After COVID: The deepening decline of the Church of Englandd
by David Goodhew, Covenant:
COVID was bad for the Church of England. And new data show just how bad. Overall, the church lost one in five of its Sunday worshippers during COVID. For children at worship, it’s worse.
Canterbury Cathedral makes the CofE appear impressive, but appearances can deceive. The Diocese of Canterbury had 1,600 children in Sunday worship in 2019, before COVID. By 2022 it had 1,000 children in Sunday worship. That’s nearly a 40 percent drop.
Long-term decline coupled with COVID has left much of the church in deep trouble. Yes, there are wonderful pockets of vitality, but their number is shrinking. The new data show that, during COVID, the condition of much of the church has moved from serious to critical.
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The End of Sunday
The latest C of E data are just out, covering 2022. Here are the overall figures for Sunday attendance in the Church of England since 2000.
Usual Sunday Attendance (all ages)
2000 950,000
2010 799,000
2019 680,000
2022 549,000
Sunday attendance has nearly halved since the millennium. A church that had long been declining has seen the decline dramatically speed up during COVID. The latest data, covering 2022, are crucial because they give us a clear sense for the first time what COVID did to the church. The data from 2020 and 2021 were so affected by COVID they cannot easily be used. By 2022 most churches were doing in-person worship, and those who wished to attend could do so. The evidence is that those who had not come back by 2022 were not going to come back in significant numbers.
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