The collection comprises:
In May 1985, leaders of 32 churches in England, Scotland and Wales agreed to launch a three-year Inter-Church Process of prayer, reflection and debate on the nature and purpose of the Church in the light of its mission. The Process was called 'Not Strangers But Pilgrims'. It was decided that the first year should involve consultation with people locally to explore their views about churches and faith, so that this evidence of religious observance could be fed into wider national reflection and discussion.
A million people took part in the local consultation process in a series of group discussions during Lent in 1986; the process was entitled 'Lent '86'. Local churches and 57 radio stations were involved in the process which was backed up by the submission of 100,000 questionnaires. The results of the questionnaires were processed by a trained group of people across Great Britain, and then statistically analysed by Trumedia Study Oxford Limited. These results were summarised by Judy M. Turner-Smith of Trumedia and published in part one of Views from the pews: Lent '86 and local ecumenism, a report published for 'Not Strangers but Pilgrims' by the British Council of Churches and The Catholic Truth Society, and in What on earth is the church for?, published by Trumedia.
In conjunction with Lent '86, a full survey of local ecumenism in England was conducted. The survey involved 600 Councils of Churches, 44 county sponsoring bodies and 450 local ecumenical projects and took place in early 1986. The results demonstrated the pattern of church going in England and suggested paths for greater co-operation between churches. Hugh Cross, then Ecumenical Officer for England, summarised these results in part two of Views from the pews.
The collection has been divided by document type into series. The questionnaires are divided by region.
ACCESS: Accessible to registered readers only by advance appointment and some series are restricted pending full cataloguing.
REPROGRAPHIC: Reprographic copies can be supplied for educational use and private study purposes only, depending on access status and the condition of the documents.
This description is the only finding aid available for the collection. Copyright in the description belongs to The University of Nottingham.
COPYRIGHT: Permission to make published use of any material from this collection must be sought in advance in writing from the Keeper of the Department of Manuscripts and Special Collections (email mss-library@nottingham.ac.uk). The Department will try to assist in identifying copyright owners but this can be difficult and the responsibility for copyright clearance before publication ultimately rests with the person wishing to publish.
LANGUAGE: English
The original data generated by the 'Lent '86' local consultation process for England was acquired by The University of Nottingham's Department of Manuscripts and Special Collections between August and December 1986. Data sets for other regions were separately disposed of. A further, small deposit of records relating to the survey of local ecumenism was received by the Department in December 1995.
