The Parish in Peril? Views From the Grassroots of the Church of England

Village, Andrew; Francis, Leslie J.

The Parish in Peril? Views From the Grassroots of the Church of England

Village, Andrew ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2174-8822 and Francis, Leslie J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2946-9980 (2026) The Parish in Peril? Views From the Grassroots of the Church of England. Rural Theology. pp. 1-13.

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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/14704994.2025.2604446

Abstract

This study explores opinions about parish finances and about strategies related to parishes among 3,219 clergy and lay people who took part in the Church Citation2024 survey. Just under a third of people thought that their parish was struggling financially and were unable to meet its share of diocesan costs. A third of people felt parishes should be in a position to pay for their clergy, a proportion that was slightly higher among Evangelicals and those from larger congregations. There was strong agreement across the sample that rich parishes should subsidise poor ones, although some laity, especially from larger or Evangelical churches, tended to disagree. There was little support for concentrating resources on larger churches, but slightly more support for closing unviable churches. People from rural churches did not necessarily fit the stereotype of wanting to keep unviable churches going.