All Saints Margaret Street.

Dear friends,

January is the month in which clergy add up their attendance numbers for the previous year and make a statistical return to the diocese. It usually prompts much discussion and reflection on the past twelve months.

You’ll forgive me, I hope, if I write at greater length than normal this week, but I thought it might be useful to share with you where things are at in terms of the attendance statistics we have produced over the last year. I hope to show how that fits into the wider picture of congregational change and development in our parish over the past four years since COVID and the incredibly significant disruption 2020 delivered to people’s church going habits.

The first thing to say is that in person attendance has been exceptionally strong over the past 12 months. Our average Sunday attendance has risen from 178.7 in 2023 to 199.4 in 2024. This is growth of 11%.

Attendance statistics are just one way of measuring the health of a parish community. Like all other forms of measurement, they only give a snapshot of one aspect of a parish’s life. Although one might not argue that attendance is the ultimate measure of how a parish should define or value itself, it is nonetheless an important measure of its life which cannot be ignored.

Our PCC has highlighted the need for congregational growth as one of the most important goals our parish has set for itself over the next few years as we seek to thrive and develop in the wake of the COVID Pandemic. Our parish’s latest 5 year Mission Action Plan set as a goal the aim of growing to having an average total Sunday in person attendance of at least 200 by 2029. These latest figures for 2024 show we are well on track to fulfil this aspiration – indeed if we are already on the cusp of accomplishing it.

Now that the calendar year 2024 has run its course, we have a good run of four years of attendance statistics to look back on since the COVID pandemic. To sum the situation up: congregational in person attendance bounced back from COVID very strongly indeed at All Saints’. It is continuing to show steady and sustained growth each year (since 2022 growth of around 10% each year). As of 2024, we now have more people attending in person on a Sunday than we did in 2019, just before the Pandemic.

I suspect two things have contributed to these figures over the past twelve months. First, there has been clear and noticeable growth, by comparison with the previous year, in the number of people worshipping with us on Sunday evenings at the 5.15 pm Low Mass and at Evensong. Sunday evening worship is particularly popular amongst some of our younger parishioners.

I am convinced this growth in attendance at Evensong is linked to our decision in the autumn of 2023 to live-stream it each week. That regular live-stream has increased awareness of the fact that we are one of the very few parishes in London regularly to offer Choral Evensong each Sunday – and the only one to offer it with Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament every week.

Secondly, attendance held up very strongly indeed through the summer of 2024, with large numbers of visitors choosing to worship with us whilst on holiday or visiting England. Most parishes see a dip in attendance through August as people go on holiday. With us, however, the opposite is the case, and summer attendance can be the highest in the year. This interest in All Saints’ on the part of visitors is undoubtedly the result of our live-streaming of the High Mass, and of the online visibility which our parish has cultivated.

My hunch is, however, that a lot more change has happened under the surface of these raw figures over the past 5 years. I would estimate that nearly a third of our current in person congregation was not present with us in 2019 and has joined our parish in the past four years. A large part of this new group is made up of younger adults under the age of 30. A significant proportion of the congregation we had in 2019 was very elderly. In my experience, the Pandemic affected that group particularly acutely. Many have died, or are now housebound, have moved to be closer to family outside London, or are in care homes. In addition, many of our older parishioners do not worship with the regularity that they used to before COVID as a result of finding it difficult to get into town.

The broad picture is this: in 2019 our worshipping community was smaller and older, but worshipped at All Saints’ very regularly; our worshipping community in 2025 is larger and younger, but tends to worship in person less regularly. So, although the total figures show our present Sunday attendance average to be back to around the same as it was in 2019, much more “churn” has taken place under the surface of those statistics than at first appears.

The bounce back after COVID at All Saints’ has not been about parishioners simply returning to their old pre-COVID worship patterns. Rather, it has prompted significant renewal, development, and change in the make up of those who worship with us in person.

A second huge difference between now and 2019 is the presence of our immensely important online congregation, which participates in the liturgy via our live-stream. The statistics we get back from YouTube estimate that most of the congregation that worships with us live is over the age of 65. I suspect, therefore, that it is, in part, made up of many of the people who used to worship regularly with us in person before 2019, but are now housebound or since COVID are less frequent in their attendance in person.

The number of people who participate in our Sunday liturgies online has also increased over the past year. A Sunday average of 75.6 participated live online each Sunday in 2023, and that has grown by 26% to 95.13 in 2024.

I suspect that increase is largely to do with the fact that we started live-streaming Sunday Evensong each week in late 2023, and so have twice as many live-streamed liturgies each Sunday now.

If you add our in person and live online participation together, our total regular Sunday morning worshipping community is now 294.5, about 50% larger than it was in 2019 on the cusp of the Pandemic.

All of these encouraging statistics need to be set against a lamentable backdrop of decline and crisis in the wider Church of England. The latest figures available for 2023 show that a year ago, across the Church of England as a whole, total in person attendance was still significantly less than it was before COVID and the disastrous decision by the House of Bishops to close churches for so long. The total adult average Sunday attendance was 619,000 for 2019 by contrast with a decline to 498,000 for 2023.

For us to have a larger in person congregation than we did in 2019 puts us strides ahead of where most people are expecting the 2024 statistics for the Church of England as a whole to be. Average adult weekly attendance for a Church of England parish in 2023 was 43 (down on the 2019 average of 53). Our Sunday in person attendance is nearly 5 times the national average.

The figures for the wider Diocese of London also make pretty gruesome reading. The Diocese has moved from being one which, in the years up to 2012 had growing attendance, to being a diocese with declining attendance. COVID has simply turbo boosted that process. Total adult average attendance on a Sunday has taken an eye-watering tumble in the Diocese of London from 44,800 in 2019 to 38,000 in 2023.

