The number of Sydney residents prepared to label themselves Anglican has declined by 7.7% in the years between 2001 and 2006.
Australian Bureau of Statistics census figures record a drop of 61,185 Anglicans in the greater city of Sydney, from 799,573 in 2001 to 738,388 in 2006.
"It's hard to work out what it does mean, except that our job is definitely harder," says the Bishop of South Sydney, the Rt. Rev Robert Forsyth.
The decrease reflects a number of factors, including deaths in older generations more likely to be affiliated with Anglicanism, and a previously reported national increase in the number of people claiming "no religion'.
However the figures also display an across the board drop in the number of Sydney residents under 54 years of age choosing to call themselves Anglican. (See fact box for detail)
"I think we’re seeing an acceleration of the decline of cultural Christianity in Sydney," Bishop Forsyth says.
"You'll notice the decline was quite strong in the under 34 bracket. People are just saying I don’t want to belong and of course they don’t have to."
Church figures fight trend
Church attendance figures show steady growth over a similar five-year period to the census, despite fewer people identifying as Sydney Anglicans.
Average Sunday attendance increased by 26.6% from 43,271 in 1999 to 54,768 in 2004.
Statistics for church attendance in 2005 will be available in September with 2006 returns released at the Sydney Diocesan synod in September this year.
However the registrar’s office reports that it is tracking a similar upward trend in attendance.
“The pattern of growth that we have seen over the last 10 years continues,” says Mr Les Gray.
"It would be a mistake to over-read the drop in identification," Bishop Forsyth warns.
"There are still a very large number of people who don’t go to our churches and still identify with us."
However church figures show pastoral services often accessed by nominal Anglicans have experienced a distinct decline.
Diocesan returns record infant baptisms decreasing by 25.6% and marriages by 29.6% over the same period.
The number of funerals carried out by Anglican clergy, though, showed a 2.8% increase.
Mission implications
As far back as 1998 the Lausanne Conference, in its paper on nominal Christianity, recognised those who identified with a church but did not attend as a significant mission field.
In 1995 1.6 billion people identified with Christianity world-wide, but 44% of these did not translate this commitment to regular church attendance.
Bishop Forsyth says the drop in numbers identifying as Christian overall, and as Anglicans in Sydney must be carefully considered in the light of the Diocesan Mission.
"It could be a good sign or a bad sign," he says.
"Now that we’re standing for something, the Mission has made Anglican something you don’t want to be part of unless you are keen. Or it could mean people have simply been turned off."
"It does however mean that there are a lot more people further away from us and that’s a concerning thing."
Dr Eddie Gibbs is the senior professor in church growth at Fuller Theological Seminary and the author of several books on evangelising nominal Christians, including "In Name Only: Tackling the problem of nominal Christianity'.
He believes nominal associations provide many post moderns with links back to church at significant stages in their lives.
"Secular society allows the church's representatives back on stage only on its own terms," he says.
"They may serve as therapists, as celebrants of ceremonial religion in Europe or as chaplains of civil religion in the United States. But the secular world allows no place for the prophet or the priest."
The key, Professor Gibbs says, is to learn to use our connections to gain the "platform' necessary for the prophet to gain a hearing in a secular society.
Bishop Forsyth also believes nominal connections are not insignificant when it comes to fulfilling the Diocesan Mission.
"Most of our methods of doing church growth relate to identification," Bishop Forsyth says. "We are much more used to going out and heating up the nominals."
Nominals equal church numbers
The Rev Ian Barnett knows first hand how significant nominal commitments can be to churches.
"In our church we may have 1,700 people on the church role, but a Sunday attendance of 1,100." He outlines. "That means there are around 600 people who have a nominal commitment to our ministry."
Mr Barnett is the evangelism director of St Paul's Anglican Church in Castle Hill.
The parish offers a number of key services that bring nominal Anglicans in contact with the church, including dedications, baptisms, marriages and funerals but the key, Mr Barnett says, is relationship.
"With an established church like ours that has a long term connection to youth ministries, we can have a connection with people two decades on who are coming back because they've got married and are having babies," he explains.
"Often what we'll find is that they know someone and if we're going to connect with these people it will be that relational connection. We're going to have to love them back into the kingdom."
Bishop Forsyth says many churches in the Sydney Diocese are using similar ministries to connect with people who have a passing association with the Christian or Anglican labels.
"However many churches have given up on such ministry; they are in fact anti-nominal and have raised the bar, requiring people to do certain things to receive a pastoral service," he says.
"People are being encouraged to pay attention to the whole parish and not just those in church, which is a return to an older way of thinking," he adds.
Mr Barnett says Anglican churches will have to learn to become more flexible if the diocese is going to cope with the challenges rising nominalism and "no religion' responses represent.
"We are far too slow to respond. We have a certain way of doing things established over decades but w e are not moving as quickly as we could in a changing world," he says.
"There is nothing wrong with the message but the way we respond has got to change. We need more entrepreneurs, new innovations. We talk about Jesus but we are very poor in observable reality."
