The United Reformed Church of the UK have reported their statistics in the 2024 yearbook. Below is an analysis of those statistics by Martin Camroux. Thanks to Martin for allowing me to share his report on this blog. My apologies for some of the formatting of the tables included, I hope the data is legible.
ANOTHER YEAR IN THE LIFE OF THE UNITED REFORMED CHURCH
Every year since I was ordained in 1975, I have attempted an analysis of URC statistics. This has been always been somewhat problematic in view of discrepancies in the Yearbook, the diverse ways LEPS have declared their membership, and the frailties in my mathematics. This year however it has become a statistical nightmare. On the face of it this has been a quite wonderful year. Membership is up an unheard of 12.9%. In some synods it is even more dramatic. West Midlands is up by 24.5% and Scotland by 33.9%. Unfortunately, this is due to a change in the returns procedures from ecumenical churches rather than a revival in church life. Ecumenical churches have always been uncertain as to what membership to declare. Some have divided their membership equally between the respective denominations, some have had separate membership rolls, and a few have, either out of confusion or principle, have simply declared their whole membership. However, the General Assembly has now decreed that the rule is now that we declare the total membership “as the Methodist Church does”. This being the URC, many churches have ignored the new rule, continuing with whatever their current practice is with a resulting predictable statistical chaos.
Enough churches have applied the new ruling to give the illusory impression that the membership is increasing. If, as one might expect, more churches adopt the new rule in the future, membership can be expected to continue to increase. There is no question that this was done out of theological principle, and I presume care was taken to make sure there were no budgetary or deployment implications but, when the URC needs to face reality, this illusory increase is not helpful. A better way to judge the year would be that the attendance is up around 2%. All denominations are recording similar increases in attendance as people come back after Covid, but it does not imply churches are somehow making a breakthrough. The number of churches is 44 down from last year. When Sheila Maxey wrote in Reform of her local congregation, that ‘it feels as if our church is dying’ that could be said of many congregations.
URC STATISTICS 2024 Last 3 Years
Number of churches 1198 1242 1284 1331
Membership 41,786 36,986 40,024 43,208
% Membership change +12.9% -7.59% -7.36% -3.52%
LEP total 21,582
Regular attenders 11, 869 11,430
Average congregation 36, 627 35,844 41,577 48,594
% Congregation change +2.1% -13.81% -14.4% -2. 87%
-digital congregational 7038 14,391 20,252
Children at worship 3265 3001 3882 13,108
% Children change +8.7% -22% -70% -60%
Stipendiary Ministers 301 316 334 364
% s/m -4.9% -5.38 -8.9% -3.57
Non-Stipendiary ministers 60 60 56 62
Non-Active or non-URC posts 77 97 110 105
CRCW (active URC posts) 15 16 14 15
Retired ministers 835 843 844 857
One of the interesting changes is the dramatic decline in the digital congregational. While a decline might be expected as people go back to Church a 50% decline in a year suggests the dramatic growth of online worship some predicted is not evidenced in the URC.
As ever this year I have looked to see where the largest Churches in the URC are but this year it has become a dubious exercise. For example
URC Membership this year 1993
Livingston United Parish Church 229 58
Paisley Trinity 399 57
St Ninians Stonehouse 336 39
Just to illustrate the confusion Thamesmead shows an increase from 48 to 150 members, but they are not in fact applying the new rule only adopting the old one and returning a 50% figure. Whereas Falkirk, holding to a still older practice, have 24 URC members in a congregation of 410.
It cannot be assumed that in large ecumenical congregations even if people become members of both congregations, they have a real sense of belonging to both. Indeed, there are suggestions that in some cases the URC link is withering. I have, after some hesitation, included a list of the largest churches but have included ecumenical churches only on the basis of 50% of their membership, though I suspect this still overstates the URC’s real strength.
Largest Churches 2024 Last 3 Years 1978
1. Woking 230 231 231 237 –
2. Paisley (U, CS) 199 57
3. Orpington, St J. 179 179 176 183 402
3. Nottingham St A 169 171 173 180 597
Cambridge Downing Pl. 169 166 196 203
5. Stonehouse: St Nin (UCS) 168 39
Nairn 168 161 169 180 219
7. Shrewsbury 160 164 170 188 209
8. Thamesmead (U, CE,M) 150 48
9. Livingston United (U, CS) 149 58
10. Wilmslow 145 145 155 163 294
11. Witham 142 142 153 153
12. Harrogate St Paul’s 140 145 150 158 383
13. Wimbledon 137 150 163 163 457
14. Cardiff: Beulah 135 135 135 141 338
15. Wylde Green 126 126 125 138 254
Congratulations to Wylde Green on entering the top 15 and to Paisley, Stonehouse, Thamesmead and Livington who now qualify under the new ecumenical qualification. Commiserations to Harrow, Sutton Trinity, Reigate and St Andrews Leeds who are omitted to make room for them. In the case of Reigate Park its rapid membership loss would in any case have excluded it. In 2013 it had 303 members and an average congregation of 176 and 124 children in worship. This year it has 120 members, an average congregation of 75 and 56 children in worship.
