland, including churches, are legally required to reg-
ister their presence with the establishment. Applying the search 
terms “church,” and “church Glasgow” on the OSCR database, 



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several results were generated. I then paid attention to groups reg-
istered from the year 2000 onwards, and to their postcodes to en-
sure that they fell within the ambits of my geographical study area. 
This database also sometimes provided contact details, website 
addresses and a description of the key activities of the registered 
churches. This process was highly productive and contributed the 
largest number of entries (about 50 percent) onto my working list 
of new churches.

Beside these methods, I also conducted on-the-ground field 
investigations by visiting various ethnic and international shops 
and reviewing the flyers, posters and various other advertising 
materials being distributed or displayed on their notice boards. I 
discovered that many new churches, especially the ethnic minor-
ity ones, used this means to solicit new members or invite people 
to special church events. This method also helped to detect and 
confirm the presence of many new churches in Glasgow. 

Empirical research was also implemented extensively in this 
enquiry for the purposes of discovering, studying and verifying 
information about the demography, activities, experiences, and 
practices which define new churches. A questionnaire survey was 
the principal empirical tool implemented in this study. Its main 
aim was to obtain comprehensive and characteristic information 
about the new churches discovered in Glasgow. The survey was 
divided into four parts and sought data about the churches and 
their leadership, the demography and size of their congregations, 
their meeting and attendance statistics and their theological and 
missional practices. A thirty-item, online survey instrument was 
developed and distributed to an overall population of 110 churches 
and obtained a response rate of 54.5 percent (sixty responses out of 
110). The questionnaire also had a completion rate of 91 percent. 

Additionally, for the qualitative element of the research, I 
conducted in-depth interviews with nine new church leaders and 
practiced participant observation in the worship meetings of an-
other nine churches over several weeks. These additional methods 
served as supplementary resources. For instance, the interview 
questions were developed after a careful consideration of all the 



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information gathered from the survey and participant observation 
exercises. The interviews were then implemented to fill in any gaps 
in knowledge and for clarifications, whilst also obtaining addi-
tional perspectives on any essential issues. 
The participant observation studies were used to verify some of 
the findings of the survey, particularly those pertaining to sta-
tistical and demographic information about the congregations;  
this helped to check the problem of self-inflated data, which can 
sometimes be encountered in self-reported church questionnaires 
(Goodhew and Symmons, 2015). 

Furthermore, I paid random visits to more than half of the 
new churches discovered, including some of those which did not 
participate in the survey. These visits also enabled me to verify the 
authenticity of more survey data, as well as obtain new informa-
tion about the non-surveyed groups through general observation 
and informal conversations. 
It is important to highlight that, although writing in 2021, the data 
presented in this study was collected and analysed between 2016–
2018 as part of a PhD study, and must therefore be considered with 
this caveat in mind1 

Defining new churches 

To qualify as a new church for the purposes of this study, the 
Christian group in question must:

1. Have been founded or created during or after the year 2000 
and up to and including 2016, in the Glasgow City Council 
area

2. Be Trinitarian

3. Meet regularly for worship, at least, once a week (not neces-
sarily on a Sunday)

1. Akomiah-Conteh., S., (2018): The Changing Landscape of the Church 
in Scotland: New Churches in Glasgow 2000–2016 is the PhD thesis which 
presents a full and more extensive review of new churches in Glasgow. It can 
be retrieved from the thesis archives of the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. 



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4. Have five or more people in attendance at meetings

5. Observe the sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion

6. Have a clear, new identity (not a rebranding of a formerly 
existing church)

7. Self-identify as a church and be the main expression of church 
for the majority of its members (for instance not a cell group 
of another main church).

