Terence EdenDec 25, 2022

🆕 blog! “So, this is Christmas?”

The Church of England publishes statistics about the numbers of its faithful. These are particularly interesting in light of the recent news that the UK no-longer has a Christian majority. The CofE's statistics are for 2019 - before COVID messed up everything - and I think offer a fascinating glimpse into its future. The two […]

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2022/12/so-this-is-christmas/
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#religion #xmas

So, this is Christmas?

The Church of England publishes statistics about the numbers of its faithful. These are particularly interesting in light of the recent news that the UK no-longer has a Christian majority. The CofE's statistics are for 2019 - before COVID messed up everything - and I think offer a fascinating glimpse into its future. The two figures which struck me were: 89,000 baptisms during 2019 114,000 funerals during 2019 Back in 2014, the numbers were: 130,000 baptisms 146,000 funerals The good…

Terence Eden’s Blog
Show threadTerence EdenNov 29, 2023

The Church of England have released another set of statistics.

https://www.churchofengland.org/about/data-services/key-areas-research#church-attendance-statistics

Key figures:
👶 Baptisms: 81,800
⚰️ Funerals: 103,500
⛪ Worshipping Community: 984,400

Baptisms were slightly higher than projected due to older children being held over during lockdown.

But that's still a "deficit" of 21k worshippers every year.

However, the "Worshipping Community" has declined by 128k in 3 years. An average of 42k per year.

Key areas of research | The Church of England

Key areas of the work of the Data Services unit

The Church of England
Show threadStefan Czerniawski

@Edent You can't subtract baptisms from funerals to get a deficit, because neither number directly relates to regular worshippers or to people who in any active sense think of themselves as church members. So it isn't an inflow->stock->outflow model.

Which doesn't change your wider point that the stock is ageing and shrinking.

Nov 29, 2023 at 6:10pmTusky
Show threadTerence EdenNov 29, 2023
@Pubstrat
I (lightly) disagree. But only because that's how that church seems to view it.
They don't seem to measure "leavers" other than by death.
And while they talk about outreach, they only measure confirmation/baptism as a "joiner".
I wish they published more about their leaky pipeline.
Show threadStefan CzerniawskiNov 29, 2023
@Edent It is going to be generally true that active church members who die have church funerals. But it is certainly not true that people who have church funerals were all previously active church members. And in CoE particularly, confirmation is likely to be a far stronger marker of actual commitment than baptism - but even then it is far from true that everybody confirmed but not yet dead is active in the church or even still has any religious beliefs at all.