Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Latest Church of England Attendance Stats: Making mud seem clear

The latest set of CofE attendance stats has done its job: passed with benign/no headlines, and little quizzing of the facts behind the official press release:

Overall in 2012, on average 1.05m people attended Church of England churches each week showing no significant change over the past decade. Figures for all age average weekly attendance show around 1 in 5 churches growing, and just over this number declining with 57% remaining stable.

In 2012 the Church of England conducted over 356,000 services of baptism, wedding and funerals at an average of about 6,700 each week - almost 1,000 per day - marking the rites of passage in people's lives in communities across the country.


There's plenty to celebrate and be proud of, but lets have a look at the actual stats. Look away now if you're in Lincoln diocese. Here is the Adult Weekly Attendance (the CofE's favoured measure, average number of adults attending a service in any given 7 days) change from 2003-2012. Please read on after the table below before calling for your bishop's resignation....

2003-2012 Adult Weekly Attendance Change
London
1.2%
Liverpool
-13.6%
Southwark
-0.4%
Carlisle
-13.7%
Newcastle
-3.1%
Southwell & Nottingham
-13.7%
Sheffield
-4.7%
Chichester
-13.8%
Europe
-5.4%
Exeter
-13.8%
Coventry
-6.1%
Portsmouth
-13.9%
Birmingham
-7.4%
Oxford
-14.3%
Guildford
-7.5%
Leicester
-14.4%
Manchester
-7.5%
Wakefield
-14.7%
Gloucester
-8.4%
York
-15.0%
Rochester
-9.2%
Salisbury
-16.0%
Chelmsford
-10.0%
Worcester
-17.7%
Bath & Wells
-10.1%
St. Edms & Ipswich
-20.0%
Lichfield
-10.1%
Ripon & Leeds
-20.2%
St. Albans
-10.2%
Sodor & Man
-20.4%
Canterbury
-10.4%
Blackburn
-21.2%
Ely
-10.7%
Peterborough
-21.7%
Durham
-11.2%
Bradford
-22.0%
Chester
-11.6%
Hereford
-23.8%
Total Church of England
-12.3%
Norwich
-24.9%
Winchester
-12.4%
Truro
-27.0%
Derby
-12.6%
Lincoln
-35.8%
Bristol
-13.6%

So far so consistent, compare and contrast with last year, or with the overall picture since 1990

But: the CofE has changed its method of collecting stats for this year, after finding several problems with the data in previous years. That's one thing that explains why it takes 18 months from when this data is collected (October) to when it's published. In brief, we have been overestimating attendance so far. So whilst the 2003 figures for the chart above are in the 'old money', the 2012 figures are more rigorous, and therefore lower. This exaggerates the decline in the figures, but that's not to say the decline isn't still there. 

(If you want the details, parishes which had 1 or 2 services a month, with, say 20 attending, were counted as having an AWA of 20, even though the people attending may attend other churches on the weeks with no service at their local. So there's been a lot of double counting, particularly in areas with lots of small churches that meet infrequently, e.g. rural dioceses like Lincoln)

Frustratingly, there are no revised figures available before 2008  - the official stats portal on the CofE site still has the old figures in its handy spreadsheet of diocesan stats. So it's impossible to independently check the statement that there's been 'no significant change over the past decade'. We can't do any fair comparisons for years up to 2007, all that can be said is that any comparison which uses the old data before 2008 will make things look worse than they really are. But that shouldn't be an excuse: only 90% as bad is still bad. 

But we can look at the data for 2008-12. Is the Titanic showing any signs of turning?

No.
 
Adult AWA Change 2008-12
Leicester
10.4%
Rochester
-4.8%
London
4.8%
Guildford
-4.8%
Bristol
4.8%
Salisbury
-5.3%
Sheffield
2.6%
Canterbury
-5.7%
Exeter
2.0%
Portsmouth
-6.0%
Durham
0.0%
Hereford
-6.6%
Newcastle
-0.8%
Europe
-6.6%
Norwich
-1.9%
Birmingham
-6.6%
Derby
-2.0%
Gloucester
-6.8%
Southwell & Nottingham
-2.1%
St. Albans
-7.2%
Carlisle
-2.3%
Southwark
-7.4%
Coventry
-2.3%
Chester
-7.8%
Chichester
-2.5%
Peterborough
-8.8%
Liverpool
-2.7%
Wakefield
-9.2%
Lichfield
-2.7%
York
-9.3%
Oxford
-3.2%
Truro
-9.8%
Worcester
-3.3%
Manchester
-9.9%
Ely
-3.4%
Bradford
-10.0%
Winchester
-3.5%
Sodor & Man
-10.0%
Chelmsford
-3.9%
Blackburn
-11.4%
St. Edms & Ipswich
-4.0%
Ripon & Leeds
-12.5%
Bath & Wells
-4.2%
Lincoln
-20.4%
Total Church of England
-4.2%



Five Dioceses growing, one static, the other 38 declining. And sadly even on the revised stats Lincoln is in trouble. Overall CofE attendance has fallen 37,000 in this 3 year period. That doesn't look like 'no significant change' to me, but maybe I'm working on the wrong definition of 'significant'?  