This seven-point criterion was adapted from the measures 
implemented by Goodhew and Symmons (2015) in their focused 
study of new churches in the North East of England, however, 
they considered new churches founded from 1980 onwards. The 
‘definition’ of a new church for the purposes of this research was 
intentionally strict to ensure that the total number of churches 
identified as such were in no danger of being an overcount. This, 
however, means that several innovative activities, churches and 
Christian groups in Glasgow which did not fully meet the set 
criteria were excluded in this study. Had the criterion been more 
relaxed, the scale of new church foundation in Glasgow between 
2000 and 2016 may have been larger than reported in this study. 

For instance, new churches established in Glasgow before the 
year 2000 were not included in this thesis. However, it can be cau-
tiously estimated that at least fifty new churches may have been 
founded in Glasgow between 1980 and 1999. The characteristics 
of these churches would, however, have been different from the 
churches established from the year 2000 onwards, particularly 
with regards to their ethnic diversity. These “pre-2000” church 
plants would have been significantly White Scottish or White Brit-
ish in membership. I know from the current data that at least 99 
percent of the ethnic minority church denominations captured in 
this study did not have any presence in Glasgow pre-2000. 

Several Fresh Expressions of church such as “messy church” 
and “community cafes,” among others, which engage primarily 
with the unchurched in different communities, were also excluded. 
A fresh expression is defined as “a form of church for our chang-
ing culture, established primarily for the benefit of people who are 



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not yet members of any church,” (Goodhew, Roberts and Volland, 
2012: 75). Much ambiguity and scepticism surround the defini-
tion of what it means to be a “church” for many Fresh Expressions 
(Church Army 2019: 15), and Paas (2016) admits that some Fresh 
Expressions cannot even be considered as church plants. This is 
because they normally begin as neutral groups with the potential 
to develop into mature expressions of church over time. Some, 
however, do not grow to the stage of becoming a church at all in 
their lifetime. As a result, the majority of these groups also do not 
practice traditional church rituals such as the administration of 
the sacraments of communion and baptism as part of their normal 
practice. These are some of the qualities which disqualified many 
Fresh Expression groups in Glasgow from inclusion in my study. 
Nonetheless, more than 250 Church of Scotland congregations 
across Scotland are reported to run Messy Church groups (Church 
Army Report 2019). Consequently, the inclusion of some of these 
innovative missional groups and activities in this research would 
have resulted in a much more significant quantity of new church 
activity in Glasgow.

Findings and Analysis

Accordingly, this study discovered that a total of 110 new churches 
were founded in Glasgow between 2000 and 2016. This suggests 
an average church planting rate of seven new groups per annum.



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Figure 1: When were the new churches founded?

Collectively, the new groups are nearly as many as all Church 
of Scotland congregations currently operating in the same area 
(there are currently 127 churches in the Church of Scotland’s Pres-
bytery of Glasgow). If they were a single denomination, the new 
churches in Glasgow would also largely outnumber the number of 
Roman Catholic (65), Episcopal (14), Methodist (9), United Free 
Church (10) and Salvation Army (9) congregations in the city. 

Th e 2016 Scottish church census reported that there were 361
Christian congregations in Glasgow in total (Brierley 2018, sec-
tion 12.15). My research, however, discovered that new churches 
were sometimes largely missed and undercounted in large scale, 
mainstream statistics. 

Th e 2016 Scottish church census was hailed to be a com-
prehensive survey of “all denominations and every local church 
in Scotland” (according to the census information leafl et). Its 
organisers contacted over 3000 local congregations across Scot-
land with self-completion, postal questionnaires and achieved a 
response rate of 40 percent (Brierley, 2017: 11). Eight weeks af-
ter the Scottish national church census, I also implemented my 



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62

questionnaire survey of the new churches in Glasgow. This was 
purposely planned to prevent any confusion or clash of the two 
surveys, although mine was on a much smaller scale. I also wanted 
to test the level of participation of new churches in national ac-
tivities. Therefore, my survey asked the question, “Did your church 
take part in the recent Scottish church survey held on the 8th of May 
2016? If No, why could you not participate?”

