Church Growth in the Church of England - the other side of the story

After depressing everyone with the latest CofE membership stats the other day, it was encouraging to read some very good news in this General Synod report. 

Yes you heard that right. The Strategic Development Fund is a 10 year project by the CofE to invest in mission. It focuses on areas where the church is struggling to make an impact - mostly deprived urban areas, children and youth. 

Here are some snapshots from the report, of the impact the funding is having:

 - In a seriously deprived parish in Bristol Diocese, a weekly meal after Sunday worship started in 2019 and feeds dozens from the neighbourhood, for many it's their only hot meal of the week. A midweek service (with food) aimed at addicts and life recovery now has a congregation of 30-40, with several coming to faith. 

 - Rochester diocese’s project to invest in church growth in four priority parishes will include growing two new ministries established at Christ Church Anerley: Kings Car Wash helps ex-offenders to get back into work habits and Kings Boxing works with young gang members as an alternative to knife crime.

 -  A project awarded SDF in Leeds diocese has plans to support those battling addictions and mental health problems in the deprived town of Keighley, including launching a social enterprise with a coffee shop and prayer space.

 - Birmingham Diocese have been placing Children and Families workers in several parishes, and seen 800 new disciples in churches which are hosting them.

 - Canterbury diocese’s ‘Ignite’ project, which was awarded SDF in June 2018 to develop new worshipping congregations in the most deprived areas of the diocese and the Channel Islands, has launched eight new communities with attendance already of nearly 350 and testimonies emerging of lives being deeply touched and changed. 

 - At ‘Top Church’, a new church-planting-church in the deprived town of Dudley in Worcester diocese the worshipping community grew to 110 at the end of the first year (far exceeding the anticipated target of 30 in the first year) with four people exploring ordained ministry.

So far it's estimated that over 10,000 people have become new disciples through these projects, many 

of which are in a very early stage. 

And the report finds that intentionality in mission is fundamental. Churches grow where they have an active, outward-facing focus to create opportunities to develop new relationships; and then find ways to intentionally share the gospel with those new contacts, whether through explorer courses, social engagement, small groups, appropriate forms of worship, or through one-to-one discipleship.

All of which applies just as much to individual churches as it does to a national fund. I just pray that all of these have found a way to continue and to grow through Covid.  

Last Chance To See...... Church of England Membership and Attendance Stats 2019

 The Church of England has published its latest 'Statistics for Mission' for 2019, links to the various documents - press release, Excel spreadsheets (did 16,000 members drop off the end?) etc. can be found here. You'll find analysis of previous years stats here. 

The more upbeat the press release, and the further you have to go before it mentions church membership and attendance, the worse you know it's going to be. This year is no exception. After making a great deal of social action and digital engagement it's paragraph 15 of 16 before we discover that attendance was down a further 2% from the previous year. Here are the figures for 'Adult Weekly Attendance' (average no of adults attending worship each week) for the last 5 years. 

And here are figure over the same period for children:

Hereford has seen an increase from 1000 to 1300 during the 5 years the stats cover. Otherwise, the overall picture among under-18s is worse than it is among adults. 

I've been keeping track of these stats, inspired by Bob Jackson, as far back as they go. A few years ago, church growth enthusiasts like myself were encouraged to see London Diocese bucking the trend, and hoping that where the capital led, the country would follow. Sadly not, here's the stats since the beginning of the century - as you can see above, London is now on the same trajectory as everyone else: 

This is a catastrophic decline. The Church of England now is where the Methodists were a few years ago (305,000 members in 2003, 170,000 now), and the URC a few years before that. The figures for children, as always, are worse: 

There is a generational feed through into other church activity - we are baptising 9% of children, marrying 17% of couples getting married, and taking the funerals of 25% of those who die. Each of these is down 30-40% over the last 10 years, and there is a clear progression through the generations. 

The report does find some good news - over 90,000 people joined an Anglican church in 2019, with a significant proportion being first time church members

10% of parishes are reporting growth, but 4x the number report statistically significant decline. Overall growing churches are still a tiny minority, but some new churches have been planted - 90 recorded in the stats, who have seen their membership more than double since 2016. 

Finally, I'm always interested in this chart, which gives a fascinating cross-section of what the 'average' church looks like:

Translation: the top 5% of churches have an average weekly congregation of 185 or more, of which 1/6 are children. A church exactly in the middle of the 16000 Anglican churches in terms of size has 31, of which 6% - 2 - are children. The largest churches have a larger 'fringe' of non-members, sustainable numbers of children and youth, and enough people to comfortably fill the building. The one upside of social distancing is that the smaller churches can still meet as a whole congregation, since there's plenty of room in the average church for 20 people to sit on their own at the same time. 

By accident rather than design, the Church of England has ended up with a Tesco structure. Tesco has a small number of 'Tesco Extra' megastores (Cathedrals), about 15% of its outlets are 'Tesco Superstore' (large church, kids and youth work, several outreach projects, sizeable fringe), there's a few 'Tesco Metro' stores which are scaled down versions of the superstores (75th percentile churches), but 3/4 are either Tesco Express or One Stop, small corner shop versions, providing local access to a core selection of produce. The management, logistics and life of a megastore is very different to that of Tesco Express, though they all carry the same branding, and some shared products. 

Here's the thing. Half of our churches, 8000 of them, have 26 adults or fewer on a Sunday. If you had 26 people to form a Christian presence in a community, you wouldn't start from here. You wouldn't have a listed building which costs thousands to heat and insure. You wouldn't have the protocols for running the church written into law. You wouldn't have so many aspects to Sunday worship (warden, verger, organist, reader, prayer leader, vicar, sidesperson) that there's barely anyone there who isn't there because they're on a rota. You wouldn't open an Anglican Extra, you'd have an Anglican Express. In fact, you probably wouldn't open a building at all. 

Covid will make the figures for 2020 such a mess that there probably isn't any point collecting them, and 2021 may not be much better. As many have observed, it is accelerating changes that were already happening. Businesses on the edge are shutting down. Trends towards online shopping have increased. What does that mean for the church? There is nothing in the stats to suggest that we are about to turn a corner. Or if we are, it's turning in the opposite direction to the one we want. There are islands - many islands (1600 according to the stats) of growth, many others holding their own, and making a life-changing contribution to local individuals and communities. 

But. But...... the parish system hasn't changed since it was introduced towards the end of the Dark Ages. The overall structure of the CofE hasn't changed for a century. The buildings we operate on haven't changed for (insert your own figure here). The structure of deployment, church life, legal framework seems set in concrete. Witness the absurd debate about communion since lockdown. Don't get me started. 