We are bucking that trend at All Saints’ and showing that decline, despair and retrenchment need not be the norm. Congregational growth is possible, despite the challenging cultural and financial head winds the church finds itself against.

In the light of this background it is with a sense of renewed gratitude and joy that I want to thank all those who have contributed to these encouraging statistics at All Saints’ and to the sense of increasing energy and confidence which I feel more and more characterises our parish’s life.

I thank our PCC and church officers whose strategic vision and energy have paved the way for the growth we have seen; all who sustain our wonderful liturgical and musical tradition; those who organise our social media presence and live-streaming; everyone who volunteers in welcome and hospitality in any way; those who have participated in formation, catechesis, parish trips and pilgrimages; and everyone who has contributed financially to the running of our parish over the past year.

God is richly blessing our parish. I give thanks for so many generous parishioners who give sacrificially of their time and resources to further the mission of God’s church. Please pray that, with God’s grace, our parish continues to grow in number, holiness of life, and service of our neighbour over the next twelve months as we place ourselves in God’s hands and ask him to bless our labours, and prosper the work of our hands.

Fr Peter

British Library: Medieval Women

A parish trip will take place in the New Year on Tuesday 28th January 2025 at 6.00 pm to the British Library to see a new exhibition called, “Medieval Women: in their own words.” The exhibition seeks to help us discover more about “the rich and complex lives of women in the Middle Ages, with over 140 extraordinary items that reveal their artistry, resourcefulness, courage and struggles.”

Our visit to “Medieval Women” will then be followed by supper together at Pizza Express on the Euston Road, opposite the Library. The exhibition costs £15 and the two course dinner at Pizza Express is £30. You can book your tickets and places for the dinner via Eventbrite here.

A week after our visit to the exhibition, there will be the opportunity to discuss, analyse and debate what we saw further through one of our Zoom Theology seminars on Tuesday 4th February at 7.00 pm.

British Museum: Silk Roads

There will be a parish trip on 7th February 2025, to see the splendid new exhibition at the British Museum entitled, “Silk Roads.” The exhibition examines the network of trade, travel and intellectual connections that linked East and West through the first Millennium.

I am particularly grateful that we have been able to obtain from the British Museum 15 free tickets for this exhibition. They will be apportioned on a “first come; first served” basis. We will meet at the British Museum at 6.00 pm and you can book your place on this trip here on our Eventbrite account. Our visit to the British Museum will finish with the option of dinner at Le Beaujolais restaurant in Soho. The 3 course dinner at Le Beaujolais is £55 per head with parishioners paying for their own drinks.

For your prayers

The Friends of All Saints’ Margaret Street:

5th – Sebastian Taite-Ellis, Michael Taylor, Kitty Thompson, Charles Thomson, Dr James Thomson, Jeremy Thorp, Jane Turner, The Rev’d Roger Turner, Dr Christine Vaughn Lillie
6th – Christopher Walsh, Philip Wayne, Fr. Benjamin Weitzmann, Fr. Mats Wendt, Michael Westcott
7th – Matthew Whittaker, Tim Widdowfield, David Wilcox, T. Bradford Willis, Ian A. Wilson, Fr Michael Witcombe
8th – Martin Woods, The Rev’d John Wylam, William Yale, Michael Young
9th – Mark Allan, Martin Amherst-Lock, Robert Austen, Richard Ayling, James Babington Smith, Ruth Baker
10th – Stephen Baldwin, Stephen Barber, Jonathan Beck, Dr William Benefield, William Bonnell
11th – John Bristow, Paul Brough, David Blunden, Fr Michael Bowie, Dr Graham Burns

The sick:

Bishop Christopher Chessun, David Craig, Tony Hawkins, Fr Harry Hodgetts, Arthur Johnson, Michael Lamprell, Elizabeth Lyon, James Rodger, Fr James Rosenthal, Jan Smith.

The faithful departed:

6th – Robert Routledge, Winifred Nash, Florence Mason, Richard Mosbery
7th – Fay Ireland, Jill Horley, Anthony Bullock, Florence Gertrude Mason
8th – Kay Leahy, Christine Ellis
9th – Sylvia Scott
10th – Vera Freeth, Hermia Mills, Ann Ind, Jack Finnie, Katherine Humphries, Michael Fleming, Anthea Candlin, Richard Candlin, Frank Hawkins Pr
11th – Eric Bailey Pr, Sophia Wickenden, Beryl Peryer
12th – Charles Backus

Services this Week

Friday 3rd January – Holy Name of Jesus
12 noon Low Mass
6.30 pm Low Mass

Saturday 4th January – Christmas feria
12 noon Low Mass
6.30 pm Vigil Mass of Sunday

Sunday 5th January – Feast of the Epiphany
8.30 am Low Mass
11 am Solemn Mass
5.15 pm Low Mass
6.00 pm Epiphany Carol Service & Benediction

Monday 6th January – Christmas feria
12 noon Low Mass
6.30 pm Low Mass

Tuesday 7th January – Christmas feria
12 noon Low Mass
6.30 pm Low Mass

Wednesday 8th January – Christmas feria
12 noon Low Mass
6.30 pm Low Mass

Thursday 9th January – Christmas feria
12 noon Low Mass
6.30 pm Low Mass

Friday 10th January – Christmas feria
12 noon Low Mass
6.30 pm Low Mass

Saturday 11th January – Christmas feria
12 noon Low Mass
6.30 pm Vigil Mass of Sunday

Sunday 12th January – Baptism of the Lord
8.30 am Low Mass
11 am High Mass
5.15 pm Low Mass
6.00 pm Evensong and Benediction