Attendance figures for the Church of England in 2007, released yesterday, indicate that the total number of adults, children and young people regularly attending its churches has dropped one per cent overall since 2002.
The number of under-16s attending services has fallen by four per cent between 2006 and 2007. The overall drop in attendance by under-16s since 2002 is also four per cent.
The traditional ‘usual Sunday attendance’ measure fell slightly in 2007 to 868,000 (2006: 871,000; 2005: 880,000).
Attendance over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in 2007 was considerably down on 2006’s figure, by 11 per cent - in line with Christmas attendance seen in 2001-2004, when Christmas also fell midweek.
Easter observance also dropped back by another one per cent.
Following one of the scheduled major revisions of the Church’s Electoral Roll (its active membership list), the number listed dropped by three per cent over 2006 to 1,173,000. This represents a drop of three per cent since the last major revision in 2002.
England's total population by mid-2007 was estimated to be 51,100,000. Average weekly C of E attendance was down slightly at 1,160,000 (2006: 1,163,000; 2005: 1,174,000), as was average Sunday attendance at 978,000 (2006: 983,000; 2005: 993,000) and average monthly attendance at 1,690,000 (2006: 1,694,000; 2005: 1,706,000).
The average number of children and young people at services each week fell by four per cent to 219,000 (2006: 228,000; 2005: 232,000). The number of children and young people attending on a monthly basis also fell four per cent to 424,000 (2006: 442,000; 2005: 444,000).
Attendance at Church of England church services on Christmas Eve/Day 2007 fell by 11 per cent to 2,656,800 (2006: 2,994,100; 2005: 2,785,800). Easter observance dropped back by one per cent to 1,469,000 (2006: 1,484,000; 2005: 1,417,600).
There has been an increase in attendance at Christingle and Advent services, however, and in baptisms in certain categories. Marriages in Church also increased slightly to 54,600, though this is likely to be offset in 2008 because significant changes to marriage law which widened the number of churches where couples are eligible to be married did not take effect until October that year.
Blessings of marriages following a civil ceremony fell slightly (by three per cent, to 4,500). The total number of funerals fell slightly (by two per cent, to 194,300), particularly those taking place in crematoria (by four per cent, to 98,700).
All the major Christian denominations have experienced a significant fall-back in numbers since the 1960s, as religious affiliation and spiritual practice continues to change - with Britain becoming more of a mixed-belief society including a majority who do not adhere in any substantive way to any faith.
Recent figures from the development agency Tearfund suggest that one in four adults in the UK attend a church of some denomination at least once a year, with 7.3 million attending at least once a month.
Other faith communities attract around 2 million in total on a comparable basis. The total adult population of the UK is around 46 million.
In its press release announcing the 2007 statistics, the Church of England sought to offset the impression of decline by pointing to more positive features of the statistics to claim that, in spite of an overall decline, it is "broadly" holding its own. This includes attendance at midweek events and services and increases in some measures in some dioceses and some regions.
The Church also pointed out that the dramatic decline in Christmas attendance is partly due to the impact of Christmas Day falling midweek.
Approaching nine in 10 Church of England churches completed attendance counts to produce the figures, which have now been verified across all 16,000 Church of England churches by the Research and Statistics Department of the Archbishops’ Council. The provisional figures can be seen on the web at (*.PDF Adobe Acrobat file): http://www.cofe.anglican.org/info/statistics/2007provisionalattendance.pdf
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