New report reveals rise in church attendance
A new report shows that Easter Day churchgoing in the Diocese of Oxford has recovered to 73% of pre-pandemic levels.During the Covid-19 pandemic, many churches found themselves closed for long periods of time and the need to adapt the usual in person worship service offering. Once churches were able to reopen, they still needed to observe Covid-19 guidelines until February 2022, this meant church attendance looked different from pre-pandemic numbers. The world of church attendance changed considerably during the pandemic, with churches finding new and creative ways to facilitate 'Church at Home'. Although many churches continued to use printed materials plus email and phone services to reach people in their homes, most started to offer online services. Many of these began with clergy using mobile phones and laptops in their vicarages and live-streaming worship and prayers to Facebook and Zoom. Churches in the four dioceses of Canterbury, Lichfield, Oxford, and Rochester were invited to register their Easter Day attendance figures online immediately after Easter to give an early indication of attendance patterns and trends compared with 2019. Andrew Anderson-Gear, Director of Mission and Ministry in the Diocese of Oxford, said:
ENDS Notes to Editors For media enquiries and interview requests, please contact Madeleine Hayden / 07880 716 761 The Diocese of Oxford report can be accessed via the Easter attendance page of the website and the four-diocese report is available here. About the Diocese of Oxford The Diocese of Oxford is the Church of England in the Thames Valley region of Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire. There are 808 churches in 626 parishes, the largest number of churches of any diocese in the Church of England. The diocese is also home to almost schools and academies educating some 60,000 pupils. |