According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s figures, Montana has grown in population from 902,195 in 2000 to 974,989 in 2009. This represents a population growth of approximately 8.07%.

According to Episcopal Church statistics, the Diocese of Montana went from Average Sunday Attendance (or ASA) of 2,273 in 1998 to 1,827 in 2008. This represents an ASA decline of about 20% over this ten year period.

In order to generate a pictorial chart of some Montana diocesan statistics, please go [url=http://www.episcopalchurch.org/growth_60791_ENG_HTM.htm?menupage=50929]here[/url] and enter “Montana” in the second line down under “Diocese” and then click on “View Diocese Chart” under the third line to the left.

The Diocese of Montana’s website may be found here.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s figures, Montana has grown in population from 902,195 in 2000 to 974,989 in 2009. This represents a population growth of approximately 8.07%.

According to Episcopal Church statistics, the Diocese of Montana went from Average Sunday Attendance (or ASA) of 2,273 in 1998 to 1,827 in 2008. This represents an ASA decline of about 20% over this ten year period.

In order to generate a pictorial chart of some Montana diocesan statistics, please go [url=http://www.episcopalchurch.org/growth_60791_ENG_HTM.htm?menupage=50929]here[/url] and enter “Montana” in the second line down under “Diocese” and then click on “View Diocese Chart” under the third line to the left.

The Diocese of Montana’s website may be found here.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s figures, Rhode Island has grown in population from 1,048,319 in 2000 to 1,053,209 in 2009. This represents a population growth of approximately 0.47%.

According to Episcopal Church statistics, the Diocese of Rhode Island went from Average Sunday Attendance (or ASA) of 8,174 in 1998 to 6,078 in 2008. This represents an ASA decline of about 26% over this ten year period.

In order to generate a pictorial chart of some Rhode Island diocesan statistics, please go [url=http://www.episcopalchurch.org/growth_60791_ENG_HTM.htm?menupage=50929]here[/url] and enter “Rhode Island” in the second line down under “Diocese” and then click on “View Diocese Chart” under the third line to the left.

The Diocese of Rhode Island’s website may be found here.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s figures, Oregon has grown in population from 3,421,399 in 2000 to 3,825,657 in 2009. This represents a population growth of approximately 11.82%.

According to Episcopal Church statistics, the Diocese of Oregon went from Average Sunday Attendance (or ASA) of 7,553 in 1998 to 6,924 in 2008. This represents an ASA decline of about 8% over this ten year period.

In order to generate a pictorial chart of some Oregon diocesan statistics, please go [url=http://www.episcopalchurch.org/growth_60791_ENG_HTM.htm?menupage=50929]here[/url] and enter “Oregon” in the second line down under “Diocese” and then click on “View Diocese Chart” under the third line to the left.

The Diocese of Oregon’ website may be found here.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s figures, Arkansas has grown in population from 2,673,400 in 2000 to 2,889,450 in 2009. This represents a population growth of approximately 8.08%.

According to Episcopal Church statistics, the Diocese of Arkansas went from Average Sunday Attendance (or ASA) of 5,349 in 1998 to 4,684 in 2008. This represents an ASA decline of about 12% over this ten year period.

In order to generate a pictorial chart of some Arkansas diocesan statistics, please go [url=http://www.episcopalchurch.org/growth_60791_ENG_HTM.htm?menupage=50929]here[/url] and enter “Arkansas” in the second line down under “Diocese” and then click on “View Diocese Chart” under the third line to the left.

The Diocese of Arkansas’ website may be found here.

In order to generate a pictorial chart of this parish, please go [url=http://www.episcopalchurch.org/growth_60791_ENG_HTM.htm?menupage=50929]here[/url] and enter “Iowa” in the second line down under “Diocese.” Next please wait a moment and then click on “Church” and choose “Trinity (Davenport, Iowa).” Then wait another moment and choose “View Church chart” under that line (the middle of the three choices).

You may find the parish website here.

Check it out (our thanks to a blog reader).

According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s figures, Nevada has grown in population from 1,998,257 in 2000 to 2,643,085 in 2009. This represents a population growth of approximately 32.7%.

According to Episcopal Church statistics, the Diocese of Nevada went from Average Sunday Attendance (or ASA) of 2,338 in 1998 to 2,127 in 2008. This represents an ASA decline of about 9% over this ten year period.

