It was in April 2008 and the months following that I last reported on church attendance. Now that 98% of the Statistics for Mission forms from parishes for 2009 are in, it is possible to give an update.
The weekly numbers are collected for October so the pattern of Harvest services, other national events, and adverse weather such as gales can affect things. Where parishes fail to complete the forms estimates are made.
One indicator of membership is the size of Electoral Rolls in the years when they are renewed. This table from Church Statistics gives some of those years. Normally there is a six-year gap between renewal dates but, exceptionally, in 2007, this was five years.
| Year | 1960 | 1978 | 1990 | 1996 | 2002 | 2007 |
| Roll | 98,600 | 54,500 | 51,100 | 50,800 | 48,600 | 45,300 |
Clearly the decline in the 60s and 70s has slowed but remains significant. On renewal there is always a sizeable reduction on the previous year: for example, between 2001 and 2002 the numbers reduced by around 7,000, and between 2006 and 2007 by around 5,500. Since 2007 electoral rolls have increased by around 2,000, which is normal, so we can expect the official total for 2009 to be about 47,000, including the Cathedral
For quite some time the church has collected details of the estimated adult attendance on a normal Sunday. Whilst a normal Sunday can be difficult to define, this graph shows the most recent trends after smoothing out all the bumps, and including the Cathedral.
It is clear that by this measure the decline has slowed a great deal. Over the last five years the average reduction is just 0.7%pa.
The returns for 2009 continue to show the pattern first reported in May 2008; that the first Sunday in the month has the highest overall attendance at 31,480 and the 4th Sunday the lowest at 28,120. The corresponding normal Sunday attendance is reported as 26,990. These figures exclude the Cathedral.
It is generally recognised that church members attend less regularly than in times past and the latest estimate is that we have 38,860 members who attend at least once each month. As might be expected this is a number somewhat more than normal Sunday attendance but less than the total of names appearing on electoral rolls.
Canon Don Cardy
2nd Aug 2010