The next Archbishop of Canterbury after Justin Welby inherits a national Church in numerical meltdown and groaning under a bureaucratic burden.
On Thursday 5 December, the Church of England published its mission statistics for 2023. The Church’s all-age average weekly attendance, which incorporates Sunday and midweek attendance, was 693,000 people in 2023 – 598,000 adults and 95,000 children aged under 16.
The variety of adults was 19 per cent lower than in 2019, though 4.5 per cent higher than in 2022. The number of kids was 24 per cent lower than in 2019, though 4.9 per cent higher than in 2022.
The C of E has thus declined in numerical weekly attendance by greater than a fifth since 2019.
The latest mission statistics got here the day after think tank Civitas published a report on the C of E warning that it’s overspending on ‘human resources’ (HR) bureaucracy and variety officers on the expense of parishes.
The report – Restoring the Value of Parishes: The foundations of welfare, community, and spiritual belonging in England – by academic researcher and consultant, Esmé Partridge, found that a “managerial turn” within the Church prior to now 20 years has left abnormal parishes “struggling to survive”.
Her report said the Church’s 42 dioceses had taken on “large numbers of staff” because the turn of the millennium while merging parishes and reducing clergy numbers to chop costs.
These administrative positions include HR jobs and a series of “politicised roles” resembling diversity, social justice, LGBT and net zero officers.
This trend implies that “dioceses across the country now employ so many people who, on average, there may be one administrator to each three-and-a-half priests”.
The report found that 21 per cent of diocesan spending is now happening administrative costs, almost double that of huge charities resembling Oxfam (10 per cent).
Civitas noted that the variety of stipendiary incumbents – C of E ministers who’re paid a salary – can be in decline in lots of dioceses, including the Diocese of Sheffield where there have been 155 such ministers in 1999 but 83 will exist in 2025, marking a decline of 46 per cent.
The report stated: “These selections aren’t, it will seem, being made out of economic necessity: the Church Commissioners are the custodians of a £10 billion endowment fund which was originally instituted for the only real purpose of providing support for parishes.
“Why, then, is it not being spent on saving them?”
The report advisable that dioceses share back-office functions to chop costs, direct money to abnormal parishes to fund more ministers, and reduce the quantity of “parish share” donations churches pay their dioceses every yr.
The C of E tried to dismiss the report with a spokesman telling The Telegraph newspaper: “We don’t recognise the image painted by this report which appears to fundamentally misunderstand how clergy are paid and ignore the essential front-line support dioceses provide to parishes across the country in the whole lot from safeguarding to finance.
“Contrary to the image the report portrays, Church of England churches have seen notable growth within the last yr – with overall congregations passing one million again in 2023 – a tribute to the faithfulness of clergy, parish volunteers and parishioners across England in sharing the excellent news of Jesus Christ and serving their communities.”
The spokesman’s statement about “overall congregations passing one million again in 2023” got here from the most recent mission statistics: “The Church of England’s Worshipping Community – its number of standard worshippers – was 1,007,000 people in 2023.”
According to the commentary on the statistics: “The Worshipping Community of a church is defined as those individuals who attend worship usually, once a month or more (whether in-person or ‘at home’).”
The C of E spokesman neglected to say that the overall Worshipping Community of standard worshippers in 2023 was 10 per cent lower than in 2019, though 2.5 per cent higher than in 2022.
He also neglected to elucidate that the individuals who keep a frontline parish church going aren’t those that might attend once a month or watch the service online but those that attend the church in person week in, week out, who contribute financially and tackle the essential and demanding volunteer jobs.
The mission statistics showed clearly that the variety of weekly attenders has plummeted since 2019.
Welby’s successor cannot arrest the numerical decline. That is a demographic reality because of the indisputable fact that nearly all of individuals who attend C of E churches are over 60.
But she or he could attempt to tackle the centralising managerial culture that has taken over the C of E and work to alleviate the bureaucratic burden on frontline parishes. That could release parishes for more practical evangelism.
Julian Mann is a former Church of England vicar, now an evangelical journalist based in Lancashire.
