Millions connect with Church of England’s Christmas campaign as parishes invite communities to share the joy

Image by Jim Cox

Churches all over England are preparing to welcome millions through their doors this Christmas, with record numbers of services registered. 

Meanwhile, new figures suggest nearly one in two UK adults will attend a service or event in 2025.

Traffic to AChurchNearYou.com (ACNY), the Church’s national church-finder, is surging, with public hits reaching 891,000 yesterday, up from 743,000 on 7 December (around 20 per cent week-on-week increase). 

Over the last weekend alone, Church of England content recorded 1,393,467 video views, 95,650 engagements, including 5,707 clicks (mainly to ACNY) and 7,432 shares.

The recently published Christmas isn’t cancelled video has been seen nearly 2 million times across social media, generating 125,000 likes, comments and shares - far above industry averages. Related posts reached 2,413,574 impressions.

ACNY data shows parishes are stepping up activities to welcome their communities with 6,870 services tagged ‘Advent’ (already ahead of last year’s final 6,658), 23,147 services tagged ‘Christmas’, set to comfortably surpass last year’s total of 23,525.

Resources created by the national Church for local parishes to use for free are being used across the country, with 49,326 downloads of Advent and Christmas materials from the ACNY Resource Hub, helping churches invite and prepare.

Since 1 November, 5,403 services/events have been added to calendars and 2,196 shared via social media or email, signalling strong intent to attend locally. Looking ahead, there’s a 91 per cent increase in Candlemas services from last year and a 23 per cent increase in ‘Blue Christmas’ services compared to 2024.

This surge reflects an apparent wider national trend. New polling this week found that nearly one in two UK adults (45 per cent) plan to attend a church event or service this Christmas, up from 40 per cent last year, drawn by tradition, atmosphere and spiritual reflection. The polling was carried out by Savanta on behalf of the charity, Tearfund.

The engagement builds on the Church of England’s Joy of Christmas campaign, which offers videos, reflections and devotional content for people of all backgrounds - whether exploring faith for the first time or looking to deepen their discipleship. 

The campaign also features the Church of England’s first-ever Christmas picture book, The Grumpy Owl and Joy of Christmas, with its animated version already viewed more than 12,000 times on YouTube.