Anglican Samizdat with some scary stats:
The Anglican Journal conducted a survey to find out who is reading the paper. The age of those who read the Journal and who are, therefore, interested in the Anglican Church of Canada’s version of Christianity is revealing. You can view all the results here. These are the age groupings:
Let’s make the not unreasonable assumption that the age demographics of those who read the Journal are an accurate reflection of the age of church attendees. If we do, it means that unless things change and the church manages to attract younger people, in around 20 years, there will be 42% fewer Anglicans, in 30 years 72% fewer and in 40 years 94% fewer. That’s assuming the 6% currently between ages 18 to 49 don’t leave in the meantime.
The average Sunday attendance in the Anglican Church of Canada is around 320,000. If the above figures are any indication, in 40 years the average attendance will be 19,200.
The C of E I imagine would look rather similar?
Whilst it is a worrying figure, it would be incorrect to directly correlate readership with Church membership. Some of the most active youthful of congregations never buy a Christian newspaper.
Also, it is one of the truths of parish life that many of the elderly parishioners did not practise their faith for many years (sometimes decades), so aged populations are not only a sign of decline but sometimes of return.
Perhaps the Anglican Journal needs to invest more heavily in modern media…along with others.
Demographic study is more complex a science than that suggested by Fr Smuts but there is certainly a decline that needs to be faced.
Well, it wasn’t really me. The person who wrote it was drawing an inference, or so it would seem. But from what I gather, standing looking over your average Anglican Canadian parish would suggest this is a fair assessment, as the people there on any given Sunday are mostly of elderly kind.
I’m in the 6% had I lived in Canada.
What can I say, my age group is arrogant and stupid. We are too eager to squander our youth on trivial things. We may look better than older people, but we really don’t know anything about life.
Maybe it’s only after we look into a mirror and realize how old we have become and accept how we can die anytime that we start to think about what is really important.
Wow the X and Y generationer’s! Btw, I have seen and met some hard-mile X and Y people, smoking and booze does take its toll, not to mention drugs!
Actually, the Anglican Journal is essentially distributed to every address of every member who is currently on our Anglican Church of Canada roles.