Why the Statistics for Mission Form?
Thank you for your time and commitment in preparing and submitting the annual Statistics for Mission form.
This Statistics for Mission form is a snapshot of church attendance and church life. It captures our attendance at the major festivals, a detailed October count, all our Fresh Expressions of church and our missional activities, our occasional offices and more.
The data in this Form is used extensively in our own diocese to support parishes. It is also sent to London and included in national church statistics. All the information, past and present, is available to parishes in a few ways. Check out the Parish Dashboards page for more.
When do we complete Statistics for Mission?
The Statistics for Mission form collects a range of attendance data for the previous calendar year. The Form is available online from early autumn each year and as a download from bottom of this page from the end of November each year.
The deadline for submission is the 31st January each year and please do try to meet this deadline. However, in practice the Parish Returns website for Statistics for Mission returns usually remains open until mid-March.
How to complete: Parish Returns online
By far the best way to make your Statistics for Mission return is to prepare and submit the data online at the Church of England’s Parish Returns website. You’ll need to set up a free account and login the first time you use the website. In Larger Single Parishes check in with your Support Services team for the local process. For guidance see the Parish Returns: online page.
The online form is available from early-autumn which means you can complete the majority of the Form early doors: Easter attendance, the October count, a Fresh Expressions, missional activities, schools engagement and more.
The online form can be completed over a period of time. You can enter data, add more later and change your data as much as you need to. Once you click Submit you won’t be able to enter or amend your data.
However, if you need to add data or make changes you can ask the diocesan officers at St James’ House to make the changes for you right up to the submission deadline – in fact there is a short window after the deadline when changes can still be made. After that, diocesan staff can request changes to London on your behalf.
Make life easier: use the Service Register App
If churches make full use of the Service Register App you can pull down your data via the Parish returns website. This will populate two thirds of the Statistics for Mission form at the click of a button.
- For step by step guidance on how to download your App data to Parish Returns click here.
- Check out the Service Register app page for more information and guidance.
Downloading the Statistics for Mission Form
If you can’t use the online Parish Returns website don’t despair. A PDF and MS Word version of the Statistics for Mission form is available to download from the 1st December each year, if not earlier. The downloads are at the bottom of this page.
Handy to know:
- When the Parish Returns deadline passes you won’t be able to submit your Statistics for Mission form online. Instead please use the download forms below and return to St James’ House. The parish support teams will forward electronic (or paper) returns to London. The stats team in London enter your data onto Parish Returns so it is readily available for your church.
- Please DO NOT download forms from Parish Returns. These are not the correct forms for Liverpool!
- If you miss the submission deadlines we still need your forms, however late. If you don’t send a return the Statistics Unit in London use an algorithm to generate data for your parish. It will be decent data – but your real data is always better.
Downloads
Please email completed MS Word documents to the resources.team@liverpool.anglican.org at St James’ House.
Paper returns from the printable PDF forms can be posted back to the Resources Team at:
St James’ House
20 St James’ Road
Liverpool
L1 7BY.
Help and Advice
For further advice and support call 0151 705 2180 or email: resources.team@liverpool.anglican.org