ageing
Priorities for the next five years Local churches, mission and sustainable ministry Clergy and PCCs are facing declining resources, increasingly complex compliance requirements, ageing buildings, volunteer shortages and significant pastoral pressures.
Congregations are ageing.
Our ageing population: This is reflected in many congregations, and provides both opportunities and challenges.
Securing the Financial Viability of the Church The burden of funding local ministry currently falls too heavily on ageing congregations.
The long-term answer cannot simply be to ask ageing and shrinking congregations to give ever more.
With full-time clergy numbers in decline, a ‘retirement bulge’ (an ageing profile), and fewer candidates training for ordained ministry, there’s an urgent need to focus efforts on creative and effective ways of resourcing gospel-centred ministry and ensuring clergy wellbeing.
- Encouragement of priestly vocations: falling ordinand numbers and an ageing clergy
Over the past 60 years, England has become increasingly secular, with religious observance decreasing across the Western world, and the Church of England has faced the spiritual and financial consequences of ageing and declining congregations.
decisions need to deal with the challenges parish clergy increasingly face: heavy administration, ageing buildings, stretched finances, fewer volunteers, and complex pastoral demands.
• Demographic Realism & Foresight: Since my widely reported 2011 Synod question on our ageing
I'm 40, married to Becky, with two children, Elliot (8) and Isaac (6), and I'm beginning my ninth year in ministry: five as Associate Minister in a church revitalisation in Doncaster, which turned from an ageing, shrinking congregation into a younger, growing one, moving from paying a quarter of its parish share to nearly the full amount.
Our parish system is under serious strain - listed buildings too expensive to maintain or adapt, ageing congregations, a shortage of volunteers, and a looming crisis in clergy vocations.
My vocation has been shaped by its realities: geographic isolation, limited resources, ageing congregations, increasing administrative demands and social and economic pressures — but also remarkable faithfulness, resilience, generosity and a deep sense of local belonging.
The Church of England faces numerous challenges in the present day: many of our congregations are shrinking and ageing; there are too few clergy, and many of them are demoralised and overworked; ordinary parishes feel neglected, especially in rural areas, while it seems that endless sums of money can be found for new missional enterprises; and our volunteers are few in number.
As a small rural parish member, I am only too aware of the strain on vicars having to juggle multiple churches, of an ever-diminishing number of volunteers trying to raise funds to maintain ageing buildings and of PCCs unable to pay their Parish Share.
A Sparce and Ageing Population — Ministry That Fits Norfolk's rural demography skews towards the elderly and more dispersed, with real risk of isolation for parishioners and clergy alike.
A diocese carrying a deficit, falling share, ageing congregations and a great many roofs is asked to plan clergy numbers years ahead on figures nobody can rely upon.
The C of E’s potential for good, in its 16,000 parishes across the whole of England is awesome, but its reach is frequently constrained by the many challenges churches face (declining and ageing congregations; declining clergy numbers; burnt out clergy; buildings now not fit for purpose; safeguarding concerns; volunteer recruitment; perceived loss of relevance in society and unresolved ongoing disagreements about core issues (doctrine) such as on the nature of human identity, marriage and sexuality.
How do we, in rural areas, with ageing populations and limited resources, often with one clergy member looking after multiple parishes, make Jesus known?
The Church of England is ageing – it’s no secret.
The local church is under considerable pressure with challenges ranging from declining and ageing congregations to issues with buildings and governance structures.
Many parishes face financial pressures, ageing or declining congregations and the responsibility of maintaining historic buildings.
• Knowledge of ageing, older people and intergenerational work
Despite the Church's ageing demographic, I see considerable reason for hope.
We continue to pay our parish share in full, receiving little pastoral or spiritual support in return, and our congregation, sustained by an ageing but committed PCC, has recovered only to the high teens.