New statistics published by the Church of England last week have revealed a welcome rise in the number of clergy being trained and ordained as the Church of England ordained 505 new clergy in 2005, the highest number since 2002.

At the same time, 578 future clergy were recommended in 2005 for ordination training, maintaining the upward trend since the mid-'90s. In 1994, 408 candidates were recommended for training.
The Church of England has also enjoyed a rise in average weekly giving as the latest statistics showed that parishioners gave out on average of £5 a week in 2004 - a pleasant surprise at a time of financial uncertainty for many churches in the UK.

As average weekly giving increased, tax-efficient giving also increased as the number of subscribers to Gift-Aid increased to a record 518,000, bringing the average to £8 per subscriber per week.

"Achieving £5 a week is quite a milestone and shows that church members give generously to charitable causes compared with the population at large," said John Preston, the Church's National Stewardship and Resources Officer.

"But it is still somewhere short of the five per cent of disposable income recommended by the General Synod since 1978. Average giving to the church is now just over three per cent of average incomes.

"The five per cent aim was based on the Christian tradition of tithing or giving away 10 per cent of income and the recommendation was to give half of that to the Church in thanks for God's gifts and half to other charitable works."

Meanwhile, the latest statistics on the Church of England revealed a one per cent drop in regular Sunday worship - largely offsetting a similar increase the previous year. But weekly and monthly churchgoing held steady and the number of children and young people at services rose by two per cent.

The current figures confirm that around 1.2 million people attend Church of England and cathedral worship on Sunday or during the week and one million dedicate themselves to church worship each Sunday.