THE “huge variation” in attendance trajectories between churches and dioceses suggests that growth is “hampered more by constraints on the provision of church than by falling demand”, a latest report on the Northern Province concludes.
New within the North: New worshipping communities within the Northern Province 2023, by the Ven. Bob Jackson and Dr Bev Botting, draws on Statistics for Mission [SfM] 2023. While highlighting marked growth in average weekly attendance (AWA) in some churches, and the launch of a whole bunch of recent worshipping communities (NWCs), it highlights high emptiness rates — as much as one in five churches in some places; the high attrition rate for Fresh Expressions; and the demands of accelerating the frequency of gathering as constraints on the Province’s ambitious vision for growth.
Across the Province, average weekly attendance (AWA) grew by three per cent between 2022 and 2023. On average, on-site attendance was 80 per cent of what it was in 2019, rising to 90 per cent amongst those with a web-based offering.
Factors related to decline since 2019 were: holding fewer services; not offering online worship; not meeting every week; and being in emptiness (i.e. between incumbents). The converse was related to growth, as was the starting of a latest worshipping community. Between 2022 and 2023, AWA rose by 21 per cent in churches that increased their variety of services; 13 per cent in churches reporting a latest worshipping community; 13 per cent in resource churches; six per cent in churches still offering a web-based service; and 13 per cent in small churches meeting every week.
The report echoes the findings of an earlier study by the identical authors, which suggested that there was a “strong correlation” between reduced provision and reduced attendance (News, 6 April 2023). In the Northern Province, only 81 per cent of the variety of services provided in 2019 were offered in 2023, while only 30 per cent of churches reported an a web-based offering.
While average weekly attendance in 2023 went down by 14 per cent in churches that held fewer services than in 2022, it rose by 21 per cent in churches that increased the variety of services. A complete of 261 small churches within the province with a service lower than once every week saw their AWA fall by five per cent between 2022 and 2023. But in the same group of 241 small churches of roughly the identical size, meeting every week, AWA rose by 13 per cent.
“In the current spiritual climate, where provision is made, people will come,” the authors argue. “There may never have been a time in recent many years when people have been more conscious of what church has to supply when it is obtainable.”
Noting high emptiness rates — one church in five, in some dioceses — rising emptiness lengths, and data indicating that AWA at churches in emptiness in October 2023 was on average 14 per cent lower than in 2022 (Features, 23 October), the authors conclude: “Underlying the restrictions on the restoration of church services to 2019 levels is the problem of leadership.”
They recommend that “investing within the leadership of lay people may help to handle restrictions on the provision of church”, pointing to models including “establishing local ‘oversight’ and ‘focal’ minister roles or ways of developing lay leadership alongside clergy”. Lay people “may deliver the majority of the brand new communities in a mixed ecology church”.
The researchers were specifically commissioned by the Archbishop of York’s office to explore NWCs. The national Vision and Strategy features a goal of 10,000 NWCs by 2030. Under the Archbishop of York’s Faith within the North programme, there’s a goal of 3000 within the Northern Province. Data collected within the report were used to support a successful funding bid to the Strategic Mission and Ministry Investment Board for a £2.2-million five-year “northern enabling strategy” to assist northern dioceses to launch as much as 600 “additional latest worshipping communities” (News, 9 December).
Among the 2616 churches within the Northern Province analysed within the New within the North sample, 388 NWCs were reported in SfM, began by churches of each size. About one third were aimed primarily at children, families, or young people
The authors define an NWC as a latest congregation or gathering that “has as its purpose the worship of Jesus Christ and helping people grow of their faith. Its practices will include two or more of: prayer, scripture, praise, sacrament, and acts of service.” Each NWC “goals to succeed in individuals who weren’t previously attending church usually and to make latest Christian disciples”. They must meet a minimum of once a month, and be connected with the broader Church through the parish church, deanery, or diocese. They include Fresh Expressions.
Average weekly attendance at churches starting an NWC went up by 13 per cent, compared with a mean for all churches of about three per cent. The researchers acknowledge that “it is feasible that this difference is simply too great to be fully explained directly by attendance on the NWC itself.” They write: “Many NWCs have made little or no impression on AWA figures in 2023. Much of the reason could possibly be a typical cause — that churches with vision and energy are able each to grow their existing congregations and to begin something latest.”
They also acknowledge that, “in addition to churches not having the resources or desire to re-start every thing after lockdown, some services can have been withdrawn through lack of demand.”
Resource churches (defined as having “a particular ministry of resourcing, grafting into and planting other churches through sending teams of individuals”) are described as “a serious aspect of overall growth”. Across the 55 resource churches for which data were provided, AWA went up by 11 per cent in 2023 (making up 29 per cent of total growth on this category across the province), while child AWA went up by 19 per cent (42 per cent of the expansion within the province).
The report notes that lots of the NWCs reported were also listed in SfM as Fresh Expressions, but that just about as many churches ceased to have a Fresh Expression in 2023 as those starting one for the primary time. One quarter (24 per cent) of the 656 Fresh Expressions reported in 2022 were not reported in 2023. “Compared with traditional congregations, it is a very high attrition rate,” the researchers write. “If that were to proceed in future years, it is difficult to see how Fresh Expressions as an entire can drive church growth, even when the start-up rate can be high.”
Only 30 per cent of the usually meeting Fresh Expressions meet every week. “It is is difficult to grow Christian community, create relational glue and develop disciples at this meeting frequency,” the authors write. “Putting on Fresh Expression tends to be demanding and time consuming.” They suggest that weekly NWCs “may benefit from models which are less preparation-intensive and fewer team-intensive on a minimum of among the weeks”, including “flexible online content”.
Despite a goal for quite a lot of venues, the bulk (78 per cent) of Fresh Expressions meet on church premises. In 2023, 15 per cent of the province’s overall increase in adult AWA and 33 per cent of the rise in child AWA got here from Fresh Expressions.
The national Vision and Strategy features a goal to double the number of youngsters and young people by 2030. New within the North suggests that NWCs can play an element on this, but comments that the goal is “so ambitious that it requires rapid growth in child numbers in traditional churches plus even greater growth through latest child-friendly communities”.
The report records that churches within the Northern Province usually are not smaller than their southern counterparts, “but are more thinly spread among the many population, and have been closing and shrinking at a faster rate”. In the Province of Canterbury, 2.15 per cent of the population are in a worshipping community; within the Province of York, the number is 1.52 per cent. The fall in AWA between 2014 and 2019 was 11 per cent in Canterbury, and 16 per cent in York.
The researchers report that small churches have recovered higher than large ones since 2019. In one diocese, the 2023 AWA of churches with AWA of 100 in 2019 fell by 26 per cent, while it rose by 13 per cent for those with AWA under 40.