Posted on 03/30/2006 9:45:17 PM PST by dangus
The National Council of Churches' have just reported church membership for the 2006 yearbook. It's quite an interesting picture:
The Catholic Church is the largest and numerically fastest growing church in America, with 67.8 million members, a growth of about 563,000 members.
Many non-denominational churches, not listed in the report, have been growing rapidly in the recent past.
Proportionally, the fastest growing church in America is the Assemblies of God, (10th largest) growing at a 1.81% rate, by adding 50,000 members. That's over twice the growth rate of the Catholic church, but 1/10th of the increase in members of the Catholic Church, because the Assemblies of God is only 4% of the size of the Catholic Church, having 2.78 million members
The Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints, (4th largest) with nearly twice (6.0 million) members of the Assemblies of God had nearly the same growth rate, 1.74%.
Looking quickly, one might mistakenly think the Orthodox Church in America (24th largest) is growing amazingly quickly. The Council reports 6.4% more members than it reported last year, but this is the first update in many years. Previously, the Orthodox Church in America had reported simply the same rough estimate year after year: 1 million.
Meanwhile, the Council reported the Greek Orthodox Church (17th largest) as having 1.5 million members; the church doesn't report annually, but just a few years ago, it had nearly 2 million members. Of course, that report itself was quite old, so the decline isn't that amazingly fast. Still, unless there is rapid, unforeseen growth in the smaller Orthodox congregations, it means that overall, the Orthodox Church is likely declining, and what few Orthodox are remaining are switching to the more generic Orthodox church.
Many of the Protestant churches in decline are probably no surprise: United Methodist, 3rd largest, down 0.79% to 8.186 million; Evangelical Lutheran, 7th largest, down 1.09% to 4.93 million; Presbyterian Church (USA), 9th largest, down 1.6% to 3.19 million; Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, 14th, down 1.01% to 2.464 million; Episcopal, 15th, down 1.55% to 2.28 million*; American Baptist, down 0.57% to 1.433 million; and, with the fastest collapse of them all, the United Church of Christ, which has made a strong push to present itself as gay-friendly, dropped 2.48% to only 1.266 million.
What may be surprisin are some of the other denominations in decline. Southern Baptists (2nd) are down again, 1.05% to 16.3 million; and Jehovah's Witnesses, (25th) which were growing just last year, dropped a significant 1.07% to 1.03 million.
Five Baptist conventions, mostly black, (ranked 6th, 12th, 13th, 20th, and 22nd) report very old, and very suspect numbers. Totalled, they would be well over 16 million, but they are believed to actually have far, far fewer members, clinging for political purposes to very old, very rough estimates.
Amazingly, not one of the 25 largest denominations in America was a growing Protestant denomination, except for the Assemblies of God which are not always counted as Protestant.
Combined, the 13 reporting churches had a total membership of 118.7 million. The memberships claimed most recently by the 12 churches that did not issue new reports a combined membership of about 30 million, but is probably closer to 20 million. Even with the very possibly significantly exaggerated estimates of these churches included, however, there are now more members in America of the Catholic Church than in all of the 19 Protestant denominations in the top 25 denominations combined!
[*The National Council of Churches reports 2,463,747 members of the Episcopal Church. This is, however, exactly the same number of members reported by the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, the next largest church, and it creates a data conflict with last years' numbers. The number used last years' numbers as a baseline, and subtracted this years' reported decline. Also, the Episcopal church is not counted among the 17 Protestant denominations, following the practice of the National Council of Churches, the Encyclopedia Britannica, the World Almanac, and many other references.]
I don't know much about the Assemblies of God church but why wouldn't they be considered Protestant???
I don't know either. I know why LDS aren't... but Assemblies of God is a wierd one. Maybe they simply reject the label?
That about 100 per church that is the average of a non dom church.
Ping
we try
"It all depends where you are."
In Virginia as well. Most Roman Catholic churches in Virginia are pretty big and filled up these days. However, the eastern Catholic churches are tiny.
I was in a Chicago north side Catholic Church and School that changed to Spanish (along with the neighborhood)in the 1970s.
Both the neighborhood and the Church and School went to heck in about 10 years. Now, the Church closed, the neighborhood is yuppified.
The countries? No.
My point is more that the immigrants aren't much for living according to the moral teachings of the Catholic Church. That's one of the things, as well as the oppressive political structures, that they come here to escape. Unmarried couples shacked up, changing partners when things get difficult, children with different fathers, typical sort of thing you see when sexual license is part of the life they choose. Not all, but many. Just like Americans. Escaping the structure of family and church is among the motivations for some.
I would question these figures. The lack of nondems leaves a gigantic whole in the number series, and I am not sure that the SBC has lost members.
I don't see any entry for Pentecostals either, who are growing rapidly, particularly among Hispanics.
I would suggest that this study is incomplete.
My bad, the Pentecostals were mentioned as a fast growing church.
I'm still not comfortable with this methodology.
Barna is very strict evangelical and even a lot of evangelical Christians would not pass the Barna criteria of "what is a Christian?". I would imagine Catholic and mainline Protestant churches (especially Anglican/Episcopal and Lutheran) would have issues with Barna at the definitional level.
The poroblem wioth this study is that it tests for church membership. Apparently many churhces now do not have formal membership. If you come you are a member, but possibly no formal rolls are kept. IIRC, Joel Osteens church is one of those that doesn't keep a mambership list.
A more accurate methodoligy would be to test average attendance. It would give you a much better feel for the size of the congregations.
No, that's not correct for us Catholics. It is - from my admitted limited understanding - the case with LDS, the Witnesses and other "new" churches.
Bingo.
The Catholic parishes I attended in Minnesota and Wisconsin were dying...as were the schools. In North Carolina (where I lived six years ago) and here in San Antonio, we have booming standing-room-only Mass attendance and rapidly expanding Catholic schools.
"...what few Orthodox are remaining are switching to the more generic Orthodox church..." "Generic" Orthodox Church?? Exactly what Church does this refer to?
""...what few Orthodox are remaining are switching to the more generic Orthodox church..." "Generic" Orthodox Church?? Exactly what Church does this refer to?"
I can't imagine what this is supposed to mean. Orthodoxy is growing fast, not with new imigrants but with converts, mostly from ECUSA and fundamentalist and evangelical Protestants.
"Meanwhile, the Council reported the Greek Orthodox Church (17th largest) as having 1.5 million members; the church doesn't report annually, but just a few years ago, it had nearly 2 million members. Of course, that report itself was quite old, so the decline isn't that amazingly fast. Still, unless there is rapid, unforeseen growth in the smaller Orthodox congregations, it means that overall, the Orthodox Church is likely declining, and what few Orthodox are remaining are switching to the more generic Orthodox church."
Back in the Spyridon era the Archdiocese put out that there were 3,000,000 Orthodox in the GOA. It was bunk designed to make the numbers of insurgents look small and create an aura of great authority in the hands of that very failed Archbishop. There have been about 1,500,000 GOA communicants for some years now, with, as I have said, some good growth the past 6 years or so. The other Orthodox jurisdictions here, especially the Antiochians, are growing too, again with converts from Protestantism.
Dear John 6.66=Mark of the Beast?,
"I knew Catholics, Methodist, Nazarenes, and many more who had left the denominations because of their stance on the in filling of the Holy Spirit."
The Catholic Church officially recognizes and accepts the Charismatic Renewal within the Church. The Church as so recognized and accepted the Renewal for at least 30 years or more.
Although some Catholics with issues may use the Renewal as an excuse to leave the Catholic Church, they do not, in honesty, leave the Catholic Church because of her stance vis-a-vis the Renewal.
sitetest
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