Church attendance

[Troubledwords]

How busy is it when you go to Church? Are you someone that goes to a Church that's struggling to get parishioners or is it a busy, struggling to find a seat type?

Morning service probably 10-20 people including vicar but midday family one 50+ with kids and teens on the top during service/Sunday school and very busy cup of tea and biscuits chat after (baptist church). But it's very vibrant church very popular with families and students as well as elders (some attending literary 80+ years since born locally 😁).

Ours has an approx 80 strong congregation of regulars.
We have a problem atm though. Told to do a ‘something different’ service once a month tk attract young people in. It has done nothing except upset the current members, not attracted anyone new, the vicar isn’t keen anyway…it’s really quite sad. We are such a lovely traditional community. They would have been fine with it if it were an ‘extra’ service, just not an ‘instead of’ which has ostracized the current people.

We have about 300 on a Sunday. Not everyone comes every week but most do. Our teen group is huge, although younger ages are declining. We meet in a Secondary school and we are full so may need to split up soon into different groups. We just have one service on a Sunday at 11 and once a month we meet in small groups in houses. We also have the small groups a couple of times a month on a Wed or Fri evening.

We have probably 120 on a Sunday morning main service, 35 on Weds morning. Not sure about other services.

The last ( small village) church I went to was lucky to get 12 on Sunday, and that included the vicar and choir.

At the minute we have about 90-100 adults on average each week, and then anywhere between 30-40 kids as well. We’re currently meeting in a school while our building is getting some work done and some of the less regular attenders haven’t made it to our new location yet. In our normal location we would have had about 110-120 adults and about 40-60 kids.

Despite the slight drop in numbers since our move, our church is growing, and is a vibrant community which is engaged both with the local area and with organisations around the world.

I go to the same church I did as a child - probably no more than 30 in the congregation and at 60is I'm on of the youngest. Members die and are not replaced so they're closing all the smaller church of Scotland churches by 2027 and moving us all to the biggest on in the town.

About 250-300 at the Mass I most often go to, and about 200 at the one directly following it. There's another 4 Masses over the day which are smaller so it's around 850 people per Sunday. It's a very big church though, no problem fitting them in.

Town parish church, about 220 on sundays, more on remembrance and Xmas. Evening service is more like 50.
Our town is 20k people with 13 churches. Almost everyone I meet goes to one or another. Families tend to head to the evangelical fellowship more than our parish church sadly.

Same sort of numbers over the weekend as the one I go to. I go to the late Mass (5:30pm) and I'd say its 150-200 each week at it.

Can I ask how you attracted the teens? Our rural village church has a regular 35 or so, but virtually all well over 60. We desperately need to engage with a wider age group but no success so far.

I'm pretty definite on how many we've got, because I had to do the annual Mass count all last month. 😁

Half a dozen! Very very rural though.

I go to two. Local village church that get 10 iberb70’s and one other family on a good week.

Local vineyard church with 150 every week.

Most recent church I was part of was a house church- regulars were 3 couples, 3 adult singles, 4 children & assorted visitors. I’ve since moved house too far to travel and am looking for a new church home nearer to where I now live.

@Cantalever our church has a Friday night youth group with food and silly games which encourages them in and then a more lively Sunday evening service which is a bit shorter and easier for them to get into. About half of the teens are from families already in the church though and they tend to bring their friends as it's something to do on a Friday.
So encouraging families with young kids and then keeping them is one way to do it.

I live in a town where there is a church on every street corner practically - within a 15min walk of my front door I could get to at least 15 churches - all with vibrant congregations - if I doubled that to a 30min walk I’d almost double the number of churches I could get to. The youth groups in our town on a Friday and Sunday night are buzzing - biggest one on a Sunday at the minute has about 100 each week, biggest one on a Friday has about 150. Then there are loads of smaller ones with anywhere from 15-70 every week. Part of it is definitely cultural here - whether families are church-goers or not, it’s very normal for young people to church youth groups. It tends to go in cycles as to which one is the biggest - when I was a teen it was one of the Presbyterian churches and one of the church of Ireland churches. For a while there in the last few years, one of the Baptist churches was the biggest - now it’s the church of Ireland again, while the Presbyterian is struggling. The Elim is also massive at the minute. The teens here often go en masse, so once you get a small group who decide to go somewhere, it ends up attracting others by word of mouth and suddenly there are 30 new people!