Approximately 90 percent of my respondents in Glasgow did 
not participate in the 2016 Scottish national church census. The 
most popular reason given for their non-participation was “not 
being contacted by the organisers and therefore not being aware of 
the activity.” Only six out of sixty churches noted that they had re-
ceived information about the census. Of these, however, two forgot 
to respond and four participated fully. Therefore, Brierley’s report 
of 361 congregations in Glasgow in the 2016 national church cen-
sus is an undercount and may not include many new churches, es-
pecially those discovered in my study. This once again underscores 
the importance of small-scale localised research in congregational 
studies. Broad sweeping surveys and overviews of church growth 
and decline may be important for painting the picture of general 
developments, but they do not always tell the whole story.

With regards to congregational numbers, data obtained from 
my questionnaire survey revealed that approximately 5,178 people 
attended the sixty churches which participated in the survey. This 
indicates an average new church congregation size of 86, compris-
ing of men, women and children (the survey asked the question, 
“What is the current, total number of your congregation including 
men, women and children?”).

Brierley’s 2016 census did not collate church membership 
numbers for the different council areas. However, it measured 
Sunday church attendance by denomination and council area. Ac-
cording to its findings, 60,890 people overall attended church in 
Glasgow on any usual Sunday in 2016. This data suggests that at 
least 10 percent of the city’s inhabitants go to church on Sundays. 
It must be borne in mind, however, that contemporary trends in 
churchgoing indicate that many new Christian groups also hold 



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63

various weekday meetings and for some their main weekly meet-
ing may not take place on Sundays. The popularity of online church 
activity exacerbated by the extremities of the current COVID-19 
pandemic may also have an impact on the systems of measurement 
and collation of church attendance statistics in the future. None-
theless, of the 60,890 people attending church in Glasgow weekly 
(on Sundays) in 2016, 38,570 went to Roman Catholic churches, 
12,870 went to the Church of Scotland and 2,310 were Baptists. 
The remainder were from a mixture of other smaller denomina-
tions and churches. 

We now know that the current statistics do not include many 
new churches in Glasgow. Therefore, the inclusion of an additional 
5000 new church members will definitely add a substantial boost 
to church attendance in Glasgow. If we were to stretch this fur-
ther by estimating the total potential membership of all the 110 
new churches discovered in Glasgow using the survey sample as 
representative, we will end up with a potential sum of 9,178 more 
church attendants. This was calculated by rounding down the av-
erage congregation size of the surveyed churches, which is 86.3, to 
80 (rounding down instead of up guards against overestimation, 
and in this case it is better to underestimate than to overestimate). 
The membership size of the fifty non-participating new congre-
gations is therefore projected as 4000. All of this illustrates that 
church attendance figures in Glasgow may be higher than has been 
officially reported, and that new churches may be contributing to 
Christianity in many other ways that are not recognised. 

Types of New Churches in Glasgow

Upon studying all the demographic data gathered about new 
churches in Glasgow, a clear pattern began to emerge. The new 
churches in Glasgow all seemed to fall distinctively into three main 
ethnic groups. These were African, White Scottish and Asian. A 
fourth small category which I named “Other” contained a mixture 
of specific national churches. 



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64

In a bid to discover how ethnically diverse new churches 
were, the survey asked respondents: “Approximately how many of 
your congregation fall into the following ethnic groups?” The catego-
ries presented to them were White Scottish/English/Welsh/Irish, 
Other White, Mixed, Black African, Black Caribbean/Black Other, 
Chinese/Japanese/Korean, Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi, Other 
Asian, Other Non-White. These same categories were used in the 
2016 Scottish church census. 

Using data obtained from the surveys, participant observa-
tion, church visits, and reviews of information available on church 
websites and social media pages including pictures and videos, I 
was able to locate each of the 110 churches discovered into one 
of these categories. I defined African churches as those groups in 
which 80 percent or more of the congregation were African, White 
Scottish churches as those congregations where 80 percent or 
more of the membership were White Scottish or White-British, for 
example, English, Welsh or Irish, and Asian churches as churches 
with 80 percent or more of the congregation coming from Asian 
backgrounds. “Asian background” in this instance means, largely 
related to or coming from the Asian continent. This includes 
people from Pakistan, India, China, Korea, Japan, Iran, Syria and 
the Philippines. 

