A leading church researcher today painted a gloomy picture of church attendance in Britain in the coming decade.
Peter Brierley, former head of Christian Research, told Christians at Pentecost Festival today that all the main denominations, except Pentecostals, would decline in the next 10 years, with the Church of England set to experience the sharpest drop in attendance.
In 2000 there were 3.5 million churchgoers, a number which has fallen to 2.9 million in 2010. He warned that if present trends continue, church attendance in Britain will drop to 2.6 million by 2015 and 2.3 million by 2020.
He painted a harrowing picture of the decline in attendance across English counties in the last 12 years. While in 1998, all but five counties in England had a churchgoing population of at least 6 per cent, today there are only 12 English counties with that figure and there are seven counties with a churchgoing population of less than 4.5 per cent. He predicted that almost all counties would have a churchgoing population of less than 4.5 per cent by 2020.
He said the drop in attendance had come about because there was less evangelism. While in 1990, there were 120,000 conversions and 60,000 deaths, in the last year there were only 80,000 conversions and 120,000 deaths.
He said the most alarming statistics could be found among young people. While 60 per cent of British people are not in the church, that figure rises to around 80 per cent among the under-15s and around 75 per cent among 15 to 29-year-olds.
“The loss of young people is especially serious. In the 2020s, many churchgoers will die out,” he warned.
With 59 per cent of all churches in England having no members between the ages of 15 and 19, Brierley said it was becoming as important for the church to keep young people already in the church as it was to reach new young people outside the church.
He also voiced concern about the number of 30 to 44-year-olds leaving the church, as the number of over 65s in the church continues to increase.
He said some people in the 30-44 age bracket were attending less frequently or dropping out altogether because of the pressures of modern living, which often means taking care of the home, raising children, and having both parents at work to manage the mortgage. The church, he noted was the only optional in the week, and was therefore the easiest to reduce in frequency or opt out of altogether.
