Vicars in rural Britain are rushing between multiple churches to take Sunday services while their congregations are dying off faster than they can be replaced, according to a new report.
Urgent calls for reform of rural ministry, such as appointing parish administrators to relieve clergy of the burden of running several churches at once, are proposed in the report, to be debated at General Synod in February.
Fewer than one in five rural churches is experiencing growth - a statistic repeated in urban areas - and parishes are struggling to fill all the positions on the church council, especially to find church wardens. In some parishes, if all positions were filled, they would outnumber the worshippers in the pew. Keep reading
Photo: Andreas Krappweis
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