Personal Beliefs Survey
Peter Sammons reflects on TFM’s recent personal beliefs survey
Background to the TFM Standard Survey
Over three decades Through Faith Missions (TFM) has used a street survey on personal beliefs, the questionnaire having changed little over that time. Its purpose is to uncover what people think about God generally, and about Jesus specifically. As a questionnaire used in a broadly evangelistic setting, TFM has acquired a unique insight into “where people are at” spiritually, and how some things have changed in the past two decades, yet others remain broadly consistent. TFM can also spot differences in response between broadly urban and rural communities, and British- versus foreign- born individuals. The survey is anonymous and data destroyed after each mission.
TFM’s 2025 “mission” in Ipswich, part of the broader Awake Suffolk Coastal Mission, yielded survey responses broadly consistent with results elsewhere. Often the survey encourages conversation, albeit TFM missioners do not exhaustively discuss and explore each question – that’s not the purpose of the survey; if nothing else it would mean completion of each survey would consume at least half an hour, albeit this does occasionally happen!
Voluntary missioners who conduct the surveys are led by what people want. Generally we expect the survey to take about 5 minutes. The final question asks people whether, if they could know God personally, would they be interested? Responses provide an opportunity for people to expand the conversation more widely if they want to.
TFM missioners have available a copy of the useful little booklet “Knowing God Personally” (Agape) and are happy to leave it with people who’d like it, or use it as a basis for further immediate discussion. This year, for the first time, we also had the Counties UK fold-out mini-leaflet called “Loved”, which is a helpful and systematic outline of the Christian faith in an easy to digest format.
Introducing Ipswich
Ipswich is a large town with approx 145,000 people. As with most towns, it has a range of housing and the usual social needs and difficulties. The TFM survey was conducted in the Alexandra Ward, in an older part of town, characterized by a high percentage of non-British background residents. This made for an interesting and useful comparison between white British and non-UK background folk on the big transcendental issues common to all, which we seek to capture in the survey.
Response rate varies dependent on time of day, largely, but in one area we noted that of 250 houses visited, 3 were vacant, 30 did the survey, 21 refused as ‘WFH’, and 29 refused as ‘not interested’. Of the balance, most were assumed to be out at work or otherwise not at home. Of the houses answering the door, some 36% were ‘hard refusals’, that is they displayed some annoyance at the survey request, but most were polite and some genuinely interested. Overall 303 surveys were conducted in this particular Parish.
Five questions – myriad answers!
Overall, people seem to appreciate the TFM survey as it helps crystalize thoughts about (and sometimes encourage respondents to reconsider) the eternally transcendent. Specifically, it helps them consider what they truly believe about Jesus. Sometimes local partnering churches use survey results within subsequent preaching and teaching, providing a local link of high relevance, and an opportunity to explore what people are actually saying.
Survey questions and Ipswich 2025 responses are summarized here:
Personal Beliefs Survey – Results |
|||
| % | |||
| 1. What do you believe about God? | |||
| a | Just a force | 2 ( 0, 5 ) | |
| b | a distant being | 11 ( 0, 12 ) | |
| c | a personal God | 51 ( 46, 48 ) | |
| d | non-existent | 14 ( 27,14 ) | |
| e | 22 ( 27, 21 ) | ||
| 2. What do you believe happens at the end of our lives? | |||
| a | we die and that’s it | 16 ( 21, 11 ) | |
| b | we return to earth in another form or as another person | 11 ( 6, 18 ) | |
| c | we all go to heaven | 10 ( 12, 15 ) | |
| d | some people go to heaven and others not | 32 ( 27, 34 ) | |
| e | not sure | 20 ( 27, 18 ) | |
| f | 11 ( 6, 4 ) | ||
| 3. What do you believe about Jesus? | |||
| a | he didn’t exist at all | 6 ( 6, 6 ) | |
| b | he was an ordinary man and nothing more | 19 ( 20, 8 ) | |
| c | he was a prophet and a messenger from God | 21 ( 42, 30 ) | |
| d | he is the only Son of God | 42 ( 12, 41 ) | |
| e | 12 ( 20, 15 ) | ||
| 4. Have you ever had a spiritual experience or prayed about something? | |||
| spiritual experience – no | 19 | ||
| spiritual experience – yes | 30 | ||
| Prayed about an issue – yes | 37 | ||
| Prayed about an issue – no | 14 | ||
| 5. If you could know God personally, would you be interested? | |||
| a | No | 21 ( 29, 16 ) | |
| b | Yes | 44 ( 21, 40 ) | |
| c | not sure | 23 ( 29, 28 ) | |
| d | 12 ( 21, 16 ) | ||
Note in the above the smaller figures (in brackets) are equivalent responses from a rural larger village in Bedfordshire (broadly white, British, middle class), and an equivalent multi-ethnic parish in Wolverhampton, both taken in the past 2 years.
Learnings
A few ‘obvious’ conclusions can be drawn, albeit some are surprising. To the question ‘what do you think about God’ half still understand God as being a personal God. What, in turn, they mean by that differs from person to person, but broadly – in discussion – it appears that folk hold on to the generic view that God does indeed exist and that He desires to know us, individually, and to befriend us. If you add Q1 responses (b) and (c) fully 62 percent accept the concept of “God”.
