The Church of England statistics department released its Statistics for Mission report last week, quite a bit earlier than last year, and it is was not good news—though curiously there was almost no comment on it on the airwaves, in contrast to last year. We will be discussing this at the next meeting of the Archbishops’ Council, since in the end this is a major way in which we can assess whether or not policies for evangelism and discipleship are having any effect.
Overall, I think the headline things to note were:
a. that overall attendance continues to decline, and the pace of decline does not yet appeared to have slowed;
b. that, following a six-year trend in increased attendance at festivals, there was for 2018 a sharp decline. It is worth remembering that we have seen one-off anomalies before, and as the report comments, bad weather on a single occasion can affect the figures. What matters more than single statistics is longer-term trends;
c. that, nevertheless, there are dioceses where there appear to be consistent signs of growth and change.
Ian Paul’s full letter to the Editor of the Church Times in response to the misleading previous article on some C of E #evangelicals and the #marriage statement https://t.co/5UwKzW0jt9 #anglican #theology #sex #synod #ethics #religion #uk (picture: Ian Paul) pic.twitter.com/O8DqUnUJRS
— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) July 23, 2019