Maybe the Bishops should have shut us down for longer at the start of covid. Because we shape our tools, and then our tools shape us. Any church that doesn't have a life without it's building, or its Sunday gathering, has been so shaped by them that it has ceased to be a church. Instead of hanging on until we could re-open, maybe 12 months of 'being church' without 'the church' would have done us some good, if we'd allowed it to shape us. For many of our folk it was a break: suddenly the small army of people involved on a Sunday morning could forget the rota, roll out of bed, make a coffee and switch on Youtube. Sure it's great to involve people, but we pour so many resources into worship, and the building and professional caste that make it happen, that there's precious little energy, time and money left for anything else. 

The church in its present form will have to die. It is dying. It's slow and drawn out because we don't have the nerve, or the structures, to make clear and painful decisions. Political debate today is dominated by whether we need a 'circuit breaker' lockdown. I'd argue the CofE needs the same. Shut everything. Pray and seek God. Stop wasting energy, lives and talent on a structure and system which, in most places, no longer works.

The Election - a Little Church of England Issue

Justin Welby is currently 63, and has been Archbishop of Canterbury for the best part of 7 years, since March 2013. His immediate predecessors were:

Rowan Williams retired at 62 after 10 years
George Carey retired at 67 after ll years
Robert Runcie retired at 70 after 11 years

Under the fixed term parliaments act, the next election after this one isn't supposed to be until December 2024, by which time Justin Welby will be 1 month off his 69th birthday, and will have been in office for nearly 12 years.

So based on recent form there is a very good chance that the next Archbishop of Canterbury will be chosen by Boris Johnson, or (long shot) Jeremy Corbyn. The former is likely to plump for a white, male privately educated Oxbridge graduate, given the opportunity, and the latter is likely to choose for a left-leaning female, given the opportunity. (update: I've been put right on this - the process is now that they get 1 name to approve, with another in reserve)

All the candidates will be capable - the shortlist of 2 traditionally given to the PM comes out of an intensive process of prayer, interviews, advice and selection. But neither potential PM is particularly keen on the church and what it stands for. Though being shortlisted for ABofC is one of my worst nightmares, it would be even more of a nightmare to think I was appointed to the job by a man who'd broken in letter or in spirit nearly all of the 10 commandments, and thought Christianity was a myth made up by a bunch of religious zealots on the fringe of his beloved Greco-Roman society.

Both have pledged some reform of the constitution in their manifestos, including this rather startling proposal from the Tories After Brexit we also need to look at the broader aspects of our constitution: the relationship between the Government, Parliament and the courts; the functioning of the Royal Prerogative; the role of the House of Lords; and access to justice for ordinary people. ... In our first year we will set up a Constitution, Democracy & Rights Commission that will examine these issues in depth, and come up with proposals to restore trust in our institutions and in how our democracy operates.

Throw into the mix the age of the Queen, and the 'Defender of Faiths' line taken by the next in line to the throne, and there is quite a shake-up coming down the tracks. The end of the Elizabethan age will see a massive rethink about the role of the royalty, and once you pull at that thread it isn't long before you get to the Church.

Here's my take: disestablishment is coming, whether the good old CofE wants it or not. It has already started in lots of small ways - e.g. the series of changes to marriage law over the last 20 years. The question for the next Parliament is whether the church will get ahead of the curve on this, or be dragged along by events. The CofE needs its own vision of what a post-establishment Anglican Church could look like, rather than have one forced upon it by politicians who see neither merit nor votes in working with us. The Estalibshment of the church belongs to a previous age, it will go sooner or later, and as we have seen with attitudes to trans issues, the political and cultural weather can change very suddenly, and very fast.

Part of Justin Welby's legacy needs to be this: to get the Church of England thinking this through, and leading the debate, before a bandwagon appears from elsewhere - whether that bandwagon is driven by events, electoral reform, ideologues or royal succession. By then it will be too late to do our thinking.

Church of England - Evangelism on the Agenda

It would seem an obvious thing for a church to prioritise evangelism. Jesus parting words were 'go and make disciples of all nations' (Matthew 28), and the outcome of Pentecost was that the first disciples would be witnesses to Jesus (not 'do' witness but be witnesses). After a serious finger burning exercise in the 'Decade of Evangelism', it's exciting to see the CofE picking the ball back up.

General Synod next week has a large chunk of time devoted to evangelism. I used to witter repeatedly about the failure of the national CofE to engage with mission, one reason this blog is a bit quieter than usual (apart from having 2 1/2 years without a full time colleague) is that I've less to complain about.

As well as debates on Estates evangelism, and growing faith in families and schools, Synod is also going to be asked to approve GS 2118. Calm down now, I know you're excited. If approved, the national parliament of the CofE will be signing up to 4 headline commitments
1. That every worshipping community makes evangelism a priority
2. That every parish gets involved in 'Thy Kingdom Come', a (now global) prayer initiative focused on seeing more people come to faith
3. That every diocese helps all their members to find more confidence in sharing and living the good news of Jesus in daily life
4. That the church be held to account for 1-3, plus a cluster of other recommendations (see below).

Readers of this blog from other church streams may be slapping their foreheads repeatedly at this point. Surely evangelism as a priority is a no brainer? Well a) not if you're Anglican and b) not if you're British. We've never been that comfortable talking about faith in public, and indeed when we do it puts a substantial number of people off.

There are several key ideas underpinning the report
 - The integration of evangelism and discipleship. I remember the stir caused by William Abrahams 'The Logic of Evangelism' in the 1980s, reminding evangelicals that we are called to make discples, not converts. The report therefore sees evangelism as an integral part of discipleship, not a separate activity.
 - The work of LICC and others in exploring 7 day a week discipleship
 - The word 'confidence', which keeps recurring - as a church, and as individuals, many of us lack the confidence to share our story, or even invite people to a church event.

The report sets out 6 'operational priorities' for the next few years. These are going to be challenging, but exciting, if we take them seriously
a) Every person equipped to be a witness - 'mobilising the million' CofE members to be more confident in sharing their story and Jesus' story, and developing a culture of invitation in the church

b) Every person released to live out the gospel 24/7 - which links up with the discipleship/setting God's people free agenda currently being rolled out nationally.

c) Every church prioritising children and young people in evangelism  - with the startling statistic that 65% of CofE churches have less than 5 members under 16, and half of these have none.

d) Every church a welcoming community, both as people and as places, and makes the most of 'life events' to connect with the community and build an ongoing relationship

e) Every church considers developing a new worshipping community. London diocese has traditionally led the way on strategic church planting, but it now looks like this will become a national expectation

f) Every leader trained and equipped to be competent to lead in evangelism and encouraging disciples. Though this is the last of the 6 priorities, this is the potential bottleneck. For many vicars, their gifts lie elsewhere than evangelism, and for many others, it's simply not on the radar. This will take quite a shift in culture, but it's a shift that's needed.

An appendix to the report picks up on specific areas - new estates, ethnic minorities, chaplancy and youth.

