Up until today, the last official statistics from the Anglican Church of Canada that I had seen were published 2001.
A new report has just been presented to the House of Bishops with statistics gathered from 2017.
A few highlights:
- The average Sunday attendance has dropped to 97,421.
- A previous report published in 2006 predicted the last Anglican would leave the church in 2061. That number is now 2040.
- The rate of decline is increasing.
- New programs adopted by the church have done nothing to reverse the decline.
- The Anglican Church of Canada is declining faster than any other Province other than TEC, which has an even greater rate of decline.
- The slowest decline is in the number of priests.
The entire report can be read here and the raw data is here.
Statistics report for House of Bishops
Rev Dr. Neil Elliot PhD
0) Précis
In 2018 General Synod was able to collect a complete and mostly reliable set of data for from the dioceses for the first time since 2001. The data is for the year 2017 and it shows that the decline observed in earlier data has continued. Projections from our data indicate that there will be no members, attenders or givers in the Anglican Church of Canada by approximately 2040.
This report presents the headline data and includes diocesan decline data based on the statistics from 2001 and 2017. The report goes on to look briefly at a few of the implications of the data. The report then suggests further work which needs to be done. The work identified here can be done without substantial additional resources. If there is hope in these numbers, it is the hope that some data gathering and analysis in the next few years will enable us to plan for the future and not react to it. Through paying attention to these statistics we may discern God’s call to our beloved church in these challenging times. We believe that this could be a critical part of the work of reviewing of the church’s mission and ministry which the Primate has identified.
1) Background – Statistical projections of ACC membership previous to the 2017 data
There have been previous reports to the House of Bishops which have been identified the extent of our decline, for example the McKerracher report in 2006. While McKerracher predicted the last Anglican would leave in 2061, the current evidence projects that the church will run out of members in around 2040. There is no sign of any stabilisation in our numbers; if anything the decline is increasing. Some had hoped that our decline had bottomed out, or that programs had been effective in reversing the trends. This is now demonstrably not the case. The decline will not be a surprise to many congregations who see this happening week by week, but what the data confirms is that this decline is happening consistently across the country from BC to Newfoundland. International comparisons suggest that the decline in the Anglican Church of Canada is faster than in any other Anglican church, although the 2018 data from the Episcopal church shows an even greater rate of decline on attendance than ours.
There are two main sources of data which show us the past trajectory:
- i) Historical ACC statistics from 1961-2001
1962-4 were apogee of Anglican Church of Canada membership
Membership Decline 1961-2001 = 50% in 40 years
BUT if you compare with overall Canadian population, it’s more alarming!
Membership 1961 = 1,358,459 members / 18 million Canadians = 7% of Canadians
2001 = 641,845 members / 31 million Canadians = 2% of Canadians
(2017 = 357,123 members /35 million Canadians = 1% of Canadians)
- ii) Circulation data of Anglican Journal give figures for more recent decline. AJ circulation statistics are available for diocesan and parish levels. They have been collected through a consistent methodology of parochial data collection with the intention of distributing the diocesan newspapers. The overall numbers are as follows:
June 1991 – 273,000 subscriber households
June 2015 – 135,500 subscriber households
Decline 1991-2015 = 50% in 25 years
Both i) and ii) project that we will run out of members in around 2040.
Even burials are down. The death tsunami has largely come already as there are so few people left of a die-able age!
The local church is the hope of the world and the Holy Spirit is the hope of the local church. Is that a knocking sound I hear?
Yes, indeed, there is a knocking sound but it is drowned out or ignored by claimed bishops and other clergy that are clearly APOSTATE and have willingly and deliberately walked away from the authority of SCRIPTURE and have lead many parishioners from the AUTHORITY of SCRIPTURE. Until the lay members of the church demand action the situation will not improve. Currently the ACoC cannot claim to be Christian.
Wow! That is the picture of a cursed fig tree.
Hallulujah! This is good news to gladden the heart and warm the bones.
—
He said in a loud voice, “Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come. Worship him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea and the springs of water.”
