Once more: whither the Church of England? | Psephizo (2024)

On Monday there was a (comparatively) early release of the 2023 Statistics for Mission, the results of the annual October collection of attendance numbers in Church of England churches. The headline was all about the good news!

Weekly Church attendance up five per cent in third year of consecutive growth

Average weekly attendance at Church of England services rose by almost five per cent in 2023—the third year of consecutive growth, preliminary figures show. Meanwhile weekly attendance by children was up by almost six per cent last year, according to an early snapshot of the annual Statistics for Mission findings. While total attendance is still below 2019 levels, the last year before the Covid-19 lockdowns, the analysis suggests in-person attendance is drawing closer to the pre-pandemic trend.

In 2021 all-age Sunday attendance was 22.3 per cent below the projected pre-pandemic trend, but the new figures reveal that the gap had narrowed to 6.7 per cent last year. All-age weekly attendance rose to within 8.3 per cent of the trend last year, compared with 24.1 per cent in 2021.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, said “This is very welcome news and I hope it encourages churches across the country. I want to thank our clergy and congregations who have shown such faith, hope and confidence over recent years to share the gospel with their communities.

“I’m especially heartened to hear that more children are coming along to church and I’m grateful to everyone involved in that ministry. These are just one set of figures, but they show without doubt that people are coming to faith in Jesus Christ here and now – and realising it’s the best decision they could ever make. Renewing and growing the Church is always the work of God, and it’s our role to join in with what God is doing. As we gather in churches this weekend to celebrate Pentecost, let’s keep praying and working to invite more people to discover the love of Jesus Christ.”

It is worth spending a few moments actually understanding what these figures are saying. A note to the press release says this:

The projected pre-pandemic trend is based on a straight-line fit to published attendance figures from 2014-2019. A straight line is a good fit to that dataset, particularly for adult attendance.

That straight line is decreasing at almost exactly 30% over the last ten years, ie at 3% per year. The expectation (that this decline trend continues) means that the figures for 2023 were expected to be four years of 3% decline lower—that is, 12% lower than 2019. In fact, the figures are still 8.3% lower than this, which is therefore a drop of about 20%.

So we are celebrating being one-fifth smaller as a church (in terms of attendance) than we were in 2019.

These kinds of figures are always easier to grasp in visual form, so this is what the graphs look like:

(These graphs are from the papers for the Archbishops’ Council in January, when the first figures were known. I am not sure why the information has been released now, four months later, when the figures have not changed much if at all. The release seem to coincide with communication from the meeting of the House of Bishops, in which encouraging stories of growth were shared; this provides important context for that.)

In terms of the goals of the Church to see decline turned around and become growth, this is not very encouraging news. It means that not only have we not seen overall growth, we have not seen an end to decline. In fact, the rate of decline has not yet slowed, and is perhaps getting faster.

It could be argued that this is almost all the result of Covid lockdown losses, and we are still to see the full recovery. But I think that is now quite hard to sustain: this is now the third year since lockdown; other institutions seem to have made any recovery they expected; and other churches seem to have already fully bounced back (this is certainly the case here in my city). The awkward question remains about the national Church’s response, and in particular the comments of the Archbishops, which closed church buildings unnecessarily, and appeared to communicate that in-person attendance was not essential anyway. It appears as though many Anglicans have taken this seriously, and the habit of church attendance has been lost.

The graph raises some key questions, both about the general approach, our current situation, and where we are heading.

First, why report this at all? Other churches don’t appear to do this, and in fact most other denominations don’t have the resources to do the detailed counting and analysis that the C of E does. I think the analysis is important and useful, since there are some ‘levers’ that can be pulled at a national level, in terms of decisions about national finances and resourcing. And it is an important reality check for those in regional and national leadership (assuming they attend to the numbers).

But why report it in the press? If the numbers are going down, then it feeds the false narrative that the Christian faith is in decline in the UK (growing churches don’t feature much in the secular media!). If the numbers are going up, this is only likely to provoke adverse comment.

Secondly, what do these figures actually mean at a local level? It would be tempting to think that, if there is any encouragement from this late bounce back from Covid, then the Good Ship C of E is showing signs, like the proverbial oil tanker, of turning around. But we are not a ship; we are a flotilla of little ships, and many of them are travelling in quite different directions. The net, aggregated figure does not tell us whether the Church as a whole is growing or declining; it tells us whether the numbers attending the many growing churches, and their growth, is outweighing the decline in others. As yet it is still not doing so.

But, at a local level, we can also see something of where these figures are pointing to. Local churches do not decline in a linear fashion, since once they reduce to a certain size, they cease to be viable and disappear. And for rural churches (which have historically enjoyed a greater attendance in terms of percentage of the population) there is a catastrophic age demographic. In other words, unless something changes quite quickly, we are likely to see the trend of decline accelerate rather than reverse as these two factors kick in.

