READERS may be surprised to learn that the number of Anglicans has doubled in the past 50 years (Feature). The global population has, of course, also risen dramatically during this period, but the number of Anglicans is growing, none the less, by about one million a year. The total for 2025 is thought to be at least 100 million. In the past few decades, there has been huge growth in the global South. As Dr Goodhew notes, Anglican communities have sprung up in countries with little history of Anglicanism and outside what was the British Empire.

Yet the Church of England is in numerical decline. The pandemic accelerated what was happening anyway. The response to this trend has varied from heads firmly in the sand, at one extreme, to massive investment, at the other. Since 2014, hundreds of millions of pounds in strategic-development grants have been allocated to projects with the aim of doubling the number of children and young people attending churches by 2030 and establishing 10,000 new congregations — and, as we have reported, the outcomes have been variable. Evaluations of specific diocesan projects have been hard to find, but the most recent annual report from the Strategic Mission and Ministry Investment (SMMI) Board concluded that the more than £300 million allocated since 2014 had contributed to about 37,000 people newly attending churches (News, 16 May).

Church growth is the subject of a great deal of institutional anxiety. Grand strategies and initiatives all too often feel imposed from above, and can leave those excluded from grant funding feeling left out in the cold. But, as David Voas, Emeritus Professor of Social Science at UCL, warned more than a decade ago (News, 17 January 2014), “churches cannot soar on autopilot.” Growth, he argued, was a product of good leadership, lay and ordained, working with a willing set of churchgoers in a favourable environment. As Alison Webster, CEO of Modern Church, observed in our recent joint webinar on the subject (still available at www.churchtimes.co.uk), growth tends to come about by being relational, by allowing new people to change the congregation’s particular way of being the Church, by fostering active questioning, by having porous boundaries, and by being relaxed rather than anxious.

The uncomfortable truth is that some parts of the Body appear to be thriving, while others do not. Anyone who has lived through the dying days of a loved one knows the temptation to seek a miracle cure. Rather than grand projects, perhaps we need a more nuanced approach: one that cherishes the faithful in each place, however few, and encourages their full participation in the Church’s present and future, while it also displays both humility and curiosity about the needs of the wider community. This will help congregations to discern their calling in these complex times — and may even lead to green shoots.