There was an air of defiance at Durham Cathedral on Thursday.
'I have made it very clear,' the Archbishop of York said. 'If people in the United Kingdom talked more about Jesus than they talked about weather we might get some traction.'
The Church of England's figures do not make easy reading. Fewer people than ever are going to church. Average weekly attendance is a third of what it was in the 1970s. And in the last five years alone the Church has lost almost 10 per cent of its worshippers.
But as John Sentamu along with the Bishop of Durham and 23 other northern bishops with their teams gathered for four-days of evangelism on Thursday, the mood was far from dejected.
'I think it is to do with confidence,' Sentamu told Christian Today. 'People believe and people know. But we are living in a society in a moment of the decline of faith.
'People just feel at work in the communities they are living in it is not the done thing. So the confidence for some isn't there.
'We are just here to encourage people that actually the greatest news there is is that God in Christ came to bring not religion, not ideas, not laws, but actually came to bring the very life of God that what we see in Jesus can be lived in us.'
The bishops and their teams will join local parishes in the area for some 450 evangelism events from abseiling and sports at Durham County cricket ground, to coffee mornings and a comedy night.
The focus of the weekend, entitled 'Talking Jesus', is not so much stemming the tide of decline as injecting local churches with zeal.
'I actually think people in the Church of England – ok the numbers and attendance may be going down - but actually every week there are some 23 million hours put in by volunteer people. Any organisation in this country would be very proud,' said Sentamu.
'So that is a bit more confidence about ourselves and where we are at. The number of volunteer hours people put in is just incredible and if those volunteers weren't working I think the nation would be in real trouble.'
He went on: 'Jesus said we are to be 'in the world but not of the world'. There are those who want us to be of the world. No we are not. We are in the world sharing the faith, sharing the life, standing with people who are in greatest difficult.
'But at the same time we are saying that our core calling is for people to come and be in Jesus Christ because that is where real freedom and real life is.
'So we are beggars telling other beggars where we find bread.'
The Bishop of Jarrow, Mark Bryant, said the Church needed to be shaken out 'running a bit of club which is just for us'.
Congregations need to understand 'the church is not just a club for people who prefer singing hymns to playing cricket on a Sunday morning,' he said. 'We have to keep reminding ourselves that Jesus has given us a commission to change and transform our communities. That is what we are here for. We will do that by helping people to discover that they are loved and valued as they hear the gospel.'
He added: 'We are here to change and transform the world.'
With church attendance at less than one per cent of the population in Durham, the local bishop Paul Butler admitted that seems 'daunting'.
He told Christian Today: 'It is four days that pushes the diocese on in its sharing the gospel.'
He added: 'What I long for is that many people who perhaps have drifted away from church or who have never thought about the Christian faith will this weekend begin to think about it.
'What I look forward to in several months time, maybe even in a couple years, is for people I am confirming or baptising saying to me it all began back with 'Talking Jesus'.'