It's also worth saying that there are no surprises in the top 5. All are intentional about church growth.

Year on year, (2011-12) the stats show growth in a few more Dioceses, but even then it's difficult to draw conclusions. Our Diocese, Bath and Wells, shows a 1500 rise in attendance for 2011-12, yet I know for a fact that reported membership fell in those years in Bath and Wells by 1300 people, 5.6%. So what's going on there? 

The commentary in this years stats is fairly open about how much estimating they've had to do, and the shortcomings in the collection system. There's also an attempt to look at a new measure of membership, joiners and leavers, rather than attendance, though measuring this has problems of its own. 

Until all the silt is cleared out of the system, it's hard to do any proper analysis beyond this: the Church of England stats up to 2012 shows no signs that we are pulling out of the slow nosedive. I really hope that not many people believe the press release on this one: yes there are good signs in the CofE, but we are still in crisis and until we completely understand that, we aren't going to make the radical changes we need to. 

back to the Lent blogging fast. Sorry God....

10 comments:

  1. Yes, I have to agree with you. It looks to me as if the best statistical brains in the Church of England have spent 18 months working out how to put the best possible spin on the figures. I do suspect that Lincoln has been the most honest diocese in drawing up its statistical return. Others have probably been rather optimistic in inventing figures for the parishes which failed to make a return.

    I live opposite a church and observe the attendance each Sunday. It is fairly constant at between 25 and 30. However, I rarely see anyone under the age of about 65. Is it that people start going to Church at that age, or is it that we can expect to see accelerated decline in the next few years?

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  2. Dear David. I thought you were giving up blogging for lent?! Nevermind, nice to read your posts. I wonder if I could utilise the anonymity of the internet to ask you a rather vulgar question....what is the basic take home pay (per month) for a CoE Vicar (assume a flat month, no weddings etc).? This is a serious question, I'm not out to make any points, just genuinely curious.

    God Bless.

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  3. anonymous - yes I did! But there's a tradition in Lent that you can break the fast on Sundays, so I figured I was allowed a bit of leeway. We don't get fees or anything like that now (and those all got taken off your stipend anyway), the national average is about £24k, but with housing provided.

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  4. Et Expecto - Christian faith and church involvement is higher among the older generations, and decreases with each age cohort. It may be that in retirement there are some who turn theory into practice, but the CofE can't depend on a steady flow of people who turn 65 and decide to go to church. I'm not sure we'll see accelerated decline, but we're still looking at decline unless the church needs to take much more seriously engaging with children and young adults.

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  5. Thanks for the info. What's that work out at, about £1500 take home per month I guess? I suppose the housing package is probably worth another £600 or so, depending on what part of the country one lives in. Would that be about right? I'm interested, but think I'd struggle to sell the concept to my other half as it'd mean a two thirds pay cut, but my happiest days were also my poorest as a student. What do you think?

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  6. If you're earning £75k a year then I'd hope you've a nice chunk of savings built up by now! There's a minimum standard to housing which means most of us are in 4/5 bed houses (or vast old rectories, though thankfully most of those are becoming B&Bs), council tax and maintenance taken care of, which is a massive load off the mind.

    It's more important that you feel called to it, it's not something people do for the money, but for God. Though if you saw the news piece on job satisfaction last week, we do come top of the list. Would you rather be rich or happy? Are you actually living the life you want to, that you were put here for? Once you've settled those questions, everything else is detail.

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    Replies
    1. Exactly my thinking. Not quite £75K (maths never my strong point). More £50-60, and no real savings to speak of as one tends to unconsciously and gradually raise ones spending in line with income. I have been giving more and more thought to the 'cloth' for about 4 years - taking on increasing responsibility in the church, but reality bites when I consider that my 3 kids under ten are happy in their school, my wife's quite happy working two days a week (and doesn't share my faith, although she is very supportive). At this point in my life I would feel I was being very selfish by exploring my own 'calling?' which may ultimately end up taking away the lifestyle to which my family have

      Wow, the anonymity of the internet is really great - I haven't been able to articulate this before! David, thanks I really appreciate your honest response to this.

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  7. There's various ways of exploring ordination, and there are different ways of doing it too - there are forms of ordination where you can stay in your local community (ordained local ministry, deacon), but it's something you need to talk about as a family. CPAS do very useful 'you and the ministry' weekends, and your diocese should have some 'vocations advisers' too (if you're in a CofE church). Chat it over with some Christian friends, or with your vicar, and pray (obviously!). I probably see more of my kids, and can be more available when they need me, than in a conventional job. And you do need your family right behind you, there'll always be a time when things are a struggle, and at those times it needs to be something you're all 100% behind, not 1 persons decision that everyone else has gone along with.

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  8. thank you

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  9. David - all worth pointing out - and a further issue of course is that the number of people attending is not the figure that really matters, it's the percentage of population in the area - this is not straightforward as census boundaries don't totally match diocese but they are pretty close - so for instance as more people move into London does this make London's stats look better? and what about the movement of existing church goers? overall of course if the nations population is rising a stable church attendance is actually a fall in percentage terms ;o)

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