Worth Abbey Parish Survey, May 2005 Results

Research Method 20 depth interviews, covering monastic community, clergy from other local churches, parishioners 101 telephone interviews with representative sample of people on parish list Dates: 14 – 26 May 2005

Parish Profile

Age group Well over half of parishioners are 55+ years old

Gender Predominance of women in parish – not so marked in villages (55% v 45%) as amongst those who travel to Worth from other areas

Children under 18 yrs old at home? Nearly half of those < 55 years old have children under 18 living at home

Frequency of attending liturgy at Worth Is it a surprise to find that fewer than 3 in 5 attend Mass every week?

Which liturgies do we attend? Naturally, there is overlap here. Older age groups are more likely than year-olds to have been to 8am or 11.30am liturgies, or to Office

Where we come from 20% Crawley Down 11% Turner’s Hill 9% Balcombe 7% West Hoathly 60% of women compared to 42% of men come from outside the geographic bounds of the parish

How long it takes to get to Worth Abbey Average journey time is just over 15 minutes

How the association started Since only 47% now live in the parish area, presumably others used to, since 67% say that it was through living nearby that they first came to Worth Abbey

How long have people been coming to Worth? 3 in 4 have been associated with Worth Abbey for longer than 10 years Another 10% have been parishioners for 6-10 years, and 11% for 3-5 years Only 4% have started to come within the past 2 years

Opinions of the parish

How is ‘parish’ defined? All the people who feel that the parish is within geographic boundaries do themselves live in one of the villages

Perception of Worth Abbey parish Agreement/disagreement with statements which were read out to them

Relative importance of various aspects of parish life Key elements are: Pastoral care within the (geographic) parish (particularly important to year-olds) Involvement of young people in parish life (important to all groups) Christian learning for young people (especially among parents) Next come: Pastoral care outside the parish Outreach to those in need Shared worship with other churches Liturgy appropriate to an Abbey Church Christian learning for adults

Relative importance of various aspects of parish life Finally: Prayer/meditation/lectio groups etc Opportunities to participate in the Liturgy (e.g. as server) Ecumenical social occasions Evangelisation at local level Offering a choice of liturgies to suit the preferences of different people

Relative importance of various aspects of parish life (% saying very important) Less frequent attendees attach less importance to all these aspects

Rating of various aspects of parish life (Average score out of 4) The best-regarded aspects tend to be the ‘less important’ ones Liturgy appropriate to an Abbey church (3.65) Prayer/lectio/meditation groups etc (3.62) Opportunities to participate in the Liturgy, e.g. as server (3.53) The most important aspects tend to be not so well-rated overall: Involvement of young people in parish life (3.09) Christian learning for young (3.37) Pastoral care within the parish (3.49) and outside the parish (3.54)

Rating of various aspects of parish life (Average score out of 4) Between these were a raft of aspects fairly well rated but few had been ranked amongst most important Pastoral care within the parish (3.49) and outside the parish (3.54) Christian learning for adults (3.57) Shared worship with other churches (3.45) Outreach to those in need (3.40) Ecumenical social occasions (3.35) Evangelisation at local level (3.36) Offering a choice of liturgies to suit the preferences of different people (3.23)