The different churches all have a slightly different vibe - one Baptist church is small and chill, another is chaotic crowd control - one Presbyterian is big and quite chaotic (and quite cliquey), another is small, very relational and very tight knit group. The church of Ireland which is big is working well because they offer the big and chaotic for those who want it, but also the small an relational for those who want that. Interestingly they are probably the ones who are going deepest into scripture in the town at the minute - really inspiring a whole group of teens to be total Bible-nerds. There is such a hunger after God in that group at the minute and it’s incredible to be on the sidelines watching that.

Extremely encouraging to hear this report of church and particularly teens in your town. Something special happening there, it seems. God is moving 🙌🏻

For sure - there have been many words of prophecy locally that revival is coming through our young people and we are seeing it happening in real time. These young people are such an inspiration - they are so hungry for God and so open in their passion for Him. School and University Christian Union groups are big and the growth is 100% coming from the young people inviting their friends themselves rather than anything the youth leaders/teachers are doing. I know several of the youth leaders in the town and teachers in local schools who all share my view that it is just such a privilege and joy to get to watch what’s going on.

I go to a large modern church and there are 2x services circa 900 per service. Lots of young people. It’s part of the hillsong family so not for everyone but I love it! 😻

Wow.
That reminds me of the start of the 1859 Ulster Revival - just four young men, but God used them. And in the 1949-53 revival on the Isle of Lewis, again the Lord greatly blessed the youth of the island.
🔥🙏🏻

Three Sunday services, since Covid have gone to the earliest one, about 60-70 people most Sundays. Used to be about 200 at the other morning one.

We have about 250 on a Sunday and 50 on a Wednesday.

Sadly, only around 5 to 10 people attend services now. When I came to this village (in 2011,) there was a vibrant and engaging young-ish male Reverend - in his early 40s. People loved him! 400 people in my village, and some 70-80 people used to attend Church regularly. Including me.

Around 30 children went quite regularly - and there would be 3 or 4 childrens groups, and a choir that had 25 people in it ... We always sang lively songs too. And played games and had quizzes. (Mostly related to Jesus/Christianity.)

Sadly he (Reverend David,) left in 2019 (after 10 years there,) to move nearer to where his daughter had moved to with her husband and children, and we had a new Reverend. Many people were really upset that Reverend David was leaving as he was hugely liked ... (He'd been there for 10 years and left when he was 49around 50.) Some people went to the Church much less after he left, and a few stopped altogether.

This also pretty much coincided with Covid (where no-one was allowed to do anything of course!) and by the time things were (sort of) back to normal-ish, and we were all allowed to 'move freely' again, most people just weren't bothered. Because unfortunately, the new older female Reverend who came (she was in her mid 50s,) was quite dull, and not remotely engaging. No upbeat songs or hymns, no fun and games, no laughs. Just very serious.

So sadly, our village Church has kind of died a death, and it wouldn't surprise me if they shut the Church down. I don't know if that ever happens. I go now and again, but whilst I have my faith/belief in God/Jesus/The Holy Spirit, I'm afraid to say I find Church terribly boring now. And I CBA to find another Church. I live very rurally, and the closest Church to me apart from the one in my village is 7-8 miles away. Not far, but far enough to not want to be bothered to do a 45 minute round-trip in the car on a Sunday.

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Interesting question. I was attending a busy church with a congregation of around 150, lots of children, standing room only whenever there was a baptism or thanksgiving during the main Sunday service. I stopped attending around a year ago as I was uncomfortable with some of the discussions around Living in Love and Faith. Trouble is, I've been hunting for a new church ever since and the only churches round me seem to have teeny tiny congregations (10-20 if you're lucky), apart from the evangelical alliance ones. A big part of feeling close to God for me is through music and community (as I don't have many Christian friends/family members) and I'm really missing that.

I totally understand your desire for community @christianmumof2. we have never not been in a church, but have been in churches where we didn't ever feel
like we belonged and where we didn’t have real community and that was really, really hard. It’s also really hard to have the energy to find a new church and to be prepared to make yourself vulnerable to finding a new community. We have been a part of 8 different churches over the last 25 years due to moving house/city/country a fair few times, as well as leaving a couple of churches because we just couldn’t stay, and it’s exhausting to start again each time.

i’m curious as to the struggles with the conversations around ‘living in love and faith’ - is that a specific CoE doctrine/ethos/ministry, or just something your church was talking about?

would any of the evangelical alliance churches work for you - even if you had to compromise on areas of theology/orthodoxy/orthopraxy in order to find community?