A few thoughts
1. There is a concern threaded through the report that this work will lose 'momentum' and not become embedded in CofE culture. This may have half an eye on the future leadership of the CofE - John Sentamu is retiring, and Justin Welby is 6 years into his stint as ABofC - most recent occupants of that role have managed about a decade.

2. Linked to 'confidence' is apologetics, which doesn't get a mention in the report. One of the things which gives Christians confidence in their faith is seeing that it answers key questions well and coherently. This work may be happening elsewhere, but it strikes me that the CofE needs to regain its nerve in the sufficiency of the Bible and its worldview to provide a framework for life, ethics, thinking, and spirituality.

3. 'Setting God's People Free', with its focus on everyday discipleship, does seem to be gaining traction, and has the potential to transform Dioceses and local churches. It's good to see the evangelism agenda linking up with this, but it will take excellent resources, prayer, and consistent leadership over many years to see these changes get to the 'average' churches. A small number of churches 'get' evangelism already,  small number will probably never get it, so it's good to see the report zeroing in on the thousands of 'average' CofE churches in the 20-60 membership range, and considering what this all looks like for them.

4. This is being driven/led from the top, to which I cry 'at last!' But at Diocesan level it needs to be broken down a bit, otherwise Dioceses could end up appointing a forest of advisors and facilitators. I've said it before and I'll say it again, anyone in a Diocesan post needs to be part-time in a parish, so that they remain grounded in the realities and responsibilities of parish life. Advisors in spirituality need to be leading their churches in prayer, advisors in evangelism need to be equipping their own local church to share faith with confidence etc. That gives credibility and context to the people promoting this stuff, and also prevents them 'going native' into a Diocesan culture which becomes separated from the coalface realities of parish life.

Church of England Attendance Stats 2017

Like a nervous Jacob sending his flocks, wives and children ahead to placate his wronged and hairy brother Esau, the Church of England released several batches of positive stats prior to last weeks full attendance statistics report. So we had Cathedral attendance (up), Christmas attendance (up) social engagement (widespread and positive) and digital engagement. I must confess to an increasing feeling of unease with each successive press release, and the delay in the publication of the stats (originally trailed as October).

The press briefings clearly did their job, pushing Christmas attendance and digital engagement to the top of the page and relegating the gnarly stuff about attendance to further down. The report itself starts upbeat, focusing on a new measure 'Worshipping Community' which also happens to give the highest figure for church participation of 1.14m. There are also encouraging figures on church 'joiners', with 83,000 adults joining an Anglican church in 2017. Of those, 31% had never attended church before, and 17% had previously left and were returning. That's good, and encouraging.

But
read down a page or two and you discover that the Worshipping Community measure doesn't offer 'robust information' and keeping track of it is 'more challenging' than the traditional headcount.

So here is the traditional headcount, the change in Adult Weekly Attendance (the average number of adults attending church each week in October) from 2012-2017

A number of striking things
 - London, over the last 30 years the only Diocese to have held its own or grown, is now back in the pack. They had an ambitious strategy to plant 100 new churches, and I hope the missional drive has survived Richard Chartres, but this is worrying
 - The dioceses which have done 'best' are mostly rural, with an East coast strip from the Thames to the Humber seeing slower decline than the rest of us. Do UKIP members go to church more regularly?
 - Other than that its a fairly dire picture: after some indications that decline in CofE membership was slowing down a few years ago.

This is borne out elsewhere in the figures. Over the last 5 years
 - Baptisms are down 25.4%
 - Weddings and thanksgivings are down 29.8%
 - Funerals are down 15.8% (those done in crematoriums and cemetaries are down 26%)
With now 10% of children being baptised, 19% of marriages and 26% of funerals being hosted/led by the church, each successive generation is less and less engaged with what the CofE is offering, outside of Christmas.

Go back a bit further in time (difficult, because the recorded figures have changed - Canterbury adult Sunday attendance in 2012 is either 12800 or 15400, depending on which years stats report you read!) here's how we've done since the turn of the century. Please take this with a pinch of salt, but with or without, the overall flavour is the same:

 Under Rowan Williams and even more so under Justin Welby, the CofE has more and more started to reckon with these figures, rather than ignore them (though the tone of the report and the press release seems designed to cloak the truth rather than face it). We will know in a few years whether the growth of fresh expressions, mission strategies and evangelism resources has made any significant difference.

My own Diocese, Bath and Wells, is now focused on 'putting mission and evangelism at the heart of all we do'. I can't fault the stated direction, and its a massive and welcome change from recent history, but the jury is out on the execution. We've successfully applied for central funding for an extra 10 posts to take forward church planting and pioneer ministry, and at the same time a quick glance at the Diocesan budget shows an increased headcount of 10 full time posts in the Diocesan staff. Some of this is to strengthen the safeguarding, vocations, and mission advisory teams, but I do question the ratio, and wonder what 20 extra parish-level staff would do for mission and growth at a local level, if invested wisely.

One final table:

This is an interesting one, a few things to note here:

 - 75% of Anglican churches have 60 people or fewer on an average Sunday. 

 - Of the 16000 churches in the CofE, around 4000 have 15 or less on a Sunday, 1 baptism a year and no weddings and for their big services have enough to fill a decent sized pub function room. None of these churches needs to seat more than 50-70 people. I'm sure every one of these buildings is loved and treasured, but we are way past the point where this is sustainable. Do we have a strategy for closing or re-using buildings, before the inevitable collapse in the system?

 - The bigger churches have a proportionally bigger 'fringe' - churches on the 25th percentile see 2.5x their usual congregation turn up at Christmas, those on the 75th see 3.75x their usual number, and it's higher still for the biggest.  

 - Some very different leadership is required for the churches on the left hand side of this table to those on the right. What are we training people for? 

 - It would be interesting to see the parishes mapped on to these by growth/decline, sometimes the biggest decline comes in the biggest churches. 

In my own Diocese, there are 76 churches with a membership in single figures, only a handful have reported a rise in membership in recent years. All have a building, and required to have church wardens, treasurer, safeguarding officer etc. At the other end of the scale there are 11 churches with over 200 members, 5 of these have grown in the last 3 years, (and at least one of the 'shrinkers' has had a vacancy) which for the CofE is almost impressive. Here, as in every Diocese, the Diocesan leadership needs to get behind those growing churches and make sure they are supported and resourced. It also needs to shorten vacancies in large and already thriving churches.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. This isn't an argument for giving up all this new fangled mission stuff and go back to the good old days. The new fangled mission stuff is about 2000 years old, and the good old days were days of decline anyway. The CofE is planting new churches, it is seeing more people called into leadeship, it is discovering new ways to share the gospel and make disciples. But we are saddled with models and structures of ministry which act like lead boots on the feet of the messenger, and I also fear that many of those who are seeking to lead the church into growth don't have that much experience of leading growing churches themselves. Maybe like Jacob God needs to wrestle us to a point of weakness, so we can limp across the river, stripped of the things we used to depend on, and discover renewal on the other side. 

