Tearfund survey on Christmas church attendance

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https://www.tearfund.org/stories/media/press-releases/more-brits-flock-to-church-this-christmas

Do you know anyone that doesn't regularly go to church but is planning to for Christmas?

A few stats from the poll:

• Among non Christians, more than a third (34%) say they plan to attend a church service or event this year, up from 30% last year.
• Gen Z are the largest generation to say they plan to attend church this Christmas (60%), followed by Millennials (59%), Gen X (36%), Baby boomers (30%) and the silent generation (24%).

Several of our friends have been with us already for carols. Contrarily, we go to church all year round but won't go again now over Christmas.

We had our church carol service last night and the church was full of a mixture of regulars and Christmas- goers. Lovely to see.

Church attendance in the C of E is rising gradually, mainly in the young adult age group.

I wonder how many attend Carol services, vs how many attend Christmas day service? For non regular goers, that is.

Our congregation is usually 80 ish. At our carol service this year we had nearly 400. Christmas Day is likely to be more like 150.

We are just expecting our regulars on Christmas day, but about 3 times our usual congregation for the carol service tonight.

We get lots of people at the Carol services and far fewer at Midnight Mass and Christmas Day. Three services down; seven to go.

So how were numbers? We think we had more at the carol service but as we are at capacity, with people coming and going, it’s hard to judge. It was better advertised than last year. The family service in the smallest village was up from 80 to 135 and Midnight Mass at the town church was up from 90 to 140. These were mostly visitors. Tearfund appear to be have been onto something.

We had 7 people from other churches and 2 non Christians come to our Carol service, plus the regulars. Tbh I'm wondering if it's worth all the effort.

In both our current and previous churches there has been a 6.30 service on Christmas Eve which has been particularly aimed at children and families. For 364 days a year we would need to physically drag people off the street to fill the church; on Christmas Eve we open the doors and families flood in.