Churches empty as faithful flock to online worship
MORE people now follow the Church of England on social media than bother to actually visit a church, the latest count of congregations has revealed.
Church leaders said they had 1.2 million followers who pray online through Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. But only 1.1 million people go to a church to pray in the course of a typical month.
The Church’s traditional method of measuring its faithful, a figure called Usual Sunday Attendance which counts those in the pews on a Sunday, has fallen to a new record low of fewer than three quarters of a million.
The 740 000 level of Usual Sunday Attendance was less than half the number of regular churchgoers 50 years ago –a figure below estimated attendance in Roman Catholic churches and almost certainly lower than the number of Muslims who attend mosques in England on Fridays.
The decline means a typical middle-sized church among the CofE’s 10 000 places of worship had a “worshipping community” – the number of people visiting at least once a month – of just 44 last year.
Church of England leaders think their congregations have dropped by 10% to 15% over the past decade. Marriages celebrated in its churches were down by more than a fifth from 2006 to 2016 as couples chose civil weddings in stately homes or other “approved premises”. Funeral numbers have fallen faster, by more than a quarter, as families opt increasingly for non-religious ceremonies conducted by freelance celebrants rather than clergy.
The British Social Attitudes survey last month found fewer than half the population now consider themselves followers of any organised religion and only 15% of people now say they are CofE. But on social media the Church reaches 1.2 million on social media while 1.5 million see its websites.
William Nye, secretary general of the General Synod, the Church’s parliament, said the figures were “a sobering reminder of the challenge we face.” – Daily Mail