Synods 2024 Last 3 years
Northern 1674 +1.63% 1647 -5.7% 1735 2035
North Western 3195 +0.5% 3179 -14.74% 3729 3958
Mersey 2406 +16.7% 2060 – 9.96% 2288 2520
Yorkshire 2414 +7.81% 2239 -10.87 2400 2607
East Midlands 2830 +8.1% 2617 -8.53 % 2852 3197
West Midlands 3863 +24.5% 3101 -9.82% 3439 3612
Eastern 3635 + 13.3% 3207 -8.26% 3496 3729
South Western 2761 + 16.3% 2372 -1.9% 2418 2615
Wessex 5172 + 25% 4137 -7.44% 4513 4798
Thames North 4029 +5.8% 3805 -0.62% 3829 4146
Southern 5888 +8.8 5411 -6.99% 5818 6221
Wales 1555 +7.5% 1446 -8.99% 1589 1714
Scotland 2364 + 33.9% 1765 -7.97% 1918 2153
All this needs to be put in a wider context. The process by which British culture is leaving its Christian past is not going to be reversed any time soon. The sociological term for it is secularization. In a poetic phrase Max Weber, one of the founders of social science, called it the “disenchantment of the world” and it finds classic expression in Britain in Bryan Wilson’s Religion in a Secular Society. It is not uncontested, and is open to definition and qualification, but it is fundamental to our religious experience at least in Europe and North America. Today the proportion of the population attending Sunday services in the UK is only around one third of that in the early 1960s. Something similar can now be seen across Europe, including in what is now probably best called post-Catholic Ireland, where 39% of those aged between 16 and 29 say they have no religion. According to RTE the average age of Catholic priests in Ireland is now over 70 – for nuns, it’s over 80. The Methodist Church matches the URC in its rate of decline falling from 174,451 in 2019 to 148,180 in 2022. In Scotland the data suggests the two largest churches, Presbyterian and Catholic, are in deep decline. In 1982 the Church of Scotland had nearly 920,000 members; last year, that stood at 270,300, a decline of 70%. The average age of its congregants is now 62, and only 60,000 worship in person. The Church is currently embarked on a major programme of church closures which could close up to a third of its churches leaving many communities without any visible church presence.
In the Church of England congregations have been declining slowly but steadily for decades. Sunday attendances fell from 1.2 million in 1986 to 690,000 in 2019. Although numbers are now recovering from the post-Covid low it has hit the Churches hard. As the Diocese of Oxford comments, “We suspect that, lying behind the retrenchment we have identified, is the pressure on clergy and other leaders emerging from Covid-19 to an even more demanding situation than before. Personal exhaustion, reduced volunteer energy, the added online dimension, damaged church finances and disrupted church communities can make it hard to rebuild and develop every aspect of church life”. Many in the URC will identify with that.
RENEWAL IS POSSIBLE
None of us can choose the time or the culture in which we live. In his first statement as Archbishop designate Justin Welby felt confidently able to say, “we are at one of those rare points where the tide of events is turning, … I feel a massive sense of privilege at being one of those responsible for the leadership of the church in a time of spiritual hunger.” Such claims are made often and so far, have always proved a triumph of optimism over reality. Today even evangelical and charismatic churches which have until recently been growing are showing signs of decline, with the only really growing churches mostly linked to immigration. Even the Baptist Union has had a 51% reduction in its membership between 1970 and 2020.
But what the statistics do not show is what is possible for congregations of whatever type of theology or size who amid dramatic social change seek an authentic living of the gospel. After a transformational ministry at 4th Presbyterian in Chicago John Buchanan wrote,
Studies of growing congregations, at a time when mainline denominations are declining numerically, consistently discover that the one characteristic that growing congregations share is not theology, ideology, or worship styles, but a sense of mission. Growing congregations are focused on the world outside the walls of their buildings and are intentional about translating the theological affirmations they make inside into acts of compassion, love, and justice outside. When institutional survival absorbs a church’s energy and imagination and resources, it simply ceases to be very interesting or compelling. When a congregation lives out its faith in and for the sake of its Lord, it is difficult to ignore.
Those churches are still there in the URC and in other churches. Today we are living in the midst of a seismic shift that we do not understand but out of which I dare to hope a reinvigorated church may come, though it may be that we cannot yet see what this will be like.