The stats are also available in an Excel file, which puts an end to the years of transcribing them line by line out of pdfs into a spreadsheet, so a big thankyou to @cofestats for doing that. Here's my analysis of last years stats, which provoked quite a debate, and remains the most visited page on this blog by some distance.

By the way, I'm not on Twitter so if you think this needs a wider audience, dear reader, then tweet away.

Update: this was posted on my FB feed, a quote from a Diocesan bishop in the S of England  "If as the figures might suggest the Church of England is dying, we in this part of the country are determined to die a spectacular operatic death while investing in evangelism and church planting, not a whimpering unobtrusive death behind curtains in a hospital, meanly hoarding our resources so that we.can pass on our silver to somebody else's grandchildren".

New CofE Stats

The new Church of England attendance stats are out, trailed by a press release which takes a long time before mentioning Sunday attendance. Thats always a worry. I'll be doing a longer post on them in a few days time, in the meantime here's last years post,

There is a welter of statistics - on a skim read it looks like a report keenly searching to find one way of measuring things that doesn't look quite so bad as the rest. Outside the East Anglian dioceses, membership is dropping off everywhere, and more quickly among children. The number of baptisms, weddings and funerals done by the church has dropped by 25%, 22% and 16% respectively in just 5 years.

If you want to know more, pop back next week, but pour yourself a stiff drink first.

Church of England Attendance Change by Diocese, 2011-16

The latest Church of England attendance figures are out, and full marks to the CofE for producing them in Excel format as well as the usual pdfs. So much easier to play about with.

The good news, however, ends there.

You can always tell if it's been an iffy year, because the press release accompanying the stats is on something other than whats happening in a normal church on a normal Sunday. This year it's the social media profile.

I've been blogging for years on what's happening in the Dioceses, and whether we are, at last turning the corner. Sad to report that the answer is no: at least, not based on the official stats. If anything, it's getting worse

In the last 5 years, only two dioceses have seen adult Sunday attendance grow - London continues to be the engine room of the CofE, but many of the Dioceses that were doing well last time round have seen a sharp drop in numbers. For numbers, read people (see Acts in the New Testament, does it all the time). The rate of decline across the CofE has increased, and to have 12 dioceses recording losses in double figures compares with 5 for 2009-14. 

Maybe the next generation will save us? Maybe not. Again, London is growing, again, nobody else is, and the figures towards the bottom of the table are catastrophic.

Perhaps the hope lies in non-Sunday worship? After all, millions of people now work on a Sunday, and the competition with leisure activities etc. is intense. Adult attendance Mon-Sat has risen from 112,000 to 122,000, so it is both growing, and a higher proportion of overall CofE attendance. However childrens midweek attendance has dropped like a stone - I'm hoping that's to do with a different recording system, but fear that it might not be.

There is wider cultural change too, away from Christendom and the culture that supported an established church. Baptisms, weddings and funerals taken by the CofE have dropped by 15, 21 and 28% respectively in the last 10 years. This in turn reduces the pool of community contacts and means local churches have to work harder to engage with the community, and move beyond dependence on the 'occasional offices' as a way of connecting with people.

One glimmer of hope in the figures is on p10 of the full report. Churches were asked to report on 'joiners' and 'leavers' during the year, and 80,000 people were reported as joining CofE churches. 32% of the adults and 58% of the children had never been church members before. That's encouraging, or does it just mean that we notice more when people join than when they leave?

There is probably a lot more to say in the detail, but I hope these stats are actually used for mission - I blogged on a previous occasion how the only people who paid any attention to membership figures were the finance department. A vicar who's seen their attendance drop by 15% in a year is more likely to get a call questioning whether they've under-reported to save on parish share (contributions to the Diocese) than whether they are ok and if they need any support.

Many Dioceses now have a mission strategy, including even Bath and Wells (I know, it's hard to believe at times), and it looks like we need it more than ever. But it shouldn't be a preservation strategy, even though God has probably used the ghastly stats above to kick the recalcitrant CofE out of its sniffiness about evangelism. We now need to get over our complacency about prayer.

Update: final thoughts - the 4,000 smallest churches have an average weekly attendance of 12, i.e. small enough to fit into a decent size front room. On average, CofE churches have a worshipping community of 75, with 54 of those present on any normal Sunday.  This means that on a normal Sunday 1/3 of the congregation is absent. How does a church work and thrive and grow in relationships with this dynamic?

Also, each vicar costs roughly twice the average salary (due to housing, training, pension costs), so 40 people giving the 'Anglican tithe' of 5% to their church could support one. Bump that up to 50 for other central costs (our Diocese has over 50 support staff, sorting out things like training, finance, safeguarding, schools). Then you've got to find money to run the church - resources, building costs, etc. If some of those church members are fairly new, it's not long before you get to the point that the average local church only works if it's overseen by a part-time vicar. Either that or it loses the building (the other major cost centre). We have roughly 7,000 vicars to 16,000 churches, so it has to be that way anyway. Despite no longer being able to sustain the '1 parish 1 vicar' model, CofE structures and expectations are still largely based on it. We're like a fat man after a successful diet still trying to wear the same clothes. Buildings, parish boundaries, the expectation (indeed the law of the land) of weekly communion, committee structures, recognition of lay ministry (Lay Readers are the main accredited role alongside clergy, following 2 years theological training, Deacons get lip service and little more) etc.remain largely untouched from 20, 50, 100 years ago. And every few years, your parish gets blessed with an enforced vacancy, just to stifle any growth you might have managed to muster.

Either the system will collapse under its own wait (scroll up - maybe we're witnessing that already), or we need a decisive shift away from ancient buildings, paid clergy, or an over-clericalised theology and practice of church that stifles lay leadership. Or there'll be a miracle. I'd argue we need both.

update: a few more links at Thinking Anglicans.

PS if you're sharing this on Facebook, please could you tag me in, would be good to see the debate on FB as well as on the blogs.

update 2: At over 7000 views this is now the third-most read post on this blog (out of nearly 2600 posts). That is already more than the average Adult attendance in 2 Dioceses (Sodor and Man and, ironically, Hereford), and also exceeds the number of men confirmed in the CofE last year (6581). As a sign of the times, Facebook is the source for nearly 2/3 of the visits here, comfortably outstripping Twitter and other blogs. 9.50pm make that 9500 views, why so many visitors?

Update 3 Jeremy Marshall has some very perceptive analysis on his blog, worth a read if you are more interested in how we respond to all this.

'Setting God's People Free' - ministry on the other 6 days of the week, and who does it

A great opportunity lies before us. It is the same opportunity that has presented itself to the Church in every decade for the last 100 years. It is an opportunity that arguably has not been fully grasped since the days of Wesley. 

