The Church of England after COVID: quo vadis?
by David Goodhew, Psephizo:
The Church of England is beginning to recognize that the years of COVID had a hugely corrosive effect. The Church lost a fifth of its congregation members in 2019–22; more, if we just count children and families. So, quo vadis, where does the Church go next? Well, there is bad news and good news.
The Bad News
The COVID effect is substantial and long-lasting. Drilling down, there is a further cause of deep concern: vocations to ordained ministry. During the pandemic, the number of people starting training for ordained ministry has fallen dramatically. It is about 40 percent down in 2023 compared to 2019.
For stipendiary ministry, the situation is close to collapse.
Stipendiary Ordinands Starting Training in the C of E
| 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 |
| 370 | 399 | 603 | 417 | 321 | 263 | 229 |
The number starting stipendiary ministry was 417 in 2020, but only 229 in 2023. So, the number starting training for stipendiary ministry fell by nearly half in three years, 2020–23. Non-stipendiary (self-supporting) ordinand numbers have been hit less hard but have still fallen by about a third.
Stipendiaries tend to be younger and non-stipendiaries tend to be markedly older, so these figures mean a further aging of the clergy, who were hardly brimming with youth to start with. This dramatic fall continues. There is little sign of any post-COVID rebound. And the conflict over sexuality is further depressing vocations, so the decline may grow worse in 2024.
The consequences will not be felt immediately, but in five to 10 years the collapse of stipendiary vocations is utterly toxic for local churches. Without a rapid rebound, these figures mean far fewer curates from 2025–26 and far fewer incumbents from 2028 onward. There are going to be some mighty short short-listing meetings in future. To mitigate this stark picture requires action, now, in 2024.
And there are other profoundly serious consequences.
There has been a large drop in those training full time, and the drop in full-timers affects theology. Those who train for ordination part-time do a fantastic balancing act, juggling study with work and family commitments. But far fewer part-time ordinands have the time to learn Greek or Hebrew or dig deep into doctrinal or historical theology. It would be an entertaining, though depressing, exercise to discover how many current ordinands can spell Irenaeus, let alone articulate what he said. The church’s ability to replenish its ordained ministry is in steep decline, but so too is its future clergy’s ability to do theology.
Then there’s geography. The overwhelming majority of stipendiary candidates are training in the golden triangle of Oxford, Cambridge and London. Far fewer stipendiaries train in the Midlands and North of England (where roughly half of the English live). Only 129 out of 592 (just over 20%) stipendiary ordinands were training north of Cambridge in 2022–23. It has long been more difficult to find stipendiary clergy to serve in the north of England; that is likely to grow much worse, since people tend to take up posts in regions nearer to where they trained.
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