In order to generate a pictorial chart of some Nevada diocesan statistics, please go [url=http://www.episcopalchurch.org/growth_60791_ENG_HTM.htm?menupage=50929]here[/url] and enter “Nevada” in the second line down under “Diocese” and then click on “View Diocese Chart” under the third line to the left.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s figures, Iowa has grown in population from 2,926,324 in 2000 to 3,007,856 in 2009. This represents a population growth of approximately 2.8%.

According to Episcopal Church statistics, the Diocese of Iowa went from Average Sunday Attendance (or ASA) of 4,182 in 1998 to 3,193 in 2008. This represents an ASA decline of about 24% over this ten year period.

A pictorial chart of some Iowa diocesan statistics may be found here.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s figures, West Virginia has grown in population from 1,808,344 in 2000 to 1,819,777 in 2009. This represents a population growth of approximately 0.6%.

According to Episcopal Church statistics, the Diocese of West Virginia went from Average Sunday Attendance (or ASA) of 4,304 in 1998 to 3,279 in 2008. This represents an ASA decline of about 24% over this ten year period.

A pictorial chart of some West Virginia diocesan statistics may be found here.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s figures, Vermont has grown in population from 608,827 in 2000 to 621,760 in 2009. This represents a population growth of approximately 2.1%.

According to Episcopal Church statistics, the Diocese of Vermont went from Average Sunday Attendance (or ASA) of 3,280 in 1998 to 2,765 in 2008. This represents an ASA decline of about 16% over this ten year period.

A pictorial chart of some Vermont diocesan statistics may be found here.

In the mainline churches, which is what I know best, the political views leaders express are generally those of what could be called the ”˜foundation left’ ”” emotionally grounded in concern for the poor and development, historically linked to the ”˜new left’ mix of economic and social concerns as developed in the 1960’s, shaped by an atmosphere of privilege and entitlement that reflects the upper middle class background of the educated professionals who run these institutions. The social sins they deplore are those of the right: excessive focus on capitalism, too robust and unheeding a promotion of the American national and security interest abroad, insufficient care for the environment, failure to help the poor through government welfare programs, failure to support affirmative action, failure to celebrate and protect the unrestricted right of women to abort. I am of course speaking very generally here and there are lots of individual exceptions, but many of these folks are generally tolerant of theological differences and rigidly intolerant when it comes to political differences: they care nothing at all about doctrines like predestination but get very angry with people who disagree with them about issues like global warming or immigration reform. Theological heresy is a matter for courtesy and silence, but political heretics fill them with bile….

Let me nail some cyber-theses to the virtual door.

1. Nobody cares what you think while your tiny church is falling apart.

In a diocese not a thousand miles from my home in glamorous Queens, there once was a bishop whose long and public battle with alcoholism rendered him unable to carry out his duties. For years and years this diocese suffered under grievous mismanagement and its rotten condition was an open scandal widely discussed and lamented throughout the national church. Yet in the general shipwreck of his episcopacy, this bishop (or what remained of the diocesan machinery) somehow managed to get ”˜prophetic’ statements out on political causes of various kinds. So far as I know, none of these statements ever had any impact on anyone’s thinking anywhere on Planet Earth.

This poor bishop, now thankfully retired, was an extreme case, but why, exactly, would any sane person today pay attention to the political pronouncements of an Episcopal bishop? Episcopalians are a tiny minority of the population and the church long ago lost its social power and cachet. The Episcopal church today is in the worst condition it has been since the aftermath of the Revolution; its clergy has visibly failed to keep the church together or prevent its ongoing decline. I’m afraid that the penchant to make political pronouncements proceeds less from a true prophetic vocation than from a nostalgia for a time when it mattered what Episcopal bishops thought. In any case, there is nothing more ridiculous than a proprietor of a failing concern who officiously lectures everyone else on how to manage their affairs. Please, for the sake of what remains of the dignity of your office, give it a rest….

Read it all.

Doug LeBlanc, The Living Church: In the ENS (Episcopal News Service) report on Friday, you indicated that the PB spoke about the situation in South Carolina, asking people pray for the people in SC. What change do you hope to see as a result of those prayers?

PB: I want a clear understanding of realities of TEC and don’t want the people of South Carolina to rely on erroneous information, provided by other sources.

Bonnie Anderson: Have heard from several of the deputies from south Carolina. They have a desire for clear and accurate information; prayer all across the church for this situation….

George Conger, reporter at large: to the PB and President: You both expressed receiving erroneous information in SC. What is this erroneous information? Where did it come from?

