A somewhat subdued, intellectual man, [John] Howe is known as an inspirational teacher and preacher. But the brand of Episcopal evangelism he preaches is increasingly rare within the church. Howe never left the church, but in many ways it has left him behind, said Randall Balmer, an Episcopal priest and professor of religion at Columbia University.
“There is progressively less room for someone like Bishop Howe than there was 20 years ago,” Balmer said.
Howe said he’s ready to spend more time writing books and traveling with his wife, Karen. They have three children and five grandchildren. There are Clive Cussler novels to read, Benihana meals to eat and lakes to be explored on his boat.
[blockquote]become less diverse and less accepting than under Howe’s predecessor, Bishop William Folwell, who lined up in favor of gays becoming priests, said Harry Coverston, an Episcopal priest and religion instructor at University of Central Florida.Howe’s evangelical push to increase the number of Episcopalians in Central Florida has largely failed, Coverston says. The diocese, which had about 37,000 members in 1990, now has about 38,000, despite the population growth in Central Florida.[/blockquote]
I can do nothing but laugh at this statement. So, the fact that the Diocese of Central Florida has grown over the past 20 years is a sign of his failure as a Bishop???? Oh, I forgot, TEC likes declining membership, less evangelists, less Christians, more clown eucharists.
Shall we compare this gain in these turbulent times of denominational disdain with the losses in SE Florida?? Where is statman when you need him??
francis: I don’t have the data needed for a twenty year comparison of Central Florida with Southeast Florida. But for the 2002 through 2009 period, I can offer the following. Central Florida lost 16.5 percent of Members, 16.5 percent of ASA, and 22.9 percent of Plate & Pledge (adjusted for inflation). The losses for SE FL were 13.5 percent, 12.8 percent, and 9.8 percent. Thus, Central Florida had a tougher time But looking at the future, it is different In 2009, Central had 18 (of 88) churches with ASA of 66 or less while SE had 19 (of 78). Also in 2009, Central had 28 (of 88) churches with Plate & Pledge of less than $150K while SE had 39 (of 78) churches. Thus, Central is much better positioned for the future. And finally, Infant Baptisms declined from 2002 to 2009 by 21.3 percent in Central compared to a much more depressing 29.8 percent in SE. Statmann
Neither set of stats could be called wonderful…
Wow! There you have it. They make South Carolina stats look spectacular. Now the question is why? Can this be laid at the foot of the Bishop or the mixed church views in CFl. I do not think you can lay this on the Bishop as per the article.
I think the reason why there is the decline in Central Florida is that that diocese lost a number of parishes and huge chunks of parishes who wished to leave TEC.
It’s an interesting thought. Some dioceses — Dallas is another one — lost a big chunk of members/clergy/parishes — and will probably recover. I’d expect Central Florida to rebound handily, since, unlike what the bitter priest in the article said, people simply aren’t attracted to revisionist gospel.
Other dioceses won’t.
What would the numbers be of those leaving? Does that represent the 15% loss? Because things have been more amicable there we really have not heard much news from CFl. What is the state of ACNA and AMiA in CFl?
I have heard that there is a trickle back to TEC in CF from the likes of those in ACNA…but that is just what I heard, not an official source, just a friends opinion…who is a cleric…so he must know something?!
Florida is highly fertile ground for ACNA.
“‘There is progressively less room for someone like Bishop Howe than there was 20 years ago,’ Balmer said.” The key word there might well be “progressive.”
DioUSC and DioGA appear to be headed in that direction. A friend reports that the recent DioGA convention had no “progressive” items on its agenda, but that falling revenue from parishes led to a canonical change mandating a tithe of the parish budget be sent to the diocese! DioUSC is doing theology on SSBs.
That would appear to be the case. Are there numbers on this; churches, starts, members, etc??
Sarah is correct and her choice of Dallas ia an excellent example. The Diocese of Dallas had a terrible experience during 2002 through 2009 with Members down 16.0 percent, ASA down 23.3 percent, and Plate & Pledge (adjusted for inflation) down 27.5 percent. I ranked them at 82 of 95 dioceses considered. BUT, for 2002 through 2007 I ranked them at 86 and for 2002 through 2008 at 84. So, they had much larger losses in the earlier years and are now “recovering”. That does mean that are necessarily going to grow but are performing better relative to other dioceses. It is why I like to see how well the diocese is “positioned” ffor the future. I believe that both Central Fl and Dallas are well positioned and better so than SE Florida. Statmann
Hey, Statmann,
How about San Joaquin?
……just kidding………
The changing Christian landscape over the past several decades sadly makes it unlikely that there will be a significant rebound, although I do not doubt the diocese, when compared with others, will do well. The prevalent aversion to denominational churches among Americans continues with little, if any, sign of letup. While reasserting congregations within denominations still tend to do better than their reappraising counterparts, they are by no means immune from this trend. Even congregations that call themselves part of a “network” of churches do better than denominational ones.
Too often, it seems to me, we tend to think that orthodox congregations will naturally grow, but it’s not that simple of an equation. Christians today flock mostly to non-denominational churches, and even in heavily-populated metropolitan areas, there’s only room for so many of them. A single megachurch that attracts thousands of worshipers takes away many potential worshipers from other congregations. Even in the northern Virginia section of the DC metropolitan area where I live, there’s only one megachurch that attracts in the tens of thousands on an average weekend; there are many other large churches with very strong attendance figures, but only that one is truly huge. (Not surprisingly, it’s nondenominational.)
Furthermore, different areas have their own Christian subcultures. The central Florida region has a thriving population of large Reformed churches. It does not surprise me, given their somewhat more Reformed bent than many other Anglican groups, that AMiA is apparently pretty successful in that area. In any geographical region, not every orthodox church (or group of orthodox churches) will grow — and it’s not necessarily because that church (or group of churches) is doing something wrong.
We often think that the answer is evangelism, but it’s not that simple an answer, either. In the last few decades, evangelicals have had success with getting people with previous church background (even if it was decades in the past) back into church. Reaching the rising number of people with no church background, however, has proven far more difficult. Several years ago, the young adults ministry of the aforementioned local megachurch, after nearly a decade of seeker-sensitive worship services and placing priority on reaching and appealing to non-Christians, found to its dismay (via a self-commissioned survey) that it was actually attracting very few non-Christians. And recent studies show that adults are far more likely to start going to church if they had a church background in the past.
I am not sure what your figures are in America, but here in Australia there is no shortage of non-churchgoers. Even in a “bible belt” area, every denomination could double the size of its congregations overnight, and there would still be plenty of people left who weren’t attending anywhere.
Churches don’t need to take believers from each other – if we reach out to the pagans (yes, even the ones with no church background at all), we’ll get the numbers.
I hav been attending a church in DSC which is growing. We had 33 new members in January. We had 59 adults confirmed two years ago in one service. There are nearly 2,000 members and 2 priests. But no one seems to want to know about what we are doing.
Pb,
Thank you for writing that. I agree, blogs seem to have little interest in reporting details of church planting and church growth these days.
I understand why liberals don’t want to highlight it – its an area in which they don’t do very well. But surely orthodox christians should want to highlight it?
Anyway, thank you again for telling us some encouraging news from your congregation.