A comparison with 2023 and 2019 for church attendance in October and at Christmas - an update from March 2025
This report updates the earlier report on October 2024 attendance, and now includes all returns made when the online parish return system closed to the dioceses. It also includes an analysis of attendance at Christmas 2024.
Overall attendance
Whilst attendance in October 2024 has not continued the large percentage increases seen in the years since the pandemic, attendance as measured by the Average Weekly Attendance (AWA) saw a small increase of 2.7% between October 2023 and October 2024 overall in the Diocese of Oxford. This suggests that while we are now at the end of what we have called ‘recovery’ after the pandemic there is hope that it is possible to continue to grow our church through new initiatives and learning from one another.
The small increase in attendance of 2.7% between October 2023 and October 2024, was also reflected in a separate analysis comparing 2024 October attendance figures with those for 2019; this showed attendance in 2024 at 86% of the 2019 level, compared with 84% in 2023.
If the pre-pandemic trends in attendance (from 2014 to 2019) had continued, our estimates show that in 2024 Adult AWA was 0.9% above the projected pre-pandemic trend.
Children and young people
Child AWA exceeded the projected trend figure in 2023 and in 2024 was 19.5% above the projected trend. This large increase, however, is mainly due to the trend in child attendance decreasing prior to 2019 at a much faster rate than for adults.
The increase between 2023 and 2024 was higher for children at 3.4% than for adults at 2.6%. Nevertheless, this follows a few years when recovery was greater for adults than for children, so compared with 2019 figures, adults AWA was 87% of that in 2019 compared with children AWA being 78% of the 2019 figure.
Across the diocese
The smallest and small churches saw the biggest increase between 2023 and 2024.
The increase in attendance was not seen across all archdeaconries, with Dorchester seeing a small decrease in AWA, showing the fragility in this small overall increase.
Despite an overall decrease in attendance, Dorchester saw an increase in their child AWA between 2023 and 2024. Largely the churches showing an increase in their child AWA were associated with a new youth minister or new clergy with an emphasis on working with children. Some of the churches in the Archdeaconry that saw the biggest decreases in child AWA were associated with losing a children and family worker or had moved into an interregnum during the period.
Between 2023 and 2024 the number of services held across the diocese remained at the 2023 level. However, some churches increased their number of services and others reduced them. On average if churches reduced their number of services between 2023 and 2024, this was associated with a fall in their AWA, whereas on average if they increased their number of services this was associated with an increase in their AWA of 9 extra people for each new service.
Christmas 2024
Comparing 2024 Christmas attendance for the linked church records with their figures from 2023 shows a decrease between 2023 and 2024 of 4.6%. However, given that Christmas attendance is much more subject to variation than just about anything else we measure, thought to be due to the day of the week and weather, and given that 2023 was a year when we had higher attendance likely due to Christmas Eve being on a Sunday, it is not surprising that we saw this decrease between 2023 and 2024.
Christmas 2024 attendance from Statistics for Mission returns were compared against their Christmas attendance figures for 2019 and 2023 using the same methodology as for the October comparisons.
As seen in Figure 6 below, comparing 2024 Christmas attendance for the linked church records with their figures from 2023 shows a decrease between 2023 and 2024 of 4.6% compared to an increase of 2.7% in their Average Weekly Attendance (AWA) based on their October attendance figures.
This decrease between 2023 and 2024 was seen in all sizes of church except the smallest. The increase in the smallest churches is not unexpected, since those churches classified as ‘smallest’ in 2023 could not get smaller (compared to the other size churches that could grow as well as shrink), and there may have been a reason their Christmas figures were artificially low in 2023 – for example fewer services than usual or indeed no services.
However, this overall decrease of 4.6% is not unexpected – we know that Christmas attendance figures are influenced by the effects of weather and on which day of the week Christmas Eve falls; factors that do not affect the October AWA. Previous analyses of Christmas figures have shown that figures are highest when Christmas Eve is on a Sunday. Christmas Eve 2023 fell on a Sunday, and Christmas Eve in 2024 was on a Tuesday (due to 2024 being a leap year).
There are several suggested reasons for the 'day of the week' effect. Partly it is due to a decision taken many years ago include Christmas Eve attendance with Christmas Day for Statistics for Mission returns. This was done to include Midnight Mass attendance (whatever time it happens!) but this does mean the figures are also affected by carol service scheduling. Christmas Eve being a Sunday also means that Christmas Eve was Advent 4, which makes a difference in some churches that do not do “Christmas” things during Advent. Therefore, their carol services could have been on the 24th rather than earlier, hence increasing Christmas attendance.
Comparing 2024 Christmas attendance for linked churches with their figures from Christmas 2019 (immediately before the pandemic) in Figure 7, however, shows that Christmas figures compared with 2019 have not recovered as much as have the AWA October figures. Overall Christmas attendance in 2024 was at 80% of the 2019 level, whereas the AWA was at 86% of the 2019 level. The pattern for Christmas attendance was similar in all sizes of church (with size here defined as the five equal groupings into quintiles from smallest (1) to largest (5)).
This analysis has shown that we saw a decrease in our Christmas attendance figures for 2024 compared with 2023. However, given that Christmas attendance is much more subject to variation than just about anything else we measure, thought to be due to the day of the week and weather and given that 2023 was expected to be a year when we had higher attendance due to Christmas Eve being on a Sunday, it is not surprising that we saw this decrease.