PB: Episcopalians, like many others who use the internet, seek information that is not subject to peer review [Ed. Note: as information is in academic circles.] They rely on opinion, not fact. The South Carolina representation of our theology and polity as a whole is not accurate. There are stated processes of this Church that are not accurate. I would encourage South Carolinians to ask bodies of TEC that are responsible for these decisions and get their facts straight.

Bonnie Anderson: There is a large influx of information coming from multiple sources. It is really important for people who are going to be voting on something to get accurate information on the issues before them. Fox example, and this is just hypothetical, can a diocese leave TEC? What is the process for that concern? What have we agreed to in the General Convention over the years with regard to that?

Read it all.

During his statistic-laden hour-long report, Kirk Hadaway, the church’s program officer for congregational research, told the council that congregations grow when they are in growing communities; have a clear mission and purpose; follow up with visitors; have strong leadership; and are involved in outreach and evangelism.

Congregations decline, he said, when their membership is older and predominantly female; are in conflict, particularly over leadership and where worship is “rote, predictable and uninspiring.”

The primary source of the statistics for Hadaway’s report is the canonically required (Canon 1.6.1) information filed annually with diocesan bishops by each congregation. The so-called parochial reports are due by March 1 of the following year. An example of the sort of information gathered is available here. Hadaway analyzed the data received to compile a variety of statistical reports and also cited a variety of surveys of church members that he and others have conducted.

The 2008 parochial reports show overall church membership at 2,225,682 people, with a total average Sunday attendance (ASA) at 747,376. Those totals compare with 2007 membership of 2,285,143 and total ASA at 768,476. The dioceses in the United States saw a 2.8 percent drop in membership and a 3.1 percent decrease in ASA. Overall church membership — including 10 non-U.S. dioceses — was down 2.6 percent and attendance dropped 2.7 percent for the entire church.

Read it all.

She sings the litany. He delivers the sermon.

It is Sunday morning at All Saints Episcopal Church in Sacramento and both the Revs. Michael and Betsey Monnot preside over the worship services, one of several ways the church keeps down expenses.

“We trade off duties every week,” said Betsey Monnot.

The two priests, who are married and have two children and another due in three weeks, said the church could afford one full-time clergyperson. So they agreed to job-share and serve as co-rectors.

“When you’re a small church, you have to be creative,” said Michael Monnot.

Read it all.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s figures, Nebraska has grown in population from 1,711,263 in 2000 to 1,796,619 in 2009. This represents a population growth of approximately 4.75%.

According to Episcopal Church statistics, the Diocese of Nebraska went from Average Sunday Attendance (or ASA) of 4,078 in 1998 to 3,153 in 2008. This represents an ASA decline of about 23% over this ten year period.

A pictorial chart of some Nebraska diocesan statistics may be found here.

Check it out.

Average Sunday Attendance has gone from 7,224 in 1998 to 6,428 in 2008, a decline of some 11%.

…true encouragement comes from honesty before God and self and the strength of purpose to serve in the face of disappointment or uncertainty. Or so it should. I know a young person who sneered at the faith of an Episcopalian ”“ a more conservative person ”“ who chose to leave TEC for another set of ecclesial structures. “You would do such a thing”, this young person said to him: “yours is the generation, after all, who invented no-fault divorce”. In fact, in this case, the complaint was less directed at a purported hypocrite, than at what he perceived to be the witness of an impotent God, unable to garner the sacrificial steadiness of His adherents. But either way, faith is scandalized by those who do not have the strength, nor certainly seek the strength, to stand in the face of upheaval.

I will come back to this at the close of my remarks: honesty need be neither angry, miserable, nor defeatist. It should be the seed for hope, because it is the first and necessary turn to God who alone saves.

What is the difficult thing to speak, honestly? It is this: the Episcopal Church, as it has been known through the past two centuries, is no more, in any substantive sense. TEC is simply no longer the church filled with even the strength of purpose we saw only 10 years ago ”“ yes, even then, a church with a good deal of vital diversity and disagreement; but a seeming sense of restraint over pressing these in ways that overwhelmed witness and mission. And as a result, even then, it was church that was growing in outreach and faith. That church, shimmering still with some of the vibrancy of love spent for the Gospel seen140 years before, even 90 years before, is now gone. And TEC will not survive in any real continuity with this past and its gifts.

This is something we must face. To be sure, I am not speaking here of this or that diocese or bishop or congregation or clergy person within TEC: there are many through whose service the Gospel shines bright and the witness of the Kingdom flourishes. I am speaking of an institution as a whole ”“ not even in terms of its legal corporation, but in terms of its character and Christian substance given flesh in the Spirit’s mission.