What might we conclude tentatively from this? People are made in the image of God (Genesis 1: 26-27), so broadly ‘mankind’ knows that there is a transcendent dimension, and a transcendent Person. What they do with that knowledge varies, but they do know ! To deny God ultimately is foolish (Psalm 14:1), and not a mark of superiority. To that extent atheist Richard Dawkins (“The God Delusion”) still has his work cut out; in Ipswich only 14 per cent state that God does not exist. People who say that are usually older, white, and middle class. Bluntly, in a sense these do not represent the future …….
End of life?
Here, a variability of ‘beliefs’. The Eastern idea of reincarnation has seeped into people’s consciousness and this may reflect inwards migration and the advance of Buddhism and Hinduism as cultural forces in the UK. I doubt the number would have been more than 2% just one hundred years ago. Today it stands at 11% in Ipswich but 18% in Wolverhampton, perhaps reflecting a larger Hindu and Buddhist population in the Midlands?
The most popular response is that ‘some go to heaven and others to hell’, at 32%. Only10% evince ‘universalism’ (everyone goes to ‘heaven’) which remains a popular, if rather sentimentalized, answer to the ‘problem’ of the eternal destiny of the determined God-opponent. What remains remarkable is that so many still understand in some sense, the need for and reality of, judgment – at 32%. Instinctively people still know there is a final reckoning to come, and that a holy and just God cannot be overruled by rebellious humans. We are made in the image of God …..
Jesus?
It was mainly middle aged white folk who claim “he didn’t exist at all”, suggesting that this cohort has backed itself into a spiritual and intellectual corner from which it cannot emerge unscathed. This view remains very much a minority one at just 6% (consistent across the other two comparison surveys). By adding the percentages for sub-questions (c) and (d) we find a commanding 63% who recognize in Jesus something spiritually dramatic and dynamic, with still 42% understanding Jesus to be “the only Son of God”. What they import by that remains open to conjecture, ranging from normative Christian insight, to some folk-memory of our grandparents’ beliefs. Yet in this decidedly post-Christian and supposedly “secular” Western society, that 42% hold this belief is encouraging to genuine Christians.
Everyone prays sometimes
Question 4. A very simple question that encourages folk to share if they want to: have you ever had a spiritual experience or prayed? That fully 37% acknowledge prayer may be surprising. Within our UK population, taken in aggregate, perhaps 5% (author’s guesstimate) have a true saving faith in Jesus. A figure of 37% acknowledging prayer is perhaps surprising – and possibly encouraging. It may suggest, again, a folk memory, but perhaps also the pull of the human soul made in the image of God.
What people pray about – and to whom they pray – are indeterminate factors! I recall on one TFM mission an out-and-out atheist acknowledging – sheepishly – “everyone prays sometimes, don’t they?!” This is almost certainly true, but we need to remind people that the prayer of a righteous man availeth much (James 5:16), and that God is not obligated to answer, or even to ‘hear’, the prayer of the determined atheist – the impenitent sinner. That He graciously does so, on occasions, speaks greatly of His mercy and His filial love to all Mankind. Answered prayer is a mercy, not a right ……
Are you interested?
Question 5. If you could know God personally, would you be interested? 21% answered “no” – surely reflecting the broad atheism of our society. Remember, an atheist is not so much someone who does not believe; a true atheist is someone who hates and opposes God. It is the author’s impression that those who most readily opted for this answer were older, white and middle class – perhaps a self-satisfied cohort that thinks it has “made it” in this life and lived successfully without God, thus far. They forget that the RMS Titanic made it four fifths across the Atlantic, “safely thus far”, until its fateful encounter with a sharp piece of ice ………
That 44% state they would be interested remains encouraging, especially for those engaged in evangelism. Quite often in Ipswich TFM missioners gave out the “Knowing God Personally” booklet. What people make of these booklets is difficult to say; we pray they take time to read them and to respond by seeking God. A few were happy to pray with missioners ‘on the street’ to receive Jesus as Lord and as Saviour. Wonderful stuff! Others were happy to receive interceding prayer, and/or the alternative fold-out mini-tract called “Loved”. At TFM we are always happy to engage “where people are at”, and where they feel their needs are.
Yet still 23% remain unsure (28% in Wolverhampton). Whilst this might seem surprising – surely everyone might recognise they have an a-priori personal interest in knowing God – yet the figure is encouraging, suggesting that a big slice of our population would be willing to seek God if only someone would show them how.
In conclusion
The good folk of Ipswich (Alexandra Ward) are surely representative of the broader UK population. In countrified areas, as opposed to large conurbations, we see that sentiments and life experiences are sufficiently distinct to make differences to Survey responses. But the numbers revealed above speak accurately enough for the whole UK. For Christians there remains much work to be done, but overall sentiments out there “on the street” are not as hostile as one might imagine. People still want to know about God, but are unsure the right steps to take.
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Peter Sammons is a trustee with Through Faith Missions: https://tfm.uk.endis.com/
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