Relentless Decline Of The US Episcopal Church Continues

Sep 23, 2016 by Jill

by Ruth Gledhill, Christian Today:

The US Episcopal Church has lost nearly ten per cent of its members in just five years, latest figures show.

Large falls in church membership began at the start of this millennium. Statistics from 2015 show a drop-off of more than 37,000 baptised members, a fall of 2.1 per cent.

This takes the total Episcopal Church membership to a new low of fewer than 1.8 million. Just four years earlier, in 2011, there were more than 1.9 million.

While nearly a quarter of churches grew by more than 10 per cent from 2011 to 2014, this was offset by the larger number – four in ten – that lost 10 per cent or more of their members over the same period.

The statistics have been analysed by Jeffrey Walton of Juicy Ecumenism who writes that the latest figures are consistent with past years. “Dioceses in New England, the Rust Belt and predominantly rural areas post sharp declines, while dioceses in the South either retain their numbers or decline at a more gradual rate.”

There were large membership declines in dioceses including New York, Newark, Maryland and Iowa.

However there was also growth in several dioceses including Central Florida, North Dakota, Hawaii, Nevada and Fort Worth.

More than seven in ten of Episcopal Church parishes attract fewer than 100 people to Sunday services.

Walton writes: “The trend lines do not bode well for the future, with 55 per cent of congregations experiencing decline of 10 per cent or greater in the past five years. In contrast, only 18 per cent of congregations grew their attendance by 10 per cent in the same time span. As a whole, the denomination has experienced a 26 per cent drop in attendance since 2005.”

[…] The report acknowledges that most conservative, evangelical and sectarian religious bodies have been growing while mainline denominations have been in decline since the mid-1960s. It also notes that the more Sunday services that are held, the more likely a church is to grow.

Read here

Read also: Episcopal Church Continues Uninterrupted Decline by Jeffrey Walton, Juicy Ecumenism