Going by this definition, 51 percent of all the new churches 
discovered in Glasgow (56 out of 110) were African churches, 35 
percent or 39 churches could be described as White Scottish, and 
9 percent or 10 churches could be described as Asian churches. 
The final “Other” category was primarily made up of five churches 
which were exclusively Romanian (3) and Russian (2). They ac-
counted for 5 percent of new churches in Glasgow.



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Figure 2: Classifi cation of New Churches in Glasgow

Broadly speaking, a large proportion of the new churches 
founded in Glasgow between 2000–2016 were ethnic minority 
churches. Th e Oxford Dictionary defi nes ethnic minority as “a 
group within a community which has diff erent national or cultural 
traditions from the main population.” Th is includes Black and Mi-
nority Ethnic (BME), and “Other White” communities. According 
to the UK Institute of Race Relations, BME is the terminology nor-
mally used in the UK to describe all people of non-white descent. 
Th e term “Other White,” on the other hand, is a classifi cation of 
ethnicity in the United Kingdom, referring to persons who con-
sider themselves “White” but are neither British nor Irish (Offi  ce 
of National Statistics Ethnicity Data, 2013: 9).

Statistics gathered in the current study show that 65 percent 
of the new churches discovered in Glasgow (a total of 71 churches) 
are ethnic minority churches. In these churches, at least 80 percent 
of the congregation were from BME backgrounds and the “Other 
White” category. Th e following pie chart illustrates the two broad 
types of new churches in Glasgow.



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66

Figure 3: Broad Category of New Churches in Glasgow

Within the ethnic minority group of new churches in 
Glasgow, African churches make up 79 percent of the total, Asian 
churches make up 14 percent and Other White churches occupy 7
percent. African churches are therefore the fastest growing ethnic 
minority church in Glasgow.

Figure 4: Proportion of Ethnic Minority New Churches in Glasgow 



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67

Another interesting discovery about the ethnic minority 
churches in Glasgow is that they are all individually very homog-
enous. The various African churches in the city, for instance, are 
largely groups or denominations from specific African countries. 
It is therefore very easy to identify the Ghanaian churches, Nige-
rian churches, French-speaking Congolese churches, Zimbabwean 
churches, etc. On the other hand, the Asian churches are grouped 
along linguistic lines. Notably, whereas at least 95 percent of the 
African churches conduct their services in English, nearly all the 
Asian churches hold their meetings in a local language. For ex-
ample, the three Asian churches I visited during my participant 
observation studies conducted their services in Tamil, Malayalam 
and Punjabi respectively. In two of these churches I was assigned a 
personal (English) interpreter during the church service. 

As the data illustrates, the concept of new churches in 
Glasgow is a distinctively ethnic phenomenon, expressed in three 
main varieties in the city. New churches in Glasgow are either pre-
dominantly African, Asian or white Scottish. Truly multi-cultural 
churches are very rare in Glasgow and even among the groups 
which appear to be mixed, the proportion of people from different 
ethnicities is most likely to make up only about 10 to 15 percent 
of the entire group. Homogenous churches therefore appear to be 
flourishing in Glasgow. This manifestation has several implica-
tions for mission, ecumenical relations and social integration in 
Glasgow and Scotland as a whole.

