Clergy numbers up, but laity down

From the weekly "Church Times" of London.

MORE CLERGY are being trained and ordained in the Church of England than for a decade, but the numbers worshipping have con tinued to drop, says the Church Statistics report for the year 2006-07, which was issued this week.

There were also more younger clergy (under 40) being accepted for training. Over three years, their numbers rose from 188 in 2004 to 243 last year. The Church recom mended 595 candidates for training during the year — the greatest number in a decade. In 1994, only 408 candidates were recommended for training.

To support these and other in creasing costs, the average parish ioner gave £5.38 a week to the Church in 2006 (the figure based on the numbers on parish electoral rolls). But parish expenditure grew faster than giving.

In the nine years between 1998 and 2006, recurring expenditure in creased by 49 per cent, but recurring income increased by 45 per cent. Over the same period, the amount the Church spent on capital costs increased by 70 per cent, while its “one-off income” (for instance, from appeals to meet those costs) increased by 66 per cent.

In 2006, PCCs had a total income of £826 million, and expenditure of £792 million — £46 million of which went to other charities and missions.

The report gives a total of 20,355 licensed ministers — clergy, Church Army officers, and Readers — and, in addition, 1568 chaplains, as well as about 7000 retired ministers with permission to officiate.

On the lowest-attended Sunday in October 2006 — the month on which the report’s churchgoing statistics are based —622,000 adults were in church, com pared with 660,000 in church on the lowest-attended Sunday of the four recorded in October 2005.

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