Old stats need updating

Anglican stats in Canada are almost a decade old

Commentary by Sue Careless

The Anglican Church of Canada has released no new official statistics since those of 2001. In that year 680,000 Canadians were on the rolls of the national church. That old figure was released in media kit material for GS2010, but is the real number of church attendees only half that today?

The national church used to release fresh figures annually which would be three years old. Now in the age of computers, data entry is even easier.

All parish clergy are required by their diocese to collect and submit stats on Average Sunday Attendance (ASA), Christmas attendance, Easter attendance, and the number of baptisms, confirmations, marriages and burials per parish. Representation at diocesan synods is based on the ASA of a parish so these numbers are carefully tracked. Most dioceses base their apportionments in part at least on these figures.

It would not be hard to file these diocesan stats electronically with the national office and then have them integrated and released to the public. What is Church House trying to hide? Fewer Canadians are attending mainline Churches and hundreds of Canadian Anglicans have left the ACC to join the Anglican Network in Canada. (In 2009, the largest ACC congregation in Canada with an average Sunday attendance of 800 left to join ANiC.) Things may not look pretty but we need to face reality if we are to plan new church structures and engage effectively in future mission. Will we ever be told the real numbers by Church House?