The biannual meeting of the Governing Body of the Church in Wales took place at Lampeter on 22-23 September. One of the items on the agenda was the report on membership and finances for 2008 and 2009, based on the annual parochial returns. This can be found at:
http://www.churchinwales.org.uk/publications/downloads/sharedassets/membershipfinance/0809-en.pdf
This document has been compared with the equivalent report for 2004 and 2005 so as to get some idea of the principal changes in membership indicators during the past quinquennium (while obviously ignoring year-by-year fluctuations). The results are tabulated below:
|
2004 |
2009 | % change | |
| Over 18 average attendance – Sundays |
41,771 |
36,836 |
– 11.8 |
| Over 18 average attendance – weekdays |
6,030 |
5,416 |
– 10.2 |
| Under 18 average attendance |
7,746 |
5,467 |
– 29.4 |
| Easter communicants |
74,779 |
65,251 |
– 12.7 |
| Pentecost communicants |
41,582 |
35,605 |
– 14.4 |
| Christmas communicants |
72,521 |
59,656 |
– 17.7 |
| Trinity III communicants |
37,913 |
34,589 |
– 8.8 |
| Electoral roll |
72,303 |
58,106 |
– 19.6 |
| Baptisms |
8,595 |
8,076 |
– 6.0 |
| Confirmations |
2,099 |
1,697 |
– 19.2 |
| Weddings |
4,052 |
3,479 |
– 14.1 |
| Funerals |
11,129 |
7,705 |
– 30.8 |
It will be seen that all indicators are declining, and some at a fairly steep rate. This seems set to continue (for instance, Easter communicants in 2010 were down again, at 63,515).
Only a couple of mitigating factors can be cited in 2009: Christmas communicants were affected by adverse weather conditions, necessitating the cancellation of some services; and there was a five-yearly revision of the electoral roll, which typically clears out ‘dead wood’.
In presenting the report to the Governing Body, Richard Jones and Tracey White worried that ‘The Church seems to be dropping out of the few significant occasions in people’s lives. Are we being pushed to the margins of society?’ At the same time, they wondered whether alternative counting measures needed to be deployed, especially of youth groups, ‘Messy Church’ and school involvement.
It was not just bad news on the membership front. The Church in Wales finances were also under pressure, according to the report for 2008 and 2009. For the first time since the annual return was introduced in 1990, the level of total direct giving actually fell in cash terms. Partly as a result, parish expenditure exceeded income by £1.4 million, the first parochial-level deficit since 1993.
Overall, including the funds managed by Diocesan Boards and the Representative Body, the Church moved from a surplus of £3.8 million in 2008 to a deficit of £0.7 million in 2009 (with an income of £54.4 million and expenditure of £55.1 million). This was hardly unexpected, given the recession. More information about the Church’s finances can be found in the annual report and accounts for 2009, available at:
http://www.churchinwales.org.uk/structure/repbody/ciwannualreport2009english.pdf
A useful academic study of the Church in Wales during the 1990s, based on extensive original research, is Chris Harris and Richard Startup, The Church in Wales: The Sociology of a Traditional Institution (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1999).
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