Celebrating 150 Years of the Parish Magazine

Commendation from the Archbishop of Canterbury

The Church of England is big in publishing, but not just in the world of books and liturgy. Most of the Church’s 13,000 parishes produce some sort of magazine, and even if each issue could muster only 100 readers, that would give a total combined circulation larger than The Times, The Guardian and The Independent together. But we can be confident that the readership of parish magazines is much larger than that - particularly as some 1.7 million people attend a Church of England church each month.

A good parish magazine is a wonderful resource that places the local church at the heart of the community it serves. They are the most widely read Christian publications in the country - and many people are likely to read them without ever setting foot inside a church.

As we celebrate the parish magazine in its modern form, marking the 150^th anniversary of Erskine Clarke’s launch of The Parish Magazine in 1859, we owe our gratitude to all those who labour lovingly to produce this regular shop-window for their church or parish.  As a team or solo, with a generous budget or an alarmingly fraying shoestring, this is a ministry we need to recognise and to support.

+Rowan Cantuar