Easter Church Attendance 2019 & 2022: Signs of hope

Shortly after Easter week of 2022, churches in four dioceses (Canterbury, Lichfield, Oxford and Rochester) were invited by CPAS to register their Easter Day attendance figures, to help give an early indication of attendance patterns and trends compared with 2019.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, many churches found themselves closed for long periods of time, and when they were able to reopen, they needed to observe Covid-19 guidelines up until February 2022.

The world of church attendance changed considerably over this period, with churches finding new and creative ways to facilitate ‘Church at Home’. Although some churches used printed materials, emails and phones, most offered some form of online service. Many of these began with clergy using mobile phones and laptops in their vicarages to livestream worship and prayers to Facebook. By Easter 2022, however, the dominant format was livestreaming of onsite services via YouTube.

Researchers found that:

• Offering a ‘Church at Home’ digital option on Sunday doesn’t reduce the number of people ‘in the room’, but reaches people who may never arrive in the room. In fact, it’s good for growth.
• Having an online ‘Church at Home’ option added an estimated 36% to the attendance of those churches that offered it. Just as online shopping, working, socialising and entertainment are retaining a significant permanent proportion of their lockdown gains, so it seems is online church. Churches that do this well are likely to be better placed for future growth. 
• Smaller churches, with a regular congregation of under 25, recovered their Easter attendance numbers more quickly than larger churches. Smaller churches are well placed for growth – averaging Easter attendance of 118% of what they had in 2019. Size doesn’t hold you back from growing. 

This is just one Sunday in the year, and the national picture is still to be fully understood, but this research piece from CPAS could be an encouragement to many churches as they continue to assess their recovery from the pandemic and lockdown ministries. 

You can read the full report below, and find more on the CPAS site.