A “Future Directions for the People of God” proposal to the 2021 Synod of the Uniting Church NSW/ACT gives the church attendance figure of 21,000. (The Synod wants to increase it to 30,000)
The NSW and ACT are a third of the Australian population. (33.1 per cent in Dec 2021). If the UCA is equally distributed across the country, a national figure might be 63,000. As NSW generally has slightly higher levels of religious activity than other parts of Australia, this is likely a fair estimate.
The last national attendance figure for the Uniting Church that I have sourced is from a specially commissioned 2013 census by the National Church Life Survey. It found a national weekly attendance” of 97,200 people at UCA congregations.
If my extrapolation from the NSW/ACT figure is accurate, the UCA has declined by 35.2 per cent since 2013. The 2013 census revealed a decline of 40 per cent since 1991. If any reader has better stats, perhaps showing a better picture for the UCA, please comment. I would be very happy to correct this story.
Sydney Anglicans flatline
Sydney Anglican minister Dr Raj Gupta blogged this week “Over the 18 years (until 2019), despite annual giving increases of 5.3%, the number of people (adults) coming to church has started to decline.”
Gupta notes “Many suspect that the data (once available) will show a notable decline (perhaps 10-20%?) after COVID.”
As the population grows, even a steady attendance rate amounts to a decline in the proportion of the Sydney and Wollongong population attending church. In each of the past few years, Sydney’s population grew by approximately 1.5 per cent. Over a million more people will live in the region by 2040.
Gupta’s graph shows a decline of .5 per cent in attendance in Sydney Anglican churches 2002-2019. His attendance graph is flat with a shallow peak in 2015.
“One caution is worth bearing in mind, and that is the default tendancy to rationalise the data away: we are doing better than everyone else; it’s been a tough time, let’s not discourage people; the world is changing; etc,” emphasises Gupta. “How can we help one another get past natural defensiveness?”
This year’s Synod presentation calling for investment in new churches in Western Sydney gives an adult attendance figure of 48,000 adults. Australians under 18 form 18.7 per cent of the population. If this is reflected in churches this gives an attendance figure of 56,970. This is a ballpark figure for reported Sydney Anglican stats in recent years.
Any small increase or decrease may be disguised by “noise” in the data collection from parishes. But any such change is much less than the annual increase in Sydney’s population. This implies a shrinking proportion of the Sydney population attends Anglican Churches in Sydney and Wollongong each year..
The photo with the story is from a “churches for sale” site. I loved its old name the “Knoxville Jubilee Bible Church”, in Eastern Adelaide. It was pastored for a long period by Winifred Kiek, the first woman minister in Australia
Gupta’s analysis is at https://200barrier.com/2022/09/20/sydney-anglicans-the-challenge-of-being-on-our-watch/