A table of attendance figures circulating on the internet claims to show that Anglican churches in Sydney lost 10,000 regular attenders the year the Sydney Anglican diocese backed the same-sex marriage postal vote.
The figures show an average Sunday attendance of 53 345 in 2017 and 46.608 in 2018 and lower figures in the next two years.
The Other Cheek understands that the source is the actual records from the Diocese of Sydney – but whoever compiled the table made an error.
The figures up until 2017 accurately reflect the overall average Sunday attendance at Sydney Anglican churches – which also include Wollongong as that is part of the diocese.
But the figure for 2018 leaves out teenagers and children. The actual figure for 2018 is 54,154, which was actually a 2 per cent increase over 2017.
Whatever your personal view of the Sydney Anglican Diocese donating $1m to the “no” case in the marriage vote, it had no discernable effect on the number of people attending Anglican churches in Sydney.
However the table – one version here, – is useful in that it shows that Sydney Anglican attendance has been flat since 2003, nudging some years upwards and downwards in others. (I have now added the official figures at the bottom of this story)
This is not good news, in the sense that a flat attendance rate is not a good result in a city that is growing by 1.3 per cent a year.
On the other hand, Sydney has a consistent outflow to other parts of Australia, losing 31,600 people in 2020. This outflow has been a consistent feature of Sydney’s demographics over the last decade. this means that to stay even in attendance, Sydney’s Anglican churches – and all other denominations must attract new people each year.
The Other Cheek understands that the story of Sydney Anglicans losing ten thousand attenders after the marriage poll was being shopped to media earlier this year during the General Synod (Anglican church parliament).
The Sydney adult attendance figures were supplied at the synod in 2022.
Image: St Andrews cathedral, Sydney Credit: sv1ambo wikipedia