The death of the early morning church gathering?

Shrinking gatherings
Recently I was at a clergy gathering where one man was speaking about his early Sunday morning church service and he said, “it is shrinking, as all 8:00am services are”. No one in the room disagreed.

I don’t yet know whether this is accurate. Are there early morning services that are bursting at the seams? I hope so. But there is truth to early services in many places dwindling in numbers.

I wonder why this is the case, and if it is, should we be worried about it?

Why early morning gatherings are shrinking
In most of our churches early morning services tend to be more traditional and are populated by the older members of the parish. That being the case, as people age they move to nursing home care, often with its own Sunday church meeting; or health issues diminish churchgoing regularity or they are now gathered in glory around the throne of our saviour. These are all good reasons for why the existing congregation will shrink.

Why early morning gatherings should be growing
But the problem is that the age group represented by people whose children have left home, the over 60’s, percentage wise is the fastest growing group in society. So as the size of this group grows in society why is this the very group that is dwindling in our churches?

And it is not just society at large that is swelling in this age group. For many years The National Church Life surveys have shown that our churches have significant numbers of people in their 50’s – so isn’t there a natural feed into our early morning services?

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