A second angel followed and said, “ ‘Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great,’ a which made all the nations drink the maddening wine of her adulteries.”
A third angel followed them and said in a loud voice: “If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives its mark on their forehead or on their hand, they, too, will drink the wine of God’s fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath.
“The slowest decline is in the number of priests”: ditto Called and Ordained PCC Ministers; hence the October 8/19 prayers ascending (v. PCC website) for those “graduates of Presbyterian
theological Colleges ( Knox, Toronto; Presbyterian College, Montreal, its being co-terminus with AnglicanCC Diocesan College, the United Theological College, Montreal;yet Cultural Marxist Vancouver School of Theology ‘flourishes’…occupying once Biblical pulpits across the Dominion ) who are still in discernment as they continue to seek God’s leading in a call”. A telephone call?
This the pre- and post mortem of the late (+2017) Reverend Dr. William Klempa (“Open Letter” to the late. belated ‘Presbyterian Record’, May 11, 2016 – supplanted by the former ACC Editor for all things gay ‘Connections’), and the late (+2016) The Reverend Dr. Joseph C. McLelland before him, “Order in The Church”,’Pr.Record’, Oct. 1996). Thus in 2015 PC had NO graduates: the prophesied irreversible decline continues (v. PC College magazine online); so much so that ACC(!) and UTC (!) Professors et al. were enlisted to take part in the 2015 Graduating Class processional at that once orthodox because Biblical bastion of the PCC in Montreal –
The Church of St. Andrew and St. Paul.
The fault, dear Bruti, is not in our stars, but in our “false doctrine”.
Liking to play with numbers I did some quick calculations looking at the number of Baptisms, Confirmations, Marriages, and Burials/Funerals per Priest/Clergy and how these have changed from 1961 to 2017. So here it is: 1961 # per Priest : 2017 # per Priest : % change
Baptisms: 18.7 : 1.5 : -92%
Confirmations: 13.8 : 0.6 : -96%
Marriages: 5.0 : 0.6 : -88%
Burials/Funerals: 8.5 : 2.6 : -69%
One is left to wonder just exactly what work are the 3,491 Priests now doing?
At ground zero for the marriage canon revision (2013 Diocese of Halifax-PEI’s surprise Resolution C003 at General Synod), it was the case in one historic, founding Parish (first Anglican Church established in Pictou County,1829) that a 2012 Confirmation Class of several souls was the first of such in the whole Diocese in ten years, as announced by the then serving Diocesan Bishop.
The serving Priest did not believe in same-sex ‘marriage’; thus by 2014 he was ‘relocated’ – to the declining and falling Diocese of Huron!
Is it not strange that these so called “progressives” are so demanding that everyone fully accept and be inclusive of them, but as soon as these “progressives” take over they deliberately remove everyone that dares to disagree against them.
What is truly sad is that they are so blinded by their own “pride” that they are unable to see that what they touch they are destroying.
They may have taken over the AcoC, but in time what they have taken will be taken away from them.
If we assume that the people who have not yet left are more likely to remain than the decline will become one of attrition. The remaining membership will age and die off. But most of these individuals are already aged and the dismally low numbers of Baptisms, Confirmations, and Marriages supports this view.
So long as there remains even just 1 Parish in a community the AcoC can hold onto the few that are left. But what happens when the attendance at the last remaining Parish in a town or community becomes so few as to no longer be sustainable? Possible merger with one of the other declining mainline/protestant Parishes, most likely the United church of Canada. Or a blatant closure that would result in aging seniors having to drive, or be driven, long distances to continue attending.
Cutting to the chase of what I am leading to…
The decline will continue, and will be seen most severely in smaller communities first. The AcoC will effectively cease to exist in small rural towns. Then small and mid sized cities will witness the demise. Finally the extinction will occur in the major cities. Will this happen in only 20 years? My guesstimate is closer to 30. But it will happen none-the-less, and when it does no one will care.
Perhaps the ACof C who is missing clergy should accept into their flock those who are called, and are ordained online.