Posted on 01/04/2007 1:53:48 PM PST by dangus
Much has been made of The Episcopal Church's gradual but steep decline in membership. But membership isn't the most useful statistic; in a church where most members have become inactive, counting members is mostly counting former congregants, not current ones. Membership is the statistic that is easiest to get valid, but it is very misleading.
"Worshipping members" is a far more useful statistic, but harder to get... for most denominations. However, The Episcopal Church does keep records of Sunday attendance. And these statistics show most clearly what a tragic turn of events the gay-bishop controversy has been, for The Episcopal Church had been experiencing a bit of a rebound. Given the vast numbers of aging, disaffected Episcopalians, the rebound had not created a turnaround in total members, but it had created an increase in attendence:
Between 1994 and 2001, the Average Sunday Attendance had increased from 828,514 to 858,566, an increase of 3.7%. But from 2002, the year before the election of homosexual Bishop Vicky Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, to 2004, the last year for which data was available (the year after the election), church attendance dropped a staggering 5.9%.
Particularly troubling was that the reversals were especially severe in the more conservative diocese. The Diocese of Texas' attendance went up from 26,603 to 31,645, but back down to 29,993. Fort Worth's went from 6,997 to 7,474 to 7,195. (Dallas' continued to increase, from 12,639 to 15,389.) San Joaquin went from 4,373 to 4,693 (in 2000) to 4,255. Pittsburgh went from 7,957 (in 1996) to 8,745 to 7,994.
(Excerpt) Read more at episcopalchurch.org ...
fascinating stats. Interesting thing to me was the growth in South Carolina and Tennessee.
Yes... 25% growth in such a short span of time is quite amazing...
I wonder if the aging hippies that run TEC, Inc. didn't manufacture the crisis just to retain control. They not have 99% of the money and land, no foreign missions to worry about, and most of the annuities and grants... but they got rid of those pesky growth churches.
not= now
ping?
Particularly troubling was that the reversals were especially severe in the more conservative diocese.
Man this was a difficult thing to read..........
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