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Marginally later than in some previous years, the full details of the annual returns on attendance for the Church of England has been published (‘Statistics for Mission’). This is in two parts, both linked here: a report, giving the main statistics and trends, helpfully illustrated with graphs; and the detailed breakdown by diocese in a … Continue Reading
Last Friday, the statistics unit of the Church of England released an ‘early snapshot’ of attendance figures, based on the returns from the count that happens in churches in October last year. The headline looked promising: Attendance at Church of England churches grew for the fourth year in a row last year, preliminary figures show. … Continue Reading
On Monday there was a (comparatively) early release of the 2023 Statistics for Mission, the results of the annual October collection of attendance numbers in Church of England churches. The headline was all about the good news! Weekly Church attendance up five per cent in third year of consecutive growth Average weekly attendance at Church … Continue Reading
At around this time each year, the Church of England statistics team release the data on what has been happening with attendance and services in the Church of England, based on the returns from churches from the previous year. This information is very useful, though also needs to be handled with care. On the one … Continue Reading
Last month, behavioural scientist Paul Dolan from the London School of Economics claimed that unmarried women were notably happier than married women, suggesting that, if women wanted to live the most fulfilled life, they should stay both single and childless. We may have suspected it already, but now the science backs it up: unmarried and … Continue Reading
The Church of England has just released two related reports on numbers in ordained ministry. These are not related to annual ministry figures; the last figures (from 2015) were released in June, and caught the headlines for a number of reasons. These reports are related more to the aims of the Renewal and Reform process, … Continue Reading
Today the Ministry Statistics for 2015 are released (soon to be posted on the C of E stats web page) and they tell us the stark reality of decline in clergy numbers. On Radio 4 this morning, Rose Hudson-Wilkins suggested that this wasn’t too worrying, since we can dispense with the model of the ‘white, … Continue Reading
Ian Paul: theologian, author, speaker, academic consultant. Associate Senior Research Fellow, Kirby Laing Centre for Public Theology; Associate Minister, St Nic's, Nottingham; Managing Editor, Grove Books; member of General Synod and Archbishops' Council. Mac user; chocoholic. Tweets at @psephizo
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