Which is the most significant day of the Christian year? Is it Christmas or Easter? The statistical data on attendance for these two days can tell us what kind of church we are, and what opportunities we have to reach out to our communities.
A recent report ( here ) looked at the attendance patterns in protestant churches in the USA, as reported by their pastors. The three days with the highest attendance were Christmas, Easter and mothers day. Easter was just the leading day with 52% reporting it as the highest attendance. However there was a difference between mainline pastors and evangelical pastors, with 35 % of mainline pastors reporting Christmas as the highest attendance compared to 26% of Evangelicals. Christmas eve was counted separately…. but it was surprising to me at least that mothers day was the clear third place, separate both from above and below. It was also surprising to me that Pentecost didn’t get a mention in the report at all!
Christmas and Easter
The church of England publishes its figures for attendance both at Christmas and Easter.
The figures for both 2019 and 2022 show that Christmas attendance is twice that of Easter.
Easter Christmas
2019 1,176,000 2,327,000
2022 861,000 1,622,000
In Canada the Anglican Church has figures for attendance at Christmas, Easter and Pentecost.
Easter Christmas Pentecost
2019 162,000 218,900 84,000
2022 90,000 116,500 53,000
So the attendance difference in the ACC is much closer then the CofE. However, we also have figure for the various dioceses and these show very significant variations across the country. Some dioceses match the English pattern of Easter attendance being half of Christmas attendance. Seven dioceses have Easter attendance as equal or greater than Christmas attendance. What is particularly interesting is that there are no clear regional patterns. For example the various Newfoundland dioceses have different attendance patterns, and the seven diocese I refer to above are in diverse geographic locations.
Another way of looking at this is to compare the attendance figures with the Average Sunday Attendance (ASA). In 2022 the ACC Christmas attendance was 1.8 times greater than the ASA and the Easter ASA was 1.4 times greater than the ASA. But in some dioceses the Christmas attendance was 4 times the ASA, and in others the Easter attendance was over 2 times the ASA.
So why care about these numbers? They demonstrate two phenomena of the culture of our churches. Firstly they show the extent that regular attendance has dropped. People are no longer coming every week and so ASA does not reflect the full size of the Christian community. Secondly, there used to be a group one might call C.n E. Christians – those who would attend at Christmas and Easter – but those are much less in evidence in both of those attendance figures. My theological supposition is that the size of the Easter attendance might reflect the true size of the Christian community, as I would expect, theologically, that Christians would make an effort to get to church to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. And where we once had CnE Christians, maybe we now have C Christians – those who turn up once a year.
The third Sunday
My assumption has always been that Pentecost is the third most important festival in the church year. It is after all the birthday of the church, and who wants to miss their own birthday party? Well 20% of Canadian Anglicans it would appear – because Pentecost attendance is 80% of ASA. Furthermore, if my assumption above, about Easter attendance being the actual size of the community, is correct then somewhere around 50-60% of Anglicans turn up.
That begs the question of when is the third most popular Sunday. Anecdotally, I’m pretty sure that in Canada it’s not mother’s day . I would guess that Thanksgiving is the most likely candidate. In the UK I’d be sure that Harvest Sunday was a popular choice, more than any other day. Canadian Thanksgiving is exactly the Canadian equivalent of Harvest Sunday.
A Christmas or an Easter Church?
Is your church a Christmas Church or and Easter church. or neither? I would suggest that the changing patterns of attendance do matter – and knowing who is in your congregation on the major festivals does matter. These are matters of the wider culture as well as of the culture of the Church. The churchgoing landscape of Canada varies by province and terretory as well as by rural and urban context. The data I have Knowing who is in church might, maybe should, determine the experience we attempt to provide, the content of the worship, the expectations we have of people’s familiarity or otherwise with what is going on in the service. Is this the Sunday to remind people that their church needs them more than occasionally? Or is it the Sunday to reach out with a message of God’s grace to those who do not usually darken the doors.
Comment on this edition of NumbersMatters
by joining the “Church Statistics” Facebook group,
or by emailing me – nelliot(a)national.anglican.ca