Will we determine to empower, liberate and disciple the 98% of the Church of England who are not ordained and therefore set them free for fruitful, faithful mission and ministry, influence, leadership and, most importantly, vibrant relationship with Jesus in all of life? And will we do so not only in church-based ministry on a Sunday but in work and school, in gym and shop, in field and factory, Monday to Saturday?

A new report 'Setting God's People Free', has just been published by the CofE in advance of next months General Synod. It tackles head on the need to equip all the members of the church, not just clergy, for full-time ministry:

According to a survey of 2859 respondents conducted in 2009 (82% had been Christians for over 10 years, 67% in some kind of leadership role in the Church, 1204 were Anglicans):
- 59% of those in working age said that the most challenging context to be a disciple of Christ was the workplace. 
- 62% of those in full-time paid employment experienced little, not much, or no help/preparation from the life and ministries of church to deal with the issues they faced at work.
-  47% said they did not have a story to tell about how God has worked in their lives (Note 82% had been Christians for over 10 years). 
-  59% (of Anglicans surveyed) said that their church does not equip people well for life in today’s world at home, work, or elsewhere.

This is shocking, but at last its being noticed and taken seriously by the whole church, not just by a few voices in the wilderness like the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity, whose insights are a key part of this report.

A couple of stories from the report, to illustrate the kind of ground it covers:
“I teach Sunday school 45 minutes a week and they haul me up to the front of the church to pray for me. I teach in a school 45 hours a week and the church has never prayed for me.”- Comment from a teacher

Curt is a policeman in his 40s. At an evening for 15 Christian men they are all asked, “What are you good at in the Lord at work?” No one says anything – Southern reserve perhaps. So the leader asks them to 14 write something down on a post-it note. “Well, now you have done that, you might as well read it out.” Curt goes first. He speaks hesitantly, “I work at No 10 as part of the Diplomatic Protection Group. It’s a pretty macho team.” The people in the room don’t find it hard to imagine why. These are men and women wearing Kevlar and toting submachine guns and Glock pistols, people who are prepared to shoot to kill and put their lives on the line for others. Curt continues, “Over the years there’s been quite a bit of conflict in the team but I’ve found I’m quite good at bringing people back together.” That’s all he says. And he looks a bit embarrassed and looks down at the coffee table. And then someone says, “You’ve got a ministry of reconciliation.” And Curt breaks into a smile the width of the Thames. And then someone else says, “You’re a peacemaker”. Blessed are the peacemakers. Here’s a Christian teaching people to forgive one another, teaching other police the ways of Jesus at No 10 Downing Street. But Curt hadn’t been able to read his own life through the lens of the Biblical and so he hadn’t realised how God had been working through him. Lay people don’t just need theological resources to grasp the range of ways they can be fruitful for Christ in the world, they need the theological imagination to see the ways they already have been. 

I've not managed to read it yet in full, but its excellent stuff if the CofE can actually get to grips with it. With the track record of the current leadership, I have no doubt it will - one key culture change in the CofE is that it no longer thinks that you change things by producing a report. Releasing all Gods people in ministry, all the time, will mean a big change in the way that clergy and the employed leadership of the church operate, what we prioritise, how we preach, and how we see ministry. Good. Bring it on.

More Thoughts on Extra Vicars

One of the stated aims of Renewal and Reform, the CofE's national vision and strategy* for the next generation, is to increase the number of people being ordained each year by 50%.

In their (our!) own words - The Church of England is seeking an increase of 50% in the number of candidates for ordained ministry. This means an increase in numbers per annum from around 500 to 750 in the overall annual cohort. The Church is seeking both numerical growth and an increase in diversity within the cohort of ordinands so that it reflects the communities in wider society where the Church is engaged in mission, in terms of age, gender and ethnic and social background.

Stats released last week give some background to what this might look like. I've not detected much response in the blogosphere as yet (Ian Paul, comments at Thinking Anglicans). I posted a few thoughts of my own the other day, and here are some more.
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1. Firstly, great. Every time I come across someone who feels God is calling them into leadership in the CofE, I'm delighted. Not just because I know what a privilege it is, but also that it's a sign that God isn't quite done with us yet as a church. Whatever else is going on, God wouldn't be calling people into this ministry if we were making a complete pigs ear of it.

2. Increasing the number of ordinands by 50% will mean a rise of 150 in those ordained to paid full-time ministry to 450 per year. The average age at ordination is 41, add on 4 years for a curacy, and retirement at 65, and you have a long-term stipendiary workforce of 9000 clergy. That's 1300 more than we have at the moment. By the time we get to this figure, the UK population will have increased by another 10m to 75m, so there'll still be plenty to do. If the CofE succeeds in lowering the age profile, we may have closer to 10,000.

3. But.... there are several big issues, some practical and some theological, that we really need to deal with, and I'm not sure if we are doing:

a) At the moment we are ordaining almost exactly the same numbers as those retiring from ordination. so whilst the main narrative around the drop in clergy numbers is retirements (25% of those in my diocese are due to retire in the next 5 years), there is another major factor. On average we ordain 290 people a year, 280 clergy per year retire or die, and another 300 per year leave to do Something Else.

b) Something Else #1  2500 ordained clergy are in chaplaincies or other non-parish appointments. The CofE projections assume this will stay the same for the forseeable future. Why then do we train all clergy for parish ministry? Why is every curacy served in a parish setting? CofE training is front-loaded (2-3 years in college/theological course then 3-4 years in a curacy), and apart from the occasional specialist placement, the main focus of activity, training, and ministry models is the parish. This seems like a spectacular waste of resources on two fronts. Firstly that many of those thus trained will end up in a different setting to the one they were trained for, and secondly that the model is designed for a static society and ministry setting (what you learn when you're 25 will serve you well at 65). Spreading learning and training throughout ministry makes more sense, as it can be better tailored, and more responsive to context.

c) Something Else #2  About 100 clergy per year leave the role before retirement, and we have no idea where they go or what they do. In other words, for every 3 people ordained, one will drop out. We may have to revise that 9,000 figure down a bit. If the attrition rate remains the same, there'll be 150 clergy per year dropping out if the ordination targets are hit. Some of these clergy are dropping out for health reasons, others for stress, others because (often stress is a factor) they've done something that makes remaining a vicar untenable. There's evidence that we could support clergy much better than we do, and my own experience is consistent with that. On more than one occasion I haven't been very far from becoming a clergy casualty, and each time stress and lack of support have been key factors. This resignation statement is from a US church leader, but would probably find an echo amongst many CofE clergy.

d) We owe it to the future clergy we are praying for to look at what they are being called to do. There are attempts to simplify what the CofE does, but a do-able job description, realistic expectations from parishes, and greater sharing of ministry between lay and ordained are all vital. George Herbert may be long dead but his ghost still stalks the vestry of a thousand parishes, whispering of home communions and Morning and Evening Prayer, heard in echo every time someone complains 'the vicar hasn't visited'. I was stunned to hear the Herbert model advocated by a CofE college principal not that long ago.

