A bishop has warned the Church of England must make wholesale change to halt the slide in attendance, or wither away in the 21st century.
Rt Rev Julian Henderson, Bishop of Blackburn, said he feared unless the Church reinvented itself in his own diocese, it would disappear like the region’s textile industry.
The warning from Bishop Henderson follows similar concerns from colleagues around the country that urgent action is needed to prevent dwindling numbers heralding the end of the Church.
Bishop Henderson made the warning as he launched a 12-year-plan to attract younger people to the Church.
Read it all from the Telegraph.
[blockquote] “The Church’s most recent national attendance figures show around 800,000 people go to church each Sunday, down from twice that in the late 1960s.” [/blockquote]
That’s pretty low when one diocese in Australia can manage 60,000 in church on a Sunday. But the more important issue is the 50% decline over 50 years.
[blockquote] “Lord Carey said clergy were gripped by a “feeling of defeatâ€, congregations are worn down by “heaviness†while the public simply greets both with “rolled eyes and a yawn of boredomâ€, he said.” [/blockquote]
Of course they are – that is the wages of the Church of England’s toleration and encouragement of liberalism. There are congregations within CofE that are not like this, and they include the very ones that the hierarchy are trying to marginalise and drive out, by forcing them to accept women bishops and clergy.