Churches and Covid19

During the COVID19 pandemic, churches were forced to close, putting much of the social good that they provide on hold. In May 2020, we carried out two online surveys, to understand the effect of closing churches and what people value about them.

‘Churches and the community’ asked churches about how being closed affected the ways in which they were able to support local people. ‘Attitudes to reopening and future use’ asked the general public about how and when they thought churches could be used after the pandemic.

Read a summary of the findings here

Summary of the findings

Churches and the community 

• Churches have been able to respond to the needs of local people during the lockdown. Around 34% of churches say they have been able to fully continue their existing support, and around 55% say they have continued partially. This means that a vast majority, around 89%, of churches are continuing to provide some form of support.
• Churches have set up a wide range of new community support services and forms of worship during the COVID-19 lockdown. The top five new activities are: making contact with isolated or vulnerable people, online worship, telephone befriending, shopping and/or delivery of shopping or essential supplies and online support groups.
• The closure of church buildings has had a negative impact. Around 75% of churches taking part in the survey say that closing their church during the lockdown has had a negative effect on the community and around 16% say they don’t know if it has.
• Churches will be important to the local community in the future. 64% of respondents think churches will become more important in the future as a result of COVID-19.
• Once they are open again, churches say that people are most looking forward to togetherness/companionship, closely followed by religious service and being able to gather together in the building again. Using a weighted average on a scale of 1-5, 5 being the highest, companionship/togetherness came out with a score of 4.89, religious services 4.41 and being in the building again 4.14. 

Attitudes to reopening and future use 

• 49% of UK adults agreed that churches and chapels should have be allowed to open earlier than July 2020, as was planned at the time of the poll, as long as they could maintain social distancing.
• Respondents said that the four most important uses for churches after the pandemic would be providing a place where those who died as a result of the coronavirus can be remembered (46%), providing a place for quiet reflection or private prayer (44%), holding occasions such as weddings, funerals and baptisms (42%), and providing community support services (39%).
• Two in five UK adults who don't consider themselves to belong to any religious groups say that providing a place for remembering where those who died as a result of the coronavirus can be remembered (41%) and providing community support services (41%) would be the top two most important functions for churches and chapels when they re-opened after the coronavirus lockdown.
• Women were significantly more likely than men to rate each of the following within their top three: providing a place where those who died as a result of the coronavirus can be remembered (49% vs. 43% respectively), providing a place for quiet reflection or private prayer (46% vs. 41% respectively), providing community support services (41% vs. 37% respectively).