The subject of the Homogeneous Unit Principle of church 
growth has triggered considerable debate among church practi-
tioners and theologians about Christian missionary endeavours in 
contemporary society for decades. This classical notion promoted 
by Donald McGavran, the pioneer of Church Growth philosophy 
states that, “people like to be Christians without crossing racial, 
linguistic or class barriers” (McGavran, 1970: 198). Peter Wagner, 
one of his key supporters also believed that evangelistic efforts were 
more effective when new converts were assimilated into churches 
of their own culture rather than into neutral ones where there was 
no “cultural match” (Wagner, 1978). He argued that, 



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Culturally homogeneous congregations, when they are 
formed voluntarily and when they are open to all oth-
ers who wish to become members, possess an intrinsic 
integrity as Christian community. Therefore, rather than 
being denounced, they should be celebrated. Rather than 
being perceived as the causes of racism and discrimina-
tion, they should be seen as one of the most viable in-
stitutions for healing such social ills. (Wagner, 1978: 12)

Even in a place as culturally diverse as the United States, a 
national congregation study revealed that about 90 percent of 
American congregations are made up of at least 90 percent of peo-
ple of the same race (Emerson and Smith 2000). Although, recent 
commentators observe that the popularity of the Homogeneous 
Unit theory or “people group principle” is waning (Schnabel, 2008: 
405–406), my study and others show that homogeneous groups 
such as Fresh Expressions and ethnic minority Christianity are 
currently thriving in Britain.

Kwiyani (2020) nevertheless maintains that multicultural 
churches are the future of worldwide Christianity, describing the 
increasing cultural diversity in contemporary British Christianity 
as “the great new fact of our era, and a new normal that is here to 
stay.” He urges church planters and practitioners to embrace and 
explore the concept of a multicultural kingdom of God.

Indeed, racial and social unity is a theological ideal that 
should be manifested in the Church depending on socio-cultural 
contexts. However, how to translate this model most effectively 
into the ordinary missionary and local church ministry practice 
of many contemporary churches remains elusive. Therefore, when 
faced with the reality of the global church, it can be tempting to 
accept homogeneous churches as an inescapable element of the 
evangelical landscape.

The Theological Background of New Churches in Glasgow

New churches in Glasgow predominantly describe themselves as 
Pentecostal. More than half of the new churches in Glasgow (56 



Sheila Akomiah-Conteh—Out with the Old, in with the New?

69

percent) described themselves as Pentecostal  when asked in the 
survey, “Which of the following terms best describes your congrega-
tion?” with the following choices given: Pentecostal, Evangelical, 
Baptist, Roman Catholic, Church of Scotland, Episcopal, Method-
ist, Orthodox and Other. 

Th ose who describe themselves as Evangelical are the sec-
ond largest group of new churches; 29 percent described them-
selves as such. Orthodox churches made up 5 percent of the new 
churches, while the Baptist Union accounted for 3 percent. Th e 
Free Church of Scotland Church had 2 percent of the total share of 
new churches, and both the Church of Scotland and the Reformed 
Presbyterians had 1percent. None identifi ed as Catholic, Episcopal 
or Methodist churches.

African churches were the most likely to describe themselves 
as Pentecostal. Almost 88 percent of the new African churches 
in Glasgow said they were Pentecostal and just 5 percent catego-
rized themselves as Evangelical. In sharp contrast, white Scottish 
churches largely classifi ed themselves as Evangelical (69 percent), 
and 18 percent as Pentecostal. On the hand, 60 percent of the 
Asian churches also described themselves as Pentecostal.

Figure 5: Th eological Background of New Churches in Glasgow

Th ese fi ndings are consistent with results from similar studies 
in other parts of Britain where Pentecostal churches, particularly 



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70

African Pentecostals, are known to be spreading rapidly across 
the country (Goodhew and Symmons, 2015). Similarly, the 2016 
Scottish church census related that the number of Pentecostals in 
Scotland has tripled since 1984, growing at a rate of 3.8 percent 
per annum. It also confirms that the most popular theological tra-
dition for ethnic minority groups is the Pentecostal category. A 
total of 32 percent of them attended Pentecostal churches across 
Scotland (Brierley 2017). The following table shows how ethnic 
minority groups are distributed across some major denominations 
in Scotland.2

Table 1: Ethnic Minorities in Scottish Churches 2017

Ethnicity Church 
of Scot-
land %

Episcopal 
Church %

Roman 
Catholic 
%

Pentecos-
tal %

Baptist %

White 98.1 96.2 88.4 68.1 92.7
Black 0.6 1.8 2.8 20.9 3.3
Mixed 0.7 0.5 1.2 3.8 0.8
I/P/B 0.2 0.6 3.4 4.0 0.6
C/K/J 0.2 0.7 0.6 1.3 1.1
Other 
Asian

0.1 0.2 2.0 1.0 1.1

Other 
Non-White

0.1 0.0 0.3 0.9 0.4

Key: I/P/B (Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi); C/K/J (Chinese/Korean/
Japanese).