e) Digging still deeper, what about 'ministry' itself? The CofE claims to follow the historic pattern of 'Bishops, Priests and Deacons'. Sure, and I use the Book of Common Prayer every day. The role of CofE bishop is a long way away from the bishop/overseers of the New Testament, who were in team leadership of local churches. Deacons, with a handful of exceptions, are a holding bay for apprentice priests, it's what you are for 12 months after initial ordination. We still have only 1 full-blown licensed lay ministry (lay Reader), despite having lay gifts in evangelism, pastoral care, discipleship, healing, preaching, worship leading, organisational leadership, children/youth/womens/mens/older persons ministry etc. And by restricting leadership at communion to priests, promoting communion itself as the be all and end all of worship, and amalgamating parishes, we have created a situation where every Sunday hundreds of vicars are driving from church to church to wave wafers at small groups of people, whilst never having the time to have a proper conversation with any of them.

There has to be a better way, and there has to be a better theology - of church leadership, of worship, of the church as the body of Christ and people of God.

f) Before we invest a lot of money finding, vetting, training and deploying new ordinands, we need to invest some energy in looking at the system we are putting then into. How much investment is needed to support 1 vicar in post, to keep them from that one mistake which will potentially destroy them, their family and their congregation, compared to the investment needed to train up their replacement? Not so long ago, some parishioners of a clergyman I know wrote a letter to his Archdeacon, complaining about something trivial. Because they'd had it in writing, the Archdeacon told this faithful vicar that the Diocese couldn't offer him support, as they were now involved in a complaints process. I'm sorry but that's disgraceful. We must do better.

I'm delighted that at last the CofE has woken up to the facts, and is doing something, I'm glad that before anything else we're being encouraged to pray. I hope that we let the dominoes keep falling - becoming a mission-shaped church will change our thinking about church, ministry, training, priesthood, and a whole host of other things. Historically, our thinking about church life hasn't been shaped by mission, so it shouldn't be a surprise if we have to rethink pretty much everything. Bring it on.

*5 years ago this phrase would have been a cartoon caption. I still have to pinch myself that it's a reality, after years of wittering on about the fact we don't have one. 

Vicars of the Future: Finding More, Keeping More

Update: more thoughts on new vicars here

In 2012 I wrote this piece about the future of the Church of England, especially its clergy. It remains the most viewed and commented article on this blog. I wrote: The stats project clergy numbers forward to 2016. I would suggest that someone needs to go further than that.

Well, if you wait long enough….. As part of the Renewal and Reform initiative, the CofE has now published stats on clergy numbers, projecting forward to 2035. It makes the case for the national CofE target of increasing the number of ordinands by 50% year on year.

The Stats: a few highlights

1. There are currently 20440 Anglican clergy. Of those, 7730 are paid and in parish ministry, 6500 are retired but still active. 3300 are ‘self-supporting’, i.e. ordained but not paid by the church. What caught my eye is that 2670 are either chaplains or in ‘other’ posts (Christian agencies, tutors, non-parish appointments).
2.  Of the 7730 stipendiary (i.e. paid) parish clergy, 75% are ‘incumbent status’ – i.e. running a parish church or in local church leadership. That’s 5800 of us (I’m one!)
3.  On average, 285-90 are ordained to stipendiary ministry, and 260 retire from it. So you’d think clergy numbers would be going up, but…..
4.  Another 300 people a year leave stipendiary ministry – half to other clergy roles (and half this number also rejoin parish ministry from other roles) like chaplaincies, diocesan posts etc. A further 10% take early retirement, 9% go to unspecified roles, and 25-30% each year are ‘unknown’ – i.e. they disappear off the radar completely.
5.  I note in passing that if the 90 a year who leave parish ministry were retained, this would be a equivalent to a rise of 1/3 in ordinations. I don’t share Linda Woodheads agenda for the CofE, but she did a very useful piece of research back in 2014 which showed that 49% of clergy felt the CofE was ‘Bad’ or ‘Quite Bad’ at supporting their skills, gifts and initiatives. I wonder if there is a connection. 
6. The average age of men ordained to stipendiary ministry is 39, that of women is 42. On average they (we) retire at 65. We’ll come back to that later

There are various other stats – on ethnic minority ordinations (rising, but still too low), age profile, gender profile etc. But the thrust of the main document is to set out 4 scenarios for clergy numbers, projecting forward to 2035:

-       Status quo – no change in current figures for joiners, leavers, age profile etc.

-       Retiring later – clergy retirement age rises 1 year (pretty realistic, it would now make much more sense for me to retire at 68 than at 65).

-       Increase of 50% in ordinations from the current average, and the age distribution of females matching that of males (i.e. more younger women), sustained long term.

-       50% increase up to 2023, then a fall back to current levels.

Here’s how those pan out (sorry its a bit blurry, the perils of copying from a pdf):

The worst scenario (status quo) gives us 6300 stipendiary clergy, the best (sustained increase) means we hold steady–ish at 7610. With more people going into training, there’ll be a higher percentage of curates than at present (23% to 14%). 66% will be ‘incumbent status’ – i.e. there’ll be 5022 vicars.

“the scenarios presented address those aspects that seem most likely or can be influenced by policy decisions” says the commentary.

I have a few questions to ask of the data, and of our response to it:

a)    The number of stipendiary ordinations fell from a high of 700 around 1960 to 300-350 in 1970, and has stayed in roughly that range ever since. Why has it taken 45 years to respond to this?

b)    Whilst making the case for a 50% increase in vocations, the papers from the CofE don't say very much about how this can be done. There are 2 strands, one is an overall rise in ordinations, the other is towards more younger female candidates (most of the under-30s are men, most of the over-45s are women). We have the diagnosis but the prescription is still a work in progress. The younger candidates themselves are clustered in Dioceses with higher student populations (London, Ely, Bristol, Sheffield, Oxford)

c)  The average age at stipendiary ordination is 40. These are the ones who will end up running a parish (we have 13000 parishes). If average retirement age stays at 65, that’s an average 25 years per person. So we’ll need to replace 1/25 of the workforce every year just to hold steady. Currently that would mean 309 ordinations a year, which is actually only a 10% rise on what we’re doing.

d)    But: 2670 clergy are currently in chaplaincy or other non-parish appointments. The projections assume no change in that – i.e. we will continue to have to ordain enough people per year to maintain this figure. Based on the 21 year average working life after a curacy, that’s 127 stipendiary ordinations a year to maintain chaplaincies, agencies, dioceses (our diocese currently has 11 clergy on its paid staff). Could we do more to promote lay ministry in posts currently held by clergy – Archdeacons? Chaplains?

