City Festivities Leave No Room for Church Christmas Services

The latest survey of Anglican dioceses found that Christmas service attendances in urban churches in England have experienced a little rise whilst it has almost doubled in rural areas. This has been alarming to church leaders amid the expanding influence of secularisation all over the country and across Europe.

Among all the big cities in England, Manchester recorded the fewest churchgoers while Hereford diocese had the most. Even though the people in Hereford are more likely to attend Christmas Eve or Christmas Day Service, five times as many as Manchester, the proportion is still only one in 10.

Dr David Voas, of the University of Manchester, who was entrusted to conduct the survey reported, "Barely 2% of people in Manchester make it to an Anglican church on Christmas Eve or Day, and practically all those who do go are regular worshippers. It only attracts an extra 19% of visitors over Christmas."

The second worst place is Liverpool, followed by London, Sheffield, Bradford and Birmingham.

"Attendance figures in Hereford are three times more than in London and four times as many as in Birmingham," Dr Voas continued.

Nationally, 2.6 million Church of England worshippers attended a Christmas Eve or Christmas Day service, compared with 1.5 million at Easter and more than a million who attend weekly.

Dr Voas tried to explain the figures, saying that the secular world has so many things that distract the attention of people from the religious side of Christmas.

"Whatever people are doing about God, they don’t do it in church. Urban culture encourages people who are doing their own thing," he said.

Dr Voas also introduced the so-called "Christmas tourists" phenomena. The term describes some people who are not regular churchgoers but like "mixing a little ceremony into their festivities", and that draws them to the Christmas service.

St Mary’s Church in Guildford has even held extra events aimed at attracting "Christmas tourists", such as midday carol services for people shopping and working in the city.

Reverend Robert Cotton from St Mary’s Church, told BBC, "We see a lot of people coming in that we don’t see throughout the rest of the year, but that’s very good."

"It’s far better that people come once a year than they don’t come at all."

Many conservative evangelicals have addressed on their concern on the increasingly secularised way that people celebrate the Christmas. In November, a number of Anglicans urged people to put back religious themes onto Christmas cards.

By citing a verse in Psalm, the Pope, John Paul II also recently reminded Christians about the religious meaning of Christmas - a season to celebrate the birth of a just and devout king who defends the poor and the oppressed.