Church Planting Among Historic Denominations in 
Glasgow

Only seven or 6 percent of the 110 new churches founded in 
Glasgow in 2000–2016 were founded by four of the historic de-
nominations in Scotland. These were the Church of Scotland, the 
Free Church of Scotland, the Reformed Presbyterian Church and 

2. Adapted from Table 4.7. in Brierley (2017).



Sheila Akomiah-Conteh—Out with the Old, in with the New?

71

the Baptist Union of Scotland. Th e Church of Scotland established 
one new congregation in the Whiteinch area of Glasgow in 2000. 
Th is remained its sole new church plant in Glasgow in sixteen 
years.3 Th e Free Church of Scotland, on the other hand, launched 
one new church in Govan in 2013, and started a new Romanian 
congregation or “Roma Church” which is attached to its exist-
ing parish in Govanhill. Th e Reformed Presbyterian Church of 
Scotland also started one new congregation in the West End of 
Glasgow in 2011, and the Baptists planted three, one of which was 
the restart of a previously closed congregation in Dennistoun. 

Figure 6: Church Planting in Historic Churches in Glasgow 2000 - 2016

Evidently, the mainline or established Scottish Christian de-
nominations started very few new churches in the period under 
review. Consequently, 94 percent of the new churches presently 
in Glasgow have no association with the historic denominations. 
Th is fi nding further highlights emerging changes in the Christian 
religious landscape in Glasgow, Scotland and Britain as a whole.

3. Th e Church of Scotland has established several “Fresh Expressions”
groups operating across Glasgow; however, none of them met the strict stan-
dard for inclusion in this study as a new church. 



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72

Conclusion

This inquiry set out to explore the phenomenon of new churches 
in Glasgow in the years 2000–2016, in a bid to contribute to the 
fast-developing discourse on this subject in Britain. By pioneering 
a study of new church trends in the context of Glasgow, the largest 
city in Scotland, it investigated the scale, characteristics and impact 
of new churches which have appeared in the area during the pe-
riod. This research adds to the growing body of empirical evidence 
which indicates that, while many churches across the country be-
come empty and close every year, numerous new congregations 
are also being founded and are flourishing across various regions 
of modern-day Britain. However, the incidence and contribution 
of these new groups are less documented or recognised in the na-
tional statistic because the old methods of enquiry alone are no 
longer sufficient to present a true and balanced picture of the cur-
rent condition and rapidly transforming landscape of the church 
in Britain. Therefore, localised and grass root research such as this 
study conducted, is necessary to capture the true nature of growth 
and or decline in specific regions. 

The outcomes of this investigation have implications in three 
main areas of debate: first, homogeneity and the future of Chris-
tian mission in Glasgow and Scotland as a whole, second, ecumen-
ism and inclusive church partnerships, and thirdly, immigration 
and the wider social context. The proliferation and impact of new 
churches represent a seismic shift in the Christian landscape of 
the city of Glasgow and Scotland as a whole. Old forms of the 
church are giving way to new expressions, and a new diversity 
in the demography and theological character of the city. Ethnic 
minorities and immigrant communities make diverse economic, 
social and spiritual contributions to their host communities. Their 
agency and contribution to religious diversity, especially to British 
Christianity, should particularly be welcomed, acknowledged and 
celebrated. Notwithstanding, new churches have markedly altered 
the landscape of the church in Glasgow in the last sixteen years. 



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73

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