Thirdly, what is imagined to be happening which is driving these numbers? Justin’s comment suggests that he thinks that the increase from last year is a sign of people coming to faith for the first time. If that is so, then the assumption being made here is that the drop in the pandemic years comes from losing people permanently, which seems unlikely.

Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, commented:

This is very good news. For the first time in a long time we have seen noticeable growth.Of course we don’t yet know whether this growth is a trend but I take it as a great encouragement that our focus on reaching more people with the good news of Jesus, establishing new Christian communities, wherever they are, revitalising our parishes, and seeking to become a younger and more diverse church, making everyone feel welcome, is beginning to make a difference.

Again, the assumption is that changes from 2022 arise from people coming to faith, so the loses have again been written off. The figures are seen as a vindication of current policy—which is, well, a ‘courageous’ way to read it (as they say in the Civil Service).

Fourthly,how is this reality shaping the regional and national agenda? It was good to hear that the House of Bishops were sharing stories of growth at their meeting last week. But how much time are they spending on confronting the reality of our situation, the future, and the likely consequences?

It was fascinating to see this projection in the Statement of Needs for the next bishop of Durham:

The Diocese has 207 parishes (169 benefices) with 258 churches, of these a third have a usual Sunday attendance of fewer than 20. Modelling has suggested that at recent rates of congregation decline fewer than 100 churches are likely to have 20 or more gathering for Sunday worship by 2029.

This is something of a terrifying scenario—who would want to inherit this situation?—but at least the thinking is being done. I am not aware of any other diocese which has made a comparable projection—but surely they all need to?

This in turn raises the question: what are the implications for levels of diocesan staffing, numbers of senior staff overall in the Church—and the number of bishops? Do we simply continue with the historically overheads supervising diminishing congregations? This is probably thinking that should have been done ten years ago—since when the overall size of the C of E has dropped by more than a third.

Fifthly how does the dramatic decline in vocations to ordained ministry feed into likely future scenarios? David Goodhew offered an analysis in March of what is happening and what the implications might be.

The COVID effect is substantial and long-lasting. Drilling down, there is a further cause of deep concern: vocations to ordained ministry. During the pandemic, the number of people starting training for ordained ministry has fallen dramatically. It is about 40 percent down in 2023 compared to 2019.

For stipendiary ministry, the situation is close to collapse.

Stipendiary Ordinands Starting Training in the C of E

The number starting training for stipendiary ministry was 417 in 2020, but only 229 in 2023. So, the number starting training for stipendiary ministry fell by nearly half in three years, 2020–23. Non-stipendiary (self-supporting) ordinand numbers have been hit less hard but have still fallen by about a third.

Stipendiaries tend to be younger and non-stipendiaries tend to be markedly older, so these figures mean a further aging of the clergy, who were hardly brimming with youth to start with. This dramatic fall continues. There is little sign of any post-COVID rebound. And the conflict over sexuality is further depressing vocations, so the decline may grow worse in 2024.

The consequences will not be felt immediately, but in five to 10 years the collapse of stipendiary vocations is utterly toxic for local churches. Without a rapid rebound, these figures mean far fewer curates from 2025–26 and far fewer incumbents from 2028 onward. There are going to be some mighty short short-listing meetings in future. To mitigate this stark picture requires action, now, in 2024.

Sixthly, picking up on David’s brief comment—why are we continuing to engage with distracting, divisive, and damaging debates when there is only one thing we need to be focussing on?

Why are we pressing on with the enormously contentious debates on sexuality, which appear to be unresolvable since we are not going to change the doctrine of marriage and yet some bishops are still pressing for an incompatible change of practice?

Why are we pursuing an agenda for racial justice which is controversially based on Critical Race Theory and its sibling Black Theology, rather than a biblical vision of diverse engagement and involvement?

Why are we talking about reparations for slavery, based on historical inaccuracies and a failure to recognise Britain’s role in eradicating this evil?

Why are bishops and archbishops continuing to wade into political and economic arguments in a way which is out of step with and often alienates the members of their own church?

As I said in my speech in Synod last February:

But here is the other stark reality: Other churches are growing. But we are reluctant to learn from them. We now represent something less than 18% of all Christians in a church on Sunday. We have another eight hours scheduled to talk about LLF. What it will it produce? More division, more frustration, no more progress.

Fiddling whilst Canterbury burns doesn’t even capture it.

Isaiah 3.6 vividly recounts the collapse of the people of God:

For a man will take hold of his brother in the house of his father, saying: “You have a cloak; you shall be our leader, and this heap of ruins shall be under your rule”.

If we continue this fruitless process, that will be the legacy we leave: the Church of England, a heap of ruins. It is up to us.

It still is.