e)    And the other issue not addressed is the drop out rate, with nearly 100 people leaving stipendiary ministry each year and either retiring early or leaving paid ministry altogether. I could reel off quite a list of clergy I know who have burnt out, dropped out, stressed out, or (often under pressure) done something which has made their ministry untenable. Compared to, say, recruiting and training an extra 10 people per year, how much does it take to retain 10 people per year? 

which leads me to my final point. I wrote this in 2012 and it still stands:

If the current figures merely flatline ….. each full-time vicar will be looking after an average of 3 church buildings in 2.5 parishes containing 10,000 people between them, with 200 regular (once a month or more) worshippers. They will take an average of 29 baptisms a year, see 5 new people confirmed, take 12 weddings and 34 funerals. Less than half of them will have any kind of informal meeting space, toilet facilities, or kitchen facilities within church premises, which will severely limit their ministry to the community. And they'll each have roughly 1 CofE school, no doubt with a 'tradition' that the vicar is chair of governors. Oh yes, and they'll be encouraged to develop 'fresh expressions of church' as well. 

We need to devise a way of being the CofE that can function with only 5000 full time staff, alongside the small army of volunteers, lay ministers and unpaid clergy. And we need to work out whether the paragraph above is a realistic job description. 

We need to look at both recruitment and retention. And we need to look at what we are recruiting people to. 

I forgot to add church councils to the above description (4-6 meetings pa per parish, plus AGM, and trying to recruit 2 churchwardens, secretary, treasurer, safeguarding officer, H&S officer in each church). How can we make the job less of a burden, whilst providing more support? If half of clergy don’t feel that their diocese appreciates or supports their gifts and skills, then surely we need to look at how we help the current crop of clergy to thrive and survive, as well as  how we add to their number? 

At the moment the system is buttressed by 6500 retired/non-active clergy who, with 'permission to officiate', keep the show on the road. Just as we have a blip of retirements coming up, so we will have a blip when God finally retires his servants and they join the heavenly chorus. By 2035, we won't have as many retired clergy either. And we shouldn't have a system which depends on them in any number, whether it's 6 or 6000. 

Update: One final thought, if the CofE is planning on the 2500+ in non-parish ministry continuing, why are we still training people as if they will all end up as vicars? That is a massive number who are trained for one thing, but end up doing something else. We are either wasting a big chunk of our training budget, or at the very least misdirecting it. 

New CofE short films: quite inspiring actually

A new series of short films from the CofE, on the thinking and vision emerging for the renewal and reform of our national church. "They wanted to know 'if Jesus is real, how can we get to know him?' I used to wonder if it was possible for the CofE to have a coherent, Christ-centred vision for its work, given the diversity and culture of the thing. How exciting to be proved wrong.

Here's the summary of the other films in the series:

A Hopeful Future

The second of our four films themed on the vision and narrative. The Bishop of Burnley is joined by Youth Council representative Alexandra Podd, and Archbishops's Council member Rebecca Salter, in looking to a hopeful future.

A Realistic Assessment
In the third film in our Renewal & Reform vision and narrative series, Programme Director Mike Eastwood, and Area Dean Kate Wharton, look at the challenges facing the Church of England.

A Growing Church
The fourth film in the series exploring the vision and narrative looks at how, in a world crying out for God's love, we can once again become a growing church for all people in all places. With Secretary General William Nye, Church Army's CEO Mark Russell, and the Revd Smitha Prasadam

The Leading of the 5,000 part 2 - vocations and canaries

Every few years the CofE publishes an analysis of the number of vicars, and the latest (covering up to 2015) has just been published.

By some distance, the most-read post on this blog is 'The Leading of the 5000?', based on the previous set of clergy stats. It was an attempt to work out the number of vicars the CofE would have in the long-term:

if every year the CofE ordains 275 people, who work on average for 25 years, then our long-term full time workforce is 6875 full time clergy. Some of those will end up as archdeacons and bishops and cathedral staff (about 360 on current numbers) and others will end up in diocesan jobs, which leaves about 6200. There are currently around 1000 ordained clergy in chaplaincy jobs, in the NHS, armed forces, educational institutions, theological colleges etc. 

Which leaves 5000 of us in parish ministry, some of whom will be in training posts, so not allowed (I nearly said 'not able', but that wouldn't be true) to run a church. 

Has anything changed? The latest stats show a very slight move in the right direction. Average age at ordination is now 42 for women, 37 for men - with 60% of new ordinands being male, that makes an average age of 39. Add on 3 years for a curacy, and you're now looking at 26 years of active ministry for each one who works until retirement.

However, even though clergy can work until retirement, the average age at retirement is 64-65, which probably reflects the scores of clergy who take early retirement. There isn't any mention in these figures of retention rates (or 'collateral damage', as this post terms the loss of clergy to stress, burnout or ministry-wrecking moments partly induced by the nature of the job). If that average retirement figure takes in the number who leave early, then we're looking at an average working life of 23 years.

The numbers ordained each year were, in each of the last 4 years, 266, 288, 286 and 315. We'll know in the next few years if 315 is unusual, or the start of a trend. Here's the impact that might have:

If the CofE is ordaining 266 people a year, who work 23 years each, our long-term f-t workforce is 6118
If the CofE is ordaining 315 people a year, who work 23 years each, our long-term f-t workforce is 7245.

And as I said 3 years ago, from that headline figure you have to subtract bishops, archdeacons, clergy in non-parish jobs etc. Even the higher figure is 500 fewer than we currently have, and Peter Ould notes that some dioceses face a monster recruitment task in the next 5 years with 30%+ of clergy due to retire.

The CofE has a big push on now for ordinations, and ordaining younger people. Good. We also need to put time and thought into the number of clergy who are leaving, or living on the edge of leaving, because of the demands of the role and the inadequacies of their preparation and support. There are too many stories like this:

We were a cohort of men and women, on average in our 30’s, passionate about our faith, hopeful for the future of the church, and committed to lead and serve the church in its worship and mission.  10 years later I happened upon two of that same cohort seriously considering leaving the ministry.

The issue here is the same as the issue in 'The Leading of the 5,000'. We haven't redesigned the way the church works to accommodate the new reality. A system designed for over 10,000 full time priests serving a population of 10 million is not going to work with 5,000 serving a population of 55 million. Those leaving the dog collar behind are the canaries in the coalmine, they have sung, but is anyone listening? 

CofE Deprivation Map of UK, parish by parish

This is very clever, a new interactive map produced by the CofE, which shows the relative deprivation of every parish in the country. This snippet shows Yeovil (the bit with no colour coding to the left of centre is the mysteriously named 'Odcombe Without', which includes Yeovil FC. Committed fans usually feel a high sense of deprivation, but that's another story).

