The Decline of Anglican Worship

N.A. n.d. "The Decline of Anglican worship." Times, The (United Kingdom), n.d. Newspaper Source Plus, EBSCOhost (accessed October 14, 2010).

What should the Church of England do to attract more people to its services?

I WAS brought up on the Book of Common Prayer, and love its rich language and
the way it effortlessly transports one's mind to prayer. For years I suffered,
but tolerated, the Alternative Service Book, but finally I voted with my feet
when the banal and wordy Common Worship was introduced last year. I don't think
I am alone in this.

The Church of England should return to its traditional roots and values and to
the Book of Common Prayer. If it did, much of the "missing" congregation would
return.

David Seekings, Ely, Cambridgeshire

Stick to Christ

AS AN Anglican, I find it no great surprise that church attendances in some
parts of the country are falling (report, October 30). After all, some of those
charged with preaching the Gospel of Christ are in fact preaching themselves.
As the apostle Paul asserts in one of his many letters, unless we preach
Christ, all our efforts are in vain.

And as to the point that the Church should look to Marks & Spencer, this is a
mystery to me. Marks & Spencer sells knickers; the Church "sells" Christ. Let
the Church keep to its natural business.

As the electoral roll officer of a parish church, I can say that our church
attendances are on the increase because our vicar preaches Christ and Christ
alone. Let others follow.

Anthony Adeloye, Surrey

All things to all men

THE Anglican Church tries to be everything to all men. Such a policy is bound
to fail. At the opposite extreme, the Roman Catholic Church has a rigidity that
nothing can move. Unpopular in many circles, at least it enjoys the respect so
sadly lacking in our established Church.

If the Anglican Church had a firmer base, its popularity might increase.

J. L. Evans, Folkestone, Kent

No place for intolerance

YOUR report shows that falling attendance is common to a number of established
churches in England, and perhaps the basic problem is belief, not presentation.

They could do like M&S: listen more to their "customers" and revise the
product range. It is not all admissible: virgin birth, resurrection, eternal
life, and the only way to God being through Jesus Christ (so it's too bad for
the people who have not had the experience of Jesus).

Continued religious intolerance is wrong and no longer acceptable. The Times
recently reported that a West Yorkshire church had evicted a yoga group that
had used its hall for 15 years because of a link to Hinduism. This was not the
first church to do so.

I hope that my grandchildren live to see a world where Christianity, Judaism,
Islam, Hinduism and the other religions can recognise the forest they share,
rather than the trees that divide them.

George Anderson, Southport, Merseyside

Two basics

HERE are two ways to improve attendance at Anglican churches: appoint only
Christian clergy, especially archbishops; and preach biblical truth, not
political correctness.

Ray and Wendy Watson,

Stoke Bishop, Bristol

Bring down the barriers

THE Church must recognise that for the majority of people Sunday is no longer
special or different. People want to maximise the use of their leisure time and
a 90-minute service on a Sunday morning puts paid to a day trip out. Why not
offer a Saturday tea-time service to use up that quiet time between day and
evening activities?

If people won't go to church, move the church to the people. How about
lunchtime services in big companies, railway stations, shopping malls - in fact
anywhere under cover where there are lots of people. Don't hide them away in a
"prayer room".

Imagine a congregation in the middle of the Trafford Centre on a Saturday
afternoon - great!

The Church's old-fashioned views are a turn-off to many people. Divorced
people should be allowed to remarry in church, young women who move from their
home parish should be allowed to return to marry without the rigmarole of a
"special licence".

Bring down the barriers and get user- friendly!

Susan Douglass, suedouglass@dial.pipex.com

God is not a commodity

SERVICES - that is, the daily offices or sacramental offices - are not
intended to attract people to worship.

People worship God because they believe in Him and return thanks to their
Creator. It is a question of coming to terms with one's obligations in service
of the Church and Christ, in whose service the Church comes into being.

This does not consist of items, as in Marks & Spencer, where people choose
their product and compare their prices and then decide whether to support or
condemn them.

Until people realise that the commercial world is not the prototype of the
Christian Church, and that the mores and morals of secular society do not
necessarily serve God's eternal purposes, plans, and love for us, they will
continue to opt to close out first religion (which is often understandable
considering the foils and fables of the church authorities), and second God,
who exists regardless of religious institutions which should - but often don't
- facilitate His reign as King on earth.

To assume that the Church can do things to "attract" people is to assume that
a marketing scheme needs devising, and this belies the very nature of the
Church.

For any person or group of people who value hard, cold fact and materialistic
gain, the Church can never be attractive, unless it prostitutes itself, in
which case it has lost before it begins.

James Livengood, Dallas, Texas

Learn from others

IN terms of your graph on church attendance, the position of Pentecostals and
Baptists is conspicuous. Since 1990 the former have held their own, while the
latter have significantly increased.

The Church of England would do well to reflect on this basic fact. It might
consider the essential characteristics of such growing Churches. Two
fundamental features of pentecostals and Baptists are flexibility and firm core
beliefs.

But Anglicans could also look closer to home in order to attract people to
their services. Anglican churches that respond imaginatively to changing times,
while retaining firm spiritual and moral bases, generally exhibit healthy
growth.

Where the Church lives out its missionary calling, talk of "meltdown" will
always be misplaced. Where the Church believes itself to exist by dint of its
national position, and thus that people should attend as a matter of course,
meltdown cannot come quickly enough.

The Rev Grenville Overton,

Ministry Team Leader,

Queens Road Baptist Church, Coventry

Missing the target

WHEN is the religious impulse at its strongest? In childhood and old age: in
childhood because that is when people believe in the tooth fairy and Santa
Claus, and in old age because the approach of death concentrates the mind
wonderfully. In between, getting and spending are apt to monopolise one's
attention. Yet which group does the Church persist in targeting? Young adults.

Demographics tell us that the over-50s are on the increase, but it is this
very group (tending to be conservative with a small "c") that the Church has
alienated in recent years by leaden and risible "modernising" of the language
of worship. As a fellow Christian, increasingly depressed by this trend,
recently said to me: "When 'Jesus wept' - words beautiful in their very
simplicity - becomes 'Jesus burst into tears', I will finally, regretfully,
give up the C of E.

Laura Sykes, Andover, Hants

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