Church of England attendance

A definition

The Church of England is the established church in England. Among other things, this means that:

• the Monarch is the Supreme Governor of the church (theologically Jesus is the head),
• the Church performs a number of official functions,
• Church and State are linked

It is divided into two provinces - Canterbury in the South of England and York in the North, each with its own Archbishop. It is also divided into 43 diocese (44 including the Diocese in Europe).

On average 1.1 million people attended church-based services of worship each week in 2008, slightly under one million of these on Sundays.

Measuring the Church of England

In the past, Christian Research has usually reported electoral roll data for Church of England in its Religious Trends publication. There are two issues with relying on this measure.

1. Electoral Rolls are registers of all the members of particular churches. Although the lists are theoretically revised annually, this is not always a thorough exercise. However, every 6 years the Electoral Roll is started again from scratch. Hence, looking at the statistics from these, there tends to be a gradual build up of number over the years (as new people arrive and those who leave are not taken off), with a drop every 6 years when the roll is built afresh. So it is not a good tool for measuring trends.
2. It is increasingly the case that there are fewer members on the Electoral Roll in proportio to attendees. This might suggest less commitment or willingness to get involved on the part of believers or it may be due in part to a more mobile society with people not being willng or able to root themselves in any one community. It is a trends which is replicated across many membership based institutions, with people happy to participate but not formally belong.

The figure 'Historical patterns of church attendance' shows the pattern for the 20th century and compares Anglicans with the Roman Catholic church.  It shows growth until the 1930s when 3,650,000 people were on Anglican rolls.  Numbers then fell and continued to fall until the 1990s when the fall became less sharp.

Similarly, the Church of England statistics office used to rely on estimates of 'usual Sunday attendance' to monitor trends in the church. Lynda Barley, Head of Research and Statistics for the Archbishops’ Council, lead a major review of church statistics to create a measure that was more robust and better suited to church and society in the new millenium. This was launched in 2000.

Measurments are usually based around a four week period in October each year when churches count all their worship activity, including mid-week and weekend worship outside of the ususal Sunday morning.

Church attendance statistics

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