Of course, you could look wider afield. My dicoese, Virginia has about a 15-18% drop accross the board last year. Or consider the lowly Diocese of New Hampshire, with less communicants in total than the larger churches from Virignia that left the Episcopal Church, and you see a steady decrease in numbers since 2003.
Has anyone looked yet to see if any diocese has posted gains?
And yet our leaders tell us not to worry, that 95% of the church is healthy.
Its a very small, vocal minority. But we are worried enough about them to make sure to a) defrock their priests; b) threaten to sue them; c) refuse to allow them to buy back their properties; d) accuse their foreign bishops of fishing for American dollars.
I was a member of the most sonambulistic church in the D of Mo during my residency. Started going to both a non-denominational church and the episcopal church for my spiritual well-being. When I was going to just the episcopal church, my spiritual life during at that time was about the same as the diocese’s statistics…merely treading water.
Look at the giving statistics for Trinity in Independence, MO. Went from $120,000 to $40,000. I haven’t seen giving decline like that. Must be something going on in that church–but all is well.
The graph for my former parish demonstrates how ECUSA has fallen off a cliff. Peak membership in 1996 was 1900, it has now fallen to 700. (It initiated an “open and affirming” policy in 1998.) ASA is now at 200. The biggest drop was between 2002 and 2004, when membership fell from 1700 to 700. Know they are projecting an operating deficit of more than a million dollars this year; don’t know how long the endowments are going to keep on paying for the maintenance of the buildings and grounds and for the professional choir, although a lot of people had been giving to that church for a hundred years. The female rector “retired” abruptly in the fall last year, they have not found a replacement. I think most of the attrition is an elderly congregation that is now dying rapidly, I would guess they do a lot of burials, very few marriages, and no baptisms.
My former parish, Grace Episcopal in Kirkwood, has seen their ASA drop by almost 50% since 1997. Our former rector, David Fly, retired and quickly became the head of The Episcopal Majority. Finding a suitable rector has been problematic since then.
I can get through Step 1 for my diocese and church and look at the pretty charts. But I can`t get Step 2 to work (although the buttons LOOK like they are being `pushed
continuing on: the buttons look like I am clicking on them, but nothing happens. Step 3 is completely `greyed out` for me. Anyone else having this problem?
allyHM – I had the same problem at first. You need to wait for the page to ‘catch up’ with your selection of diocese. Select your diocese, then wait for the parishes to load, then select your parish. Finally, wait for the page to refresh again to fetch the statistics.
Of course, you could look wider afield. My dicoese, Virginia has about a 15-18% drop accross the board last year. Or consider the lowly Diocese of New Hampshire, with less communicants in total than the larger churches from Virignia that left the Episcopal Church, and you see a steady decrease in numbers since 2003.
Has anyone looked yet to see if any diocese has posted gains?
And yet our leaders tell us not to worry, that 95% of the church is healthy.
Its a very small, vocal minority. But we are worried enough about them to make sure to a) defrock their priests; b) threaten to sue them; c) refuse to allow them to buy back their properties; d) accuse their foreign bishops of fishing for American dollars.
I’m delighted to say that I and my family are no longer part of those statistics.
I was a member of the most sonambulistic church in the D of Mo during my residency. Started going to both a non-denominational church and the episcopal church for my spiritual well-being. When I was going to just the episcopal church, my spiritual life during at that time was about the same as the diocese’s statistics…merely treading water.
Look at the giving statistics for Trinity in Independence, MO. Went from $120,000 to $40,000. I haven’t seen giving decline like that. Must be something going on in that church–but all is well.
The graph for my former parish demonstrates how ECUSA has fallen off a cliff. Peak membership in 1996 was 1900, it has now fallen to 700. (It initiated an “open and affirming” policy in 1998.) ASA is now at 200. The biggest drop was between 2002 and 2004, when membership fell from 1700 to 700. Know they are projecting an operating deficit of more than a million dollars this year; don’t know how long the endowments are going to keep on paying for the maintenance of the buildings and grounds and for the professional choir, although a lot of people had been giving to that church for a hundred years. The female rector “retired” abruptly in the fall last year, they have not found a replacement. I think most of the attrition is an elderly congregation that is now dying rapidly, I would guess they do a lot of burials, very few marriages, and no baptisms.
My former parish, Grace Episcopal in Kirkwood, has seen their ASA drop by almost 50% since 1997. Our former rector, David Fly, retired and quickly became the head of The Episcopal Majority. Finding a suitable rector has been problematic since then.
I can get through Step 1 for my diocese and church and look at the pretty charts. But I can`t get Step 2 to work (although the buttons LOOK like they are being `pushed
(I hate my tab key)
continuing on: the buttons look like I am clicking on them, but nothing happens. Step 3 is completely `greyed out` for me. Anyone else having this problem?
allyHM – I had the same problem at first. You need to wait for the page to ‘catch up’ with your selection of diocese. Select your diocese, then wait for the parishes to load, then select your parish. Finally, wait for the page to refresh again to fetch the statistics.
#6 which is your former parish?
I’m looking at a parish in Springfield, MO, right now: approx. $75,000 in 2002 with ASA of 60; in 2006: a little over $20,000 and ASA of 21.
Wow. Granted that Springfield is Diocese of West Missouri, not Missouri (St. Louis), there seems to be a pretty big problem in Missouri.