Read it all carefully.

I want to stress, please, that people in the comments interact with what Ephraim is arguing for and actually saying. Comments not doing so will be dispacted into the ether. Many thanks–KSH.

Domestic membership in the Episcopal Church dropped by 3 percent in 2008, continuing a decline in which the denomination has lost almost 200,000 American members since 2004, according to Episcopal researchers.

The Episcopal Church now counts slightly more than 2 million members in about 7,000 U.S. parishes. Church leaders say they are pleased, however, that the denomination is growing in its non-domestic dioceses, particularly in Haiti and Latin America, where the church counted about 168,000 members in 470 parishes last year.

Still, the church is “swimming against some difficult cultural tides,” Matilda Kistler, who heads a state-of-the-church committee in the denomination’s House of Deputies, said in a statement.

Read it all.

Yet another commission reports that TEC is in steep decline. We are helped to digest this news with the sweetener that there are good things going on as we decline! So what happened to us?

The extraordinary thing about all this is our fairly sudden and dramatic collapse. The late fifties were a time of growth in numbers, income and “membership” both in England and the US. Over 3 million people in the US identified themselves as Episcopalians. New church plants were on the rise and special shorter courses were established in seminaries to train older men for ordination. For the CofE, things were better than at any time since Victoria died.

I do not for a moment believe that suddenly in the sixties people became less religious or religiously inclined. I do believe that Anglicanism lost its nerve. I do believe that we began to produce a leadership, lay and ordained, that assumed that the voices heard in academia and among the “culture-vultures” reflected the thoughts of most people. Yet the “intelligentsia” of that day ”“ I am not speaking of truly educated people ”“ no more reflected the feelings and thoughts of every day people then than they do now.

We went for a ride with “right thinking” people and still not cannot get it into our heads that these people, what ever their social or political ideals, are a vocal minority.

The vast majority of people were left out of this small company of the self-obsessed.

Read it all.

The 2008 parochial reports show overall church membership at 2,225,682 people, with a total average Sunday attendance (ASA) at 747,376. Those totals compare with 2007 membership of 2,285,143 and total average Sunday attendance 768,476. The dioceses in the United States saw a 2.8 percent drop in membership and a 3.1 percent decrease in ASA. Overall church membership — including 10 non-U.S. dioceses — was down 2.6 percent and attendance dropped 2.7 percent for the entire church.

The median Episcopal Church congregation in 2008 had 164 active members (down four members from 2007) and 69 people in Sunday worship, the same as in the previous year. Membership declines in the Episcopal Church mirror a pattern seen in other Christian denominations. Recent nationwide data shows the median non-Roman Catholic congregation has 75 regular participants at worship on Sundays.

Four domestic Episcopal Church dioceses grew during 2008 in both overall membership and average Sunday attendance: Alabama, Navajoland Area Mission, North Dakota and Wyoming.

Read it all.

The church’s membership, counted as active baptized members, also declined by three per cent, falling by 59,457 to 2,057,292. The rate of decline in attendance and membership also rose last year, with the 10-year rate of decline in attendance rising from 13 to 16 per cent, and the 10-year rate of decline in active membership rising from 10 to 11 per cent.

Fifty per cent of US Episcopal churches saw a decline in attendance last year, while only 35 per cent registered growth. The median average Sunday worship attendance in 2008 was 69.

For the first time the church’s income fell, with recorded “pledge and plate” income falling by 0.2 per cent.

Critics assert the numbers may be overstated as some dioceses have not recorded the secession of breakaway congregations. While the Diocese of San Joaquin recorded a membership drop of almost 8,000, or 77 per cent ”” reflecting the secession of a majority of its congregations, the Diocese of Los Angeles continues to carry St James Newport Beach’s 1,500 members on its books ”” even though the congregation’s fight to quit has already taken the fight to the US Supreme Court.

Read it all.

The Episcopal Church (USA) is no exception to the Law. I submit that all of the outward signs point to a draining from it of people and energy which at the moment is very much greater than what it is managing to attract to itself.

There is no glee to be had here, no Schadenfreude. I am an Episcopalian — a member of a Church that is in free fall, and whose current leadership is a disgrace, as they say, to the profession. Consider the fifty-year trend in its numbers, as vividly portrayed by Bishop FitzSimmons Allison in this brilliant analysis of what that leadership has done wrong — and continues to do wrong, as borne out by the latest figures. Consider the huge drain on its reserves caused by that leadership’s decisions to go to court wherever and whenever they think another parish (or diocese) must be sued for its property.

