THE “huge variation” in attendance trajectories between churches and dioceses suggests that growth is “hampered more by constraints on the supply of church than by falling demand”, a new report on the Northern Province concludes.
New in the North: New worshipping communities in the Northern Province 2023, by the Ven. Bob Jackson and Dr Bev Botting, draws on Statistics for Mission [SfM] 2023. While highlighting marked growth in average weekly attendance (AWA) in some churches, and the launch of hundreds of new worshipping communities (NWCs), it highlights high vacancy rates — as much as one in five churches in some places; the high attrition rate for Fresh Expressions; and the demands of increasing the frequency of gathering as constraints on the Province’s ambitious vision for growth.
Across the Province, average weekly attendance (AWA) grew by three per cent between 2022 and 2023. On average, on-site attendance was 80 per cent of what it was in 2019, rising to 90 per cent among those with an online offering.
Factors associated with decline since 2019 were: holding fewer services; not offering online worship; not meeting every week; and being in vacancy (i.e. between incumbents). The converse was associated with growth, as was the starting of a new worshipping community. Between 2022 and 2023, AWA rose by 21 per cent in churches that increased their number of services; 13 per cent in churches reporting a new worshipping community; 13 per cent in resource churches; six per cent in churches still offering an online service; and 13 per cent in small churches meeting every week.
The report echoes the findings of an earlier study by the same authors, which suggested that there was a “strong correlation” between reduced provision and reduced attendance (News, 6 April 2023). In the Northern Province, only 81 per cent of the number of services provided in 2019 were offered in 2023, while only 30 per cent of churches reported an an online offering.
While average weekly attendance in 2023 went down by 14 per cent in churches that held fewer services than in 2022, it rose by 21 per cent in churches that increased the number of services. A total of 261 small churches in the province with a service less than once a week saw their AWA fall by five per cent between 2022 and 2023. But in a similar group of 241 small churches of roughly the same size, meeting every week, AWA rose by 13 per cent.
“In the present spiritual climate, where provision is made, people will come,” the authors argue. “There may never have been a time in recent decades when people have been more responsive to what church has to offer when it is offered.”
Noting high vacancy rates — one church in five, in some dioceses — rising vacancy lengths, and data indicating that AWA at churches in vacancy in October 2023 was on average 14 per cent lower than in 2022 (Features, 23 October), the authors conclude: “Underlying the limitations on the restoration of church services to 2019 levels is the issue of leadership.”
They recommend that “investing in the leadership of lay people may help to address restrictions on the supply of church”, pointing to models including “establishing local ‘oversight’ and ‘focal’ minister roles or ways of developing lay leadership alongside clergy”. Lay people “may well deliver the bulk of the new communities in a mixed ecology church”.
The researchers were specifically commissioned by the Archbishop of York’s office to explore NWCs. The national Vision and Strategy includes a goal of 10,000 NWCs by 2030. Under the Archbishop of York’s Faith in the North programme, there is a goal of 3000 in the Northern Province. Data collected in the report were used to support a successful funding bid to the Strategic Mission and Ministry Investment Board for a £2.2-million five-year “northern enabling strategy” to help northern dioceses to launch up to 600 “additional new worshipping communities” (News, 9 December).
Among the 2616 churches in the Northern Province analysed in the New in the North sample, 388 NWCs were reported in SfM, started by churches of every size. About one third were aimed primarily at children, families, or young people
The authors define an NWC as a new congregation or gathering that “has as its purpose the worship of Jesus Christ and helping people grow in their faith. Its practices will include two or more of: prayer, scripture, praise, sacrament, and acts of service.” Each NWC “aims to reach people who were not previously attending church regularly and to make new Christian disciples”. They must meet at least once a month, and be connected with the wider Church through the parish church, deanery, or diocese. They include Fresh Expressions.
Average weekly attendance at churches starting an NWC went up by 13 per cent, compared with an average for all churches of about three per cent. The researchers acknowledge that “it is possible that this difference is too great to be fully explained directly by attendance at the NWC itself.” They write: “Many NWCs have made little or no impression on AWA figures in 2023. Much of the explanation could be a common cause — that churches with vision and energy are able both to grow their existing congregations and to start something new.”
They also acknowledge that, “as well as churches not having the resources or desire to re-start everything after lockdown, some services may have been withdrawn through lack of demand.”
Resource churches (defined as having “a specific ministry of resourcing, grafting into and planting other churches through sending teams of people”) are described as “a major aspect of overall growth”. Across the 55 resource churches for which data were provided, AWA went up by 11 per cent in 2023 (making up 29 per cent of total growth in this category across the province), while child AWA went up by 19 per cent (42 per cent of the growth in the province).
The report notes that many of the NWCs reported were also listed in SfM as Fresh Expressions, but that nearly as many churches ceased to have a Fresh Expression in 2023 as those starting one for the first time. One quarter (24 per cent) of the 656 Fresh Expressions reported in 2022 were no longer reported in 2023. “Compared with traditional congregations, this is a very high attrition rate,” the researchers write. “If that were to continue in future years, it is hard to see how Fresh Expressions as a whole can drive church growth, even if the start-up rate is also high.”
Only 30 per cent of the regularly meeting Fresh Expressions meet every week. “It is is hard to grow Christian community, create relational glue and develop disciples at this meeting frequency,” the authors write. “Putting on a good Fresh Expression tends to be demanding and time consuming.” They suggest that weekly NWCs “could benefit from models that are less preparation-intensive and less team-intensive on at least some of the weeks”, including “flexible online content”.
Despite a goal for a variety of venues, the majority (78 per cent) of Fresh Expressions meet on church premises. In 2023, 15 per cent of the province’s overall increase in adult AWA and 33 per cent of the increase in child AWA came from Fresh Expressions.
The national Vision and Strategy includes a goal to double the number of children and young people by 2030. New in the North suggests that NWCs can play a part in this, but comments that the goal is “so ambitious that it requires rapid growth in child numbers in traditional churches plus even greater growth through new child-friendly communities”.
The report records that churches in the Northern Province are not smaller than their southern counterparts, “but are more thinly spread among the population, and have been closing and shrinking at a faster rate”. In the Province of Canterbury, 2.15 per cent of the population are in a worshipping community; in the Province of York, the number is 1.52 per cent. The fall in AWA between 2014 and 2019 was 11 per cent in Canterbury, and 16 per cent in York.
The researchers report that small churches have recovered better than large ones since 2019. In one diocese, the 2023 AWA of churches with AWA of 100 in 2019 fell by 26 per cent, while it rose by 13 per cent for those with AWA under 40.
