The Church of England is considering a plan that would see the closure of under-used parish churches except for high-profile calendar events such as Easter and Christmas.
As the Church of England faces an ongoing decline in the use of its 16,000 parish churches, with one recent report conceding that the existing parish structures may not be “sustainable”, The Daily Telegraph has revealed that a committee of senior clerics and lay people is now recommending a change to Church law to allow for underused churches to be designated as “festival churches”, which would confine their activities to those around Easter and Christmas together with occasional weddings and funerals.
In a report on parishes seen by the newspaper, the committee states: “Since the 1980s, the average age of Church of England membership has increased very significantly. Even with significant recruitment at the younger age levels over the next couple of decades, the overall level of church membership is likely to go on declining, at least for a while, given the current age profile.
“This raises questions about sustainability.”
According to the same report, half of all rural parishes today do not gather 20 people for Sunday services, while one in four now claim fewer than 10 regular worshippers.
The Church of England has already piloted some of the committee’s recommendations in a number of dioceses, seeing the festival church idea as a compromise between the expense of maintaining a church and closing it completely.
“We believe it could help relieve some of the pressures and time constraints on clergy and congregations where buildings are not needed for regular Sunday worship but have a continuing role in the life of the Church,” the report states.