And last, but by no means least, consider the self-inflicted wounds caused by the Church’s deposition of more than 200 of its clergy in just the last eight years — every one of them unnecessary when simple letters dimissory would have sufficed. Add to this, now, the arrogant and lawless leadership of the Chief Kaitiff (for so I must call her when she acts in this way) — whose respect for the Church’s Canons is as non-existent as is her understanding of them.

Read the whole piece.

Read it carefully and read it all..

Having been tipped that the numbers were being shared with the Executive Council during its Oct. 5-8 meeting, I e-mailed church public affairs officer Neva Rae Fox late Wednesday, Oct. 7, and asked for a “copy of the new ASA and membership figures that were passed out to the Executive Council at this week’s meeting.”

She e-mailed me back that “ASA and membership figures have not been passed out to Exec Council.”

So I e-mailed back: “Perhaps passed out is the wrong word. It’s my understanding that the figures are finished and were shared with the Executive Council this week.”

This morning, she responded: “if so, not yet. nothing has been shared yet.”

That didn’t match what I’d been led to believe by a very reliable source. So I asked Anderson and the Presiding Bishop about the numbers during the press conference. Here’s what they said…

Read it all especially the responses to Mr. Lockwood’s question.

Check it out. Average Sunday attendance in the diocese was 18,698 in 1997 and was 15,933 in 2007; active baptized members were 54,331 in 1997 and were 51,787 in 2007.

–Anglican Church in Ghana, from 100,000 in 1970 to 236,000 in 2000

–Anglican Church of Kenya from 582,600 in 1970 to 3.1 million in 2000

–Anglican Church in Nigeria from 2.914 million in 1970 to 18 million in 2000

–Anglican Church in Rwanda from 161,899 in 1970 to 700,000 in 2000

–Anglican Church in the Sudan from 300,000 in 1970 to 2.2 million in 2000

–Anglican Church in Uganda from 1.281 million in 1970 to 8.580 million in 2000

–The American Episcopal church from 3.196 million in 1970 to 2.325 million in 2000

–The Anglican Church in Britain from 27.659 million in 1970 to 23.983 million in 2000

–The Anglican Church of Canada from 1.176 million in 1970 to 784,000 in 2000

–The Scottish Episcopal Church from 86,351 in 1970 to 48,300 in 2000

No, as you can see plainly from this chart.

I post this today because earlier I read the following:

St. Francis is one of 28 parishes of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh of the Episcopal Church in the United States.

According to the Episcopal Church Annual of 2007 (which reflects parochial reports from 2005) there were 67 parishes in the diocese of Pittsburgh that year. So the quite significant drop in active baptized membership in the domestic dioceses of TEC from 1997-2007 of -9.7% does not yet reflect the realignments in Pittsburgh, Quincy, Fort Worth and San Joaquin.

Early I posted on the theme of subsurface deterioration in the Episcopal Church, and used the diocese of Lexington as an example.

Since I recently posted David Keller’s comments about the struggles in the diocese of Upper South Carolina, I thought I would look at the numbers for that diocese. According to the national statistics site church membership in Upper South Carolina went from 25,569 in 1997 to 26,087 in 2007, a gain of 2.0%. During the same ten year span, however, average Sunday attendance went from 9,278 to 8,439, a decline of 9%.

One of the many contentions of this blog over the years is that The Episcopal Church is in significant trouble as an institution. While I believe this is primarily because of theological factors, no monocausal explanation is sufficient to describe what is occurring. What remains disturbing, however, is the degree of denial by the National Episcopal leadership about the scale of this problem.

I think a lot of TEC statistics overstate the strength of TEC on the ground. For example, people in parish ministry know well that the real membership of a parish is roughly twice the Average Sunday Attendance.

So you know something is fishy when TEC claims some 2.2 million members, and average Sunday attendance is now under 800,000 (768,476 according to the national church office).

One goldmine for this data is the research and statistics page kept by Kirk Hadaway’s office at the national church.

As an example of the scale of the problem this morning, consider one diocese, Lexington. If you look at baptized membership, Lexington shrank from 8949 in 1997 to 8002 in 2007. That is a decline of 10.6%. Now, however, consider the more meaningful number, Average Sunday Attendance. In this category, Lexington fell from 3905 to 2973 in the period from 1997-2007. That is a decline of 24%.

It is part of a significant national trend, and it is a major issue–KSH.