The Back To Church Sunday Story

That’s when Robert Hicks, an entrepreneur, emerged with a new idea: one Sunday when people could try church again. With church numbers in decline, he wanted to encourage churches to invite people to come to church on one Sunday when a specially warm welcome was guaranteed. Robert supported Back to Church Sunday through its first two years and remains an enthusiastic encourager.(read more of Robert Hick's story)

Since then, Back to Church Sunday has learned a lot about what makes church an inviting and welcoming place to be. And it has gone from strength to strength. Year by year more dioceses across the United Kingdom adopted Back to Church Sunday. In 2009, 82,000 people came back to church through the prayerful invitation of a friend in each of the 44 Church of England dioceses, Churches together in Scotland, the Church in Wales, Baptist Union of Great Britain, Methodist Church, United Reformed Church, Salvation Army and Elim Pentecostal Churches nationwide.

Not only that, but Back to Church Sunday has also gone international. Churches in the United Kingdom have been joined by churches in Argentina, New Zealand and Canada.

Back to Church Sunday was launched in Australia on 13th September 2009. 600 churches across 19 Anglican dioceses took part. On that day 12,000 people returned to church at the invitation of a friend.  In 2010, the number of participating churches rose to 660 and an estimated average of 15 people came back to each church, which represents an increase of 19% for the average congregation size.

In 2011, Anglican churches were joined by corps from the Salvation Army along with many areas joining forces with their local ministers associations. We look forward to even more denominations taking part in future years. The continuing growth of BTCS means that we share our experience, resources and systems across denominations, uniting as one big church to invite our friends back to church.

2012 will see many churches once again join together to invite a friend to church. It may vary a little this year with some churches choosing the September date or another date that suits the individual churches programme.

Whatever the date we desire to see Christian churches welcoming friends and family to a service where the guest is the focus of the service.