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Statistics show increased giving and vocations

12 November 2007

Church Statistics 2005/6 can now be seen on the web. This is the first year that the statistics are only available on the web and not published for sale in booklet form.

 

I - Finance

Average weekly giving by Church of England parishioners increased to £5.08 in 2005. Statistics released today show that direct giving to parish churches averaged £5.08 per electoral roll member per week and tax-efficient giving increased to an average of £8.26 per subscriber per week. The number of parishioners subscribing to tax-efficient regular giving through Gift Aid rose to a further record of 523,200.

“Achieving £5 a week was quite a milestone and the latest figures show a further increase of 4 per cent in total tax-efficient giving,” said John Preston, the Church’s National Stewardship and Resources Officer.  “Church members continue to give generously to charitable causes compared with the population at large. Average giving to the church is around  three per cent of average incomes, still somewhere short of the five per cent of disposable income recommended by the General Synod since 1978.

“The five per cent aim was based on the Christian tradition of tithing or giving away 10 per cent of income and the recommendation was to give half of that to the Church in thanks for God's gifts and half to other charitable works.”

The total income of Parochial Church Councils in 2005, the figures show, rose to £792million. Total expenditure rose to £779million, of which more than £50million was devoted to charitable giving by the PCCs to other charities and mission organisations, eight per cent of their recurring expenditure of £568million.

 

II - Vocations

Official Church Statistics, published today on the Church of England website, also show increases in the number of clergy being trained and numbers being ordained. The Church recommended 594 future clergy for ordination training in 2005, the greatest number for more than a decade and maintaining the upward trend since the mid-‘90s. In 1994, 408 candidates were recommended for training.

The Church ordained 478 new clergy in 2006, a drop on the 505 ordained in 2005, the highest number since 2002, but more than the 469 in 2004. Overall, more women (244) than men (234) were ordained in 2006, though the majority of these were ordained to non-stipendiary ministry. Of those ordained to full-time, stipendiary ministry, 128 were men and 95 were women.

At the end of 2006, there were 20,354 ministers licensed by Church of England dioceses, including clergy, readers and Church Army officers: one minister for every 2,500 people in England. “The nation continues to enjoy the spiritual ministry of an increasing variety of Church of England ministers, many of whom contribute to the health of their local community in a voluntary capacity,” observed Revd Lynda Barley, Head of Research and Statistics. The total does not include some 1,600 chaplains to prisons, hospitals, the armed forces and in education, nor around 6,600 retired ministers with permission to officiate.

 

III - Attendance

Attendance figures for 2005 were provisionally issued in January and have not changed. They show a mixed picture for trends in church attendance (PR7/07).

Regular Sunday attendance fell by two per cent, while weekly and monthly attendance fell by one per cent or less. This follows two years in which the numbers increased or held steady. Meanwhile, Christmas Eve/Christmas Day attendance increased by six per cent, the number of children and young people attending at least monthly increased by one per cent and more than half the parishes reported running or planning a ‘fresh expression of church’.

The new statistics confirm that around 1.7 million people attend Church of England church and cathedral worship each month, while around 1.2 million attend services each week – on Sunday or during the week - and just under one million each Sunday.

 

The figures for 2005 show that:

 

  • Average Sunday attendance fell by two per cent to 988,000. (2004: 1,010,000; 2003: 1,017,000).
  • Average weekly attendance fell by one per cent to 1,169,000, following no change last year. (2004: 1,186,000; 2003: 1,187,000).
  • Average monthly attendance fell by one per cent to 1,694,000, following no change last year. (2004: 1,707,000; 2003: 1,704,000).
  • The average number of children and young people at services weekly fell by one per cent to 231,000, reversing some of the two per cent rise last year. (2004:  235,000; 2003: 230,000). The number attending monthly increased by one per cent to 441,000, continuing the recent trend.

The traditional ‘usual Sunday attendance’*** measure fell by three per cent to 881,000, having held steady last year. (2004: 903,000; 2003: 901,000).