And if you're not CofE, it still gives quite a good idea of how your city/town/area looks. There are various labelling and map display options, including a colour coded dotting system for churches which tells you which are listed Grade 1, unlisted, demolished etc. Click on a specific parish and it gives you the population, and some basic info on age profile, ethnicity, and the percent who said they were 'Christian' at the 2011 census.

This has the potential to be a colossal timewaster for prevaricating clergy, as well as a very useful tool!

Church of England Transfer Window News

A lot of managerial change in the latest transfer window:

(Breaking News: freelance cleric Dean Saunders, formerly of Aston Cathedral, has called for spectators to be allowed into matches for free. Following the lead of other historic grounds, the Dean argues that, despite the costs of maintaining the premises and paying team salaries, clubs should rely on the generosity of visitors to meet running costs.)

Rt. Rev Guardiola, a pioneer leader with a great track record, has been made Bishop of Manchester. Once in charge, he'll discover that he can only change the team if players actually ask to leave, and has no control over the formation or playing style. Kit colours can only be changed after consulting with every supporter. Of every club.

Rev. Mourinho is still in post, despite falling out with a churchwarden on the first day of the season, alienating most of the PCC, and a general lack of inspiration at the main gathering each week. A senior and loyal member of the congregation has had his pew removed, and the congregation is tiring of the sermon series on Passive Aggression, which has now been going for 6 years. Bishop Abrahamovic, having personally headhunted Rev. Mourniho from a neighbouring Diocese, is too embarrassed to ask him to leave. The only way to sack a vicar is to go through the cumbersome and costly clergy disciplinary process: thankfully for the Bishop, the churchwarden has initiated proceedings.

Rev Dr Neville, a noted 1990s worship leader and well reputed church growth analyst, has joined the Roman Catholic church. It's early days, but the congregation don't appear to be enjoying the new songs.

Preb Wenger is standing for the 20th time for General Synod. Under his leadership, Emirates Minster has become well known for the quality of its youth choir, the elegant choreography of the worship, and the thoughtful but understated homilies. Older members of the congregation still talk about the mission held in the late 1990s, supported by a team of Dutch evangelists, and wonder if this years generation of interns will ever repeat it.

The Diocese of Leicester has experienced unprecedented church growth this year. However because Bishop Ranieri hadn't seen these kinds of results before, everyone is assuming it is a flash in the pan, and will go away. After all, we've so much experience of failing managers that we know what to do with them, but success is unfamiliar and unsettling. Archdeacon Vardy is being lined up for a role with a national coaching agency.

Church of England Attendance - Downs and Ups

Earlier this week the CofE released its latest set of attendance figures. The general downward trend was picked up by the press, and the official press release marked a welcome departure from the standard positive spin, dealing directly with the fact that membership has fallen 12% in 10 years as part of a longer-term pattern of decline. However it rightly points out that within the overall picture, there are signs of growth, and plenty of good things going on.

Here are the figures by Diocese for the last 5 years

The North-East leads the way: given that I left Durham Diocese in 2006, perhaps Bath and Wells will show the same pattern to 2020 if I hand in my notice now. 9 dioceses are growing, out of 43, and the overall pattern is still a drop of 1% a year. That's a slight improvement on the longer trends, but often what happens is that Dioceses will report better numbers over a short time frame, (Durham saw a big jump 2013-14). 16 Dioceses reported higher adult weekly attendance for the year 2013-14. But longer term these tend not to be sustained. You can see this volatility in the Diocesan charts on p44 onwards in the main report.  Also a concern is the big slowdown in growth in London.

Here's the picture in the 2 decades prior to 2020. 

 perhaps the rate of decline is slowing, but not by much. There are pockets of growth, and there's a welcome focus on the factors which make for a healthy, growing church. It will take time for this to get round, and even longer for it to be adopted. We don't have very long but at least we are now talking about this and addressing it, rather than hoping it will all go away if we do Evensong really well.

Meanwhile the ageing of the church continues to be a big issue. The CofE is failing in a key area where it needs to engage. We are seeing fewer children than ever - the table below is for Sunday attendance, if you include midweek services (which you'd expect to be better, given that adult attendance is moving towards weekdays), the drop is a staggering 29% (in the last 2 years services exclusively for schools have been excluded, which is the main reason for the drop. It takes over 100,000 off the headline figure). On the positive side, this gives the lie to anyone who claims that CofE schools indoctrinate children into the Christian faith. But that's clutching at straws.

Thinking Anglicans links to a few other pieces of commentary and analysis.Crunching the numbers (and every number is a person, but crunching people sounds like the bad giants in the BFG) in our own Diocese, there were 15-20 churches which had shown some sustained and significant growth at some stage in the last 10 years. What came as more of a surprise was that it was mainly the finance department who used the figures. We collect 'statistics for misson' but don't really look at them through mission eyes. The CofE is becoming more socially engaged - food banks, debt advice etc., but we still plough so much time, energy and effort into maintaining the buildings and the system that many small churches are too snowed under to engage well. A few other snippets from the stats: - the church continues to age, with children dropping from 16 to 14% of Sunday attenders. 29% of us are over 70.  - the 'average church' has 69 regulars, 171 people through the doors at Christmas, and carries out 10 funerals, 9 baptisms and 3 marriages a year. But hardly any churches are average - the smallest 5% have 8 members or fewer.   - about 15% of the stats are estimated, because not all the info has been collected from the 16000 churches involved - 84,000 people joined an Anglican church in 2014. 1/3 of these were worshipping for the first time, a further 1/3 had moved from another area. 15% had moved from another church (roughly the same as those who gave this reason for leaving), and 16% had returned to church after not being members for some time.  - there's been some attempt to break down the age profile of the worshipping community. In my own Diocese, over 40% of our members are aged 70+. Blackburn has the highest proportion of children (nearly 30%), London the most under-70s. With death and illness being the main factor in shrinking attendance, it's clear which Dioceses are going to face challenges in the near future. Sorry Lincoln, but it's not going to get any better.  - There's a breakdown of Christmas services - 2 1/4m people came to 'congregation and community' services, a further 2 1/2m to 'civic and school' services. - in general more rural/elderly Dioceses had higher proportions of the local population involved in church: places like Hereford, Gloucester, Bath and Wells and Carlisle. These are also the places where a higher proportion of people have church funerals, baptisms etc. London has the lowest proportion of population having a church wedding, baptism or funeral. - there's some data on relative sizes: the largest 5%  average 41 children and 178 adults involved, the smallest 5% average 8 adults and no children. Not a surprise, but neither is it an encouragement. The Church of England is at last changing, we are starting to learn from each other what makes for a thriving church, and we are starting to listen more to our communities, rather than assume folk will come to church when they work out what's good for them. That's not working for pubs - they are closing at a faster rate than churches - the way we meet and mix as a society is changing. We have to listen to that and adapt to it.