Why did the terraces fill up again, but not the pews?

ANOTHER week, another round of worrying statistics. After last week’s news of the fall in numbers of professing Christians, the C of E statistics for 2021 have fewer worshippers, too. The first thing to say is that no conclusions can be drawn about long-term decline from this week’s figures. The pandemic effect was still all too clearly felt in October 2021, when the year’s attendance figures were gathered. Although Covid restrictions had been completely removed in July of that year, the C of E kept a residual warning going, and in early November again counselled caution in response to rising infection rates. It would be unfair, therefore, to expect church attendance to have bounced back instantly from the disastrous months of anxiety and alienation.

Or would it? The comparison of churchgoing with football has often been made. For many years, attendance at church often scored highly over attendance at matches. The fact that we no longer hear the comparison suggests that the balance has tipped…Perhaps, for too long, too many churches relied on habit and duty. The pandemic blew those away. Now clergy and PCCs need to face the question honestly: why should people want to come to our church?

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