 

Other features of the 2005 statistics:

 

Fifteen dioceses* (1 in 3) saw increases in attendance levels over a typical week and a typical month among adults, children and young people. Similar numbers saw increases separately among adults and among children and young people attending church services. The accompanying tables provide detailed diocesan information for 2004 and 2005 together with national comparisons for 2001 to 2005.

Nineteen dioceses over the years 2003 to 2005 ** saw overall increases in attendance levels over a typical week and a typical month among adults, children and young people. A similar number saw increases in adult attendance levels while more than half (23) saw increases in the number of children and young people attending church services each month and each week.

The number of children and young people in regular contact with local Church of England services of worship has steadily increased each year since 2001 when accurate weekly records began to be systematically collated.  It is now six per cent higher than 2001 levels. Approaching double the number of children and young people now attend church services over a typical month compared to the number present on an average week.  Much of this growth is due to contact with children and young people in the week rather than on Sundays.

The number of adults in regular contact with local church services of worship has maintained at similar levels since 2002.  The approximation to attendance levels over a typical month continues to show that around 1.3 million adults attend Church of England churches each month.  This is 38% more than the average attendance level each week and 56% more than on an average Sunday.

The number of adult baptisms has increased by 1 in 8 (12 per cent) since 2001 and the corresponding number of child baptisms has increased by 9 per cent. The decline in infant baptisms continued.

The number of marriages conducted in Church of England parish churches is at similar levels to 2001 at 57,200 (57,000 in 2004), whereas the number of funerals conducted by the Church of England continues to decline.

Attendance at Church of England church services on Christmas Day/ Eve increased dramatically in 2005 and was 7% higher than 2001 at 2,786,200.  In contrast, there was a sudden dip in Easter observance to 1,417,800, negating the 2003 and 2004 increases.

In 2005, the parish electoral rolls stood at 1,269,000 continuing the small annual increase as people are steadily added to the roll by parishes until the major revision every six years. The size of the parish electoral rolls although similar overall to adult church attendance over a typical month, masks very different practices across the Church of England parishes and dioceses.

 

Notes

*The 15 dioceses that saw annual increases in their total attendance figures for 2005 are Birmingham, Bristol, Canterbury, Derby, Durham, Leicester, Manchester, Newcastle, Oxford, Ripon and Leeds, St Edmundsbury and Ipswich, Truro, Wakefield, Worcester and York.

[see map ]

 

** The 19 dioceses that saw an increase in their total attendance over 2003 to 2005 are Birmingham, Bristol, Canterbury, Chester, Chichester, Coventry, Derby, Durham, Hereford, Leicester, Lichfield, London, Newcastle, Rochester, St Edmundsbury and Ipswich, Sodor and Man, Southwark, Worcester and Europe.

[see map ]

  • Other key statistics are: 72 per cent of people in England are Christian (Government census 2001) 86 per cent of adults have attended a church/place of worship in the past year (ORB 2005).
  • Church attendance over the Christmas period has increased by around a third since 2001, according to research published in December 2005. This research is supported by evidence from Christmas 2005.

In the tables relating to attendance at church services (attached) the following measures of church attendance are used:

Average Sunday attendance: the average number of attendees at Sunday church services, typically over a four-week period in October.

Average weekly attendance: the average number of attendees at church services throughout the week, typically over a four-week period in October.

Each of the above measures is provided separately for adults and children/young people aged under 16 years. The highest and lowest counts over the four-week period are calculated as follows:

Highest Sunday/weekly attendance: the sum of the highest Sunday (weekly) attendances over the four-week period. The 'highest' figures on the accompanying tables are proxies (in fact under-estimates) for monthly attendance levels.

Lowest Sunday/weekly attendance: the sum of the lowest Sunday (weekly) attendances over the four-week period.

Attendance figures are only included where local churches held at least one church-based service (which included adult presence) during the week under examination.

 

***The traditional usual Sunday attendance (uSa) measure is interpreted differently across the dioceses and is therefore not regarded as statistically accurate as a comparison.