Church of England says Sunday mornings are “inconvenient”, midweek services more popular

All this religion stuff is just so gosh-darn hard.

It is worth noting: no one is saying—at least, not yet— that the C of E is doing away with Sunday services.

But the leadership is noting a trend—and, let’s face it, the C of E is nothing if not adaptable.  We’ll see where this goes.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem as if anyone right now is stepping up to remind the indifferent faithful why Sunday is different.

Details: 

Sunday morning is an inconvenient time for church services because people are busy shopping and doing DIY, the Church of England has admitted.

Worshippers are increasingly turning their backs on the centuries-old practice of attending worship on Sundays because of other leisure and social “commitments”, it said.

The admission came alongside new figures showing that attendances at midweek services in cathedrals have doubled in a decade while numbers in the pews in parishes on Sundays continue to fall.

The Dean of Lichfield, the Very Reverend Adrian Dorber, said many people still crave quiet reflection, but are seeking out less “pressurised” times in the week to worship than Sunday mornings.

He said weekends are now “very committed” for most families in an era when life is “run at the double”.

The rise in cathedral congregations suggests many people are drawn by the formality and relative anonymity of a larger place of worship.

The figures show that the number of adults attending cathedral services rose by a third in the last decade to 30,900 last year.

Attendances at midweek services rose even faster with the number of adults doubling to 15,000.

Yet attendance at Sunday services in parishes has halved since the 1960s to below 800,000.

Speaking on behalf of the Church of England, Mr Dorber said the fact that midweek cathedral services were likely to be “reasonably short” was also part of the attraction.

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