Oral Answers to Questions

Greg Smith Excerpts

Thursday 25th June 2020 Commons Chamber

The hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire, representing the Church Commissioners was asked—

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

What assessment the commissioners have made of the effect of live streaming church services on the number of people taking part in church services.

[The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Andrew Selous)]

I am pleased to be able to tell my hon. Friend that more people have been taking part in church services during lockdown than ever before. The national weekly service of the Church has been viewed more than 5.2 million times, with 21.5 million related social media posts, and a third of the people watching Archbishop Justin Welby’s Easter day service were under the age of 34.

[Greg Smith]

Parishes in the Winslow benefice in my constituency are seeing 400 to 500 people take part in virtual services each Sunday and about 100 each day in midday-ish prayer. Given the extraordinary number of people who have either connected with the Church for the first time or reconnected with it virtually, what plans do the Church Commissioners have to set aside funds to continue this excellent work?

[Andrew Selous]

I am delighted to learn about the increase in church attendance in my hon. Friend and neighbour’s constituency. It is not unusual. The Church made a significant investment in a new digital communications team in 2016 and we will continue to make sure that we provide a good digital offering. The experience of my hon. Friend in Winslow has been widely shared by churches across the country. Some 1,600 people are currently attending an online alpha course at one of our churches, and 3.3 million people have now watched the UK blessing worship video on YouTube, put together by Gas Street Church in Birmingham.