The downward trend in attendance at Church of England services continued in 2018 despite ‘A Church Near You’, the Church’s local church-finder website, receiving more than 38.5 million page views in the last year.
The recently released 2018 Ministry Statistics showed that most key measures of attendance fell by between 10 per cent and 20 per cent from 2008 to 2018.
However, the report explains that the overall pattern of gradual decline in attendance masks differences in experience in individual parishes over the past decade. In 10 per cent of parishes Usual Sunday Attendance has actually increased, while in 40 per cent of parishes attendance has decreased.
In the largest group, 50 per cent of parishes, there is insufficient evidence to form a clear conclusion about the trend.
A digital report for 2019 shows that the Church of England increased Advent and Christmas social media reach by 1.14 million from 2017, to 7.94 million, however Christmas attendance, which includes Christmas Day and Christmas Eve, fell in 2018, having risen steadily since 2013.