In the five years since Covid-19, the Church has changed significantly. But it was not killed off as many predicted. Instead, it adapted and in many places is growing, says a new report from the Evangelical Alliance. Danny Webster explores
When churches were required to shut down during the Covid-19 pandemic, and then required to comply with strict rules when they could reopen, some questioned whether the UK Church would ever fully recover.
Would people fall out of the habit of attending church? Would the option of engaging with online church make leaving the house on a Sunday morning less attractive?
There’s a dreadful joke about churches being like helicopters – you’ve got to be careful lest you get caught in the rotas. Having escaped their volunteering responsibilities for a while, would people be willing to reengage?
Churches are growing across the UK. The gospel is being shared and people are coming to know Jesus
These were some of the issues that the Evangelical Alliance wanted to explore as we surveyed church leaders and members in early 2025.
How has the evangelical church changed in the five years since lockdown?
1. Online church is here to stay
Around two thirds of churches are still providing opportunities to engage remotely, and some of these are reaching very large audiences. But this is not at the expense of in-person congregations.
2. Attendance has increased
We expected to find reduced frequency of attending on Sundays and this was the case: if a church had 100 people in a Sunday service in January 2020, and the same people were still part of the church, there would be 94 of them on any given Sunday in 2025.
And yet normal Sunday attendance had increased over this period by an average of 13 per cent - with larger churches growing the most, and smaller churches declining.
3. More people are finding God
Increased attendance and ongoing engagement online is matched with people making first time commitments to follow Jesus. The average church reported that 3.5 people had done so in the past three months – double the rate when we last asked leaders about this in 2021, which at that point was comparable to the pre-Covid period.
The most significant factor affecting growth - the size of church - was not a factor in the rate at which churches are seeing people become Christians. Both small and large churches are experiencing the same ‘rate of conversion’ - and smaller churches are seeing a proportionally higher number of people exploring faith.
4. The challenge of giving
Size is a major factor in volunteering and giving trends, and this may well be linked to church attendance growth. Smaller churches are seeing more challenges with volunteering and declined giving. However, for many churches that are seeing giving income grow, most of these are not seeing growth at a level that keeps pace with inflation.
5. The value of volunteers
The picture on volunteering was more mixed than has previously been reported. Two-thirds of churches reported a shortage in volunteers for children’s work. However, 40 per cent of leaders reported an increase in volunteering and 30 per cent said it was about the same as in 2020.
Normal Sunday attendance had increased by an average of 13 per cent
The engagement of churches in their local community remains unstinting however, with 95 per cent of churches delivering some form of community engagement - from foodbanks, to befriending, to tackling addiction, unemployment and homelessness. If we were to attribute a value to the volunteering every church benefits from, based on the real living wage it would come in at just under £250,000 per year.
Adapt and grow
The church was not killed off by Covid or by government mandated lockdowns.
Instead, innovation and adaptation to engaging online has brought lasting benefits. What’s more, it seems that both leaders and congregations are facing the future with hope. Churches are growing across the UK - some experiencing very significant growth. The gospel is being shared with boldness and people are coming to know Jesus. This is fuel for our future hope.
But challenges remain, especially for smaller churches. Some have closed their doors in the past five years and many are declining in number. But even in small and shrinking churches, people are coming to know Jesus and communities are being served. This is an encouragement not to give up or neglect places which might otherwise be written off. God is at work there, too.
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