For many years, in fact probably for more than a century as a general trend, church attendance in the UK has been in decline, a symptom of the gradual secularisation of the western world. So it is encouraging to see, admittedly only in one year’s figures so far, a significant reversal of this trend. This has been announced by Tearfund in the results of a detailed survey, but the press release with the full figures is hidden away on their website, and although Ruth Gledhill mentioned this in passing it took my Rural Dean Andy Griffiths to find this and republish the details.

The figures show a surprisingly large increase in reported churchgoing in just one year – in Ruth’s words, “research by Tearfund shows churchgoing rising by as much as a quarter”. But the results must be taken with a pinch of salt because it is well known that some people claim to attend church more often than they actually do. Here are the headline figures:

One in four UK adults (26% or 12.8 million) go to church at least once a year.

The Tearfund data reveal that 15% of UK adults (7.3m) attend church at least once a month at 10% at least once a week (4.9m).

Contrary to reports that church attendance is waning, this tracking research (which interviews 7,000 adults every six months) shows that church attendance in Sep 08 was actually slightly higher than a year previously in Sep 07.

Significant increases in church attendance among UK adults (aged 16+) from September 2007 to September 2008:

• at least annually +5%   21% to 26%
• at least monthly  +2%   13% to 15%
• at least weekly   +1%    9% to 10%

The broader trend over three years since the start of the tracking, shows that churchgoing is holding up well:

• at least annually: Sep 08 recovery from low point of 21% in Feb 07 but still below Feb 05 level of 29%
• at least monthly: Sep 08 and Feb 05 are equivalent, at 15%
• at least weekly: Sep 08 and Feb 05 are equivalent, at 10%

Another detail:

By denomination, in the ‘established’ church rather than smaller denominations:

• Church of England +6%  28% to 34%
• Church of Scotland +6%  39% to 45%

I’m not quite sure what this means – that 66% of people who call themselves C of E don’t attend church even once a year? But these are figures which can be compared with the Church of England’s own statistics, when they are published. This will help us to discern whether this is a real increase in churchgoing or an artefact of survey methods.

Even if this is a real increase, it is still just one year’s figures. So it is far too early to suggest any general revival of religion or end to the secularisation of Britain. Also of course an increase in once a year churchgoing hardly indicates a mass turning to Christ. It is possibly an indication that in a time of financial uncertainty people are looking more towards non-material solutions to their problems. But after decades of bad news for the churches it is good to see an encouraging sign.