Encouraging signs in the diocese’s Statistics for Mission report
The Diocese of Truro is showing some encouraging signs in this year’s Statistics for Mission report from the Church of England.
Churches in the diocese recorded a total 9% increase in the numbers of children attending weekly services. This was coupled with 11% more churches in 2017 reporting that they now have children and young people attending a weekly service compared to 2016’s report.
St Keverne Church, St Michael’s Church in Newquay and St Illogan Church are all reporting very healthy increases in the number of children and young people attending their services. The numbers attending school services have also almost doubled and Christmas service attendance is maintaining its year on year increases.
While not as significant, there was also an increase in the numbers of adults attending weekly services, up by 2.5%. In the Redruth, Lanner and Treleigh Benefice under Revd Caspar Bush’s lead, the number of adults attending services in the last year has almost doubled.
Helping to give a better idea of the situation across the diocese was the increase in the number of churches returning their Statistics for Mission reports.
The diocese also recorded an increase in the number of occasional offices taking place in our churches. The numbers of funerals held in a church was up by 13% across the diocese, while the number of baptisms was up by 11%. There has been a drop in the number of weddings, down 6% from 2016 but there has already been an agreement on a programme of work to focus on increasing the number of church weddings.
While there is still a long way to go, the figures offer hope following a number of years of negative headlines around the state of the Church and its relevance in modern society.
