Refresher on stewardship and such

From Billy Ockham [boldface mine]:

In the year of my birth the population of the United States was 180,671,158. The membership of the Episcopal Church was 3,444,000. In 2006 (the last year we have current figures for) the population of the United States was 296,410,404. The membership of the Episcopal Church was 2,205,376.

I know most Episcopalian loyalists are going, "Ok, we lost 1,200,000 people in 45 years." That is where you are wrong. The population of the US grew by 64% in that time. The membership of the Episcopal Church ought to be 5,650,000. We lost 3,444,000 members. We lost 3/5's of our numbers. Where did they go? In a church that says everyone is special, everyone is important, everyone has a place, why are they not missed? . . .

Read it all.
H/t to Still on Patrol.

Mainline churches continue to shrink; Mormons grow

From the Bible Belt Blogger:

The National Council of Churches has released its list of the 25 largest denominations in the U.S. The group cautions against reading too much into its findings that all of the largest liberal Protestant churches are losing members. . .

Read it all.

And from his link to the National Council of Churches:

The Yearbook ranks the 25 largest churches by membership. Only three of the top 10 – the United Methodist Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Presbyterian Church (USA) – are "mainline" Protestant churches.

By far the largest church in the U.S. is still the Roman Catholic Church, numbering 67 million members. The others in the top three are the Southern Baptist Convention (16.3 million) and the United Methodist Church (nearly 8 million).

Jehovah's Witnesses, who rank 25th in size among U.S. churches, reported the largest increase in membership since the publication of the 2007 Yearbook : 2.25 percent, with 1,069,530 members. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints grew 1.56 percent to 5,779,316 members.

Other bodies in the top 25 churches that reported membership increases were the Southern Baptist Convention (0.22 percent, to 16,306,246 members), the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (0.21 percent to 1,443,405 members) the Roman Catholic Church (0.87 percent to 67,515,016 members) and the Assemblies of God (0.19 percent to 2,836,174 members).

All other communions in the top 25 said they lost members or reported no increases or decreases. . .

From the list of top 25, ECUSA is ranked 15 (same as last year) with inclusive membership of 2,154,572, a decrease of -4.15% from last year.

Show me the numbers

From TitusOneNine, lots of info on ECUSA's membership and attendance decline. One of the more striking graphs shows attendance percentage change from 2000 to 2006.

Update: Oops. The Y axis on this graph should be labeled "% change", not "members". Sorry we didn't catch that before we posted it.

2006 Episcopal Church data released

According to the churchwide Parochial Report data, membership in all 110 dioceses of the Episcopal Church totaled 2,320,506 in 2006, down 2.2%, or 51,502, from 2,372,008 in 2005. Average Sunday attendance for 2006 was reported at 804,688, down 2.6%, or 21,856, from 826,544 in 2005.
H/t to TitusOneNine.

In 5 years, Episcopal Church attendance drops 10.9%

From the Bible Belt Blogger:

Between 2001 and 2006, average Sunday attendance at Episcopal churches in the United States has fallen nearly 11 percent.

This is an estimate, based on preliminary 2006 numbers and a few 2005 numbers:
For 2006, U.S. membership should be about 2,156,043.

Average Sunday Attendance in the U.S. should be about 764,660.

The actual numbers will vary slightly. Here's why. The above estimate is based on the (flawed) assumption that 2006 membership and average Sunday attendance in Haiti, the Virgin Islands, Europe, Micronesia and Taiwan mirrored the 2005 membership and average attendance in those countries. That won't be the case.

If membership and attendance climbed in those countries, it means the U.S. losses will be even greater. However, if membership and attendance declined, it means the above estimate overstates U.S. losses.

Read it all.

Losses accelerated for Episcopal Church in 2006

From the Bible Belt Blogger:

Membership in the Episcopal Church dropped by 48,971 to 2,320,506 during 2006, according to preliminary statistics from the denomination's research office. Overall membership dropped roughly 2.1 percent, from 2,369,477 in 2005.

Average Sunday attendance dropped 26,018 to 804,688 from 830,706 in 2005. If I'm doing the math right, that's a 3.1 percent decline.

By comparison, membership in 2005 dropped 35,688 from 2004 levels. Attendance fell only 2,966 between 2004 and 2005.

CAUTION: These are preliminary statistics. The final statistics will likely be released later this month.

Also, keep in mind that these statistics are for all Episcopal churches around the world, not just those in the United States. If this is like past years, the statistical picture in the U.S. will be worse than the overall picture. [In 2005, for example, attendance and membership in Episccopal churches outside the U.S. actually increased, while the U.S. based parishes and missions were suffering losses.]

Check it out.
H/t to TitusOneNine. And additional info on overseas versus domestic numbers from elf girl:

These stats initially were confusing to me, as they seemed too high. We’ve gotten used to seeing a figure below 800K for 2005 ASA. The trick is that USUALLY the articles we see focusing on ECUSA stats are only talking about the 100 domestic dioceses.

Here’s the RedBook data for 2005 http://www.episcopalchurch.org/documents/2005_Red_Book_Table_of_Statistics_by_Prov_Diocese.pdf

ASA (domestic dioceses) of 787,271
Overseas ASA of 43,435
Total ASA of 830,706

Foreign dioceses have generally been GROWING while Domestic dioceses have been shrinking. See these links:
http://www.standfirminfaith.com/index.php/site/article/1839
http://standfirminfaith.com/media/ECUSA_Data_Domestic_v_Foreign2.xls
http://standfirminfaith.com/media/non_domestic_data2.xls

So, I think it would be better in the analysis above to separate out the two, as ECUSA itself does:
Domestic.
Overseas.
Total.
I think including the overseas data here is masking a steeper drop in domestic data.
--elfgirl