Corporate-sized congregations with 351 or more in worship represent…._____% of Episcopal congregations.
Please note the reference is to those in worship. What % do you guess?
No looking, the answer comes later.
Corporate-sized congregations with 351 or more in worship represent…._____% of Episcopal congregations.
Please note the reference is to those in worship. What % do you guess?
No looking, the answer comes later.
I am blessed to work part of the year in the context of a parish of about 1200-1300 ASA, in the Diocese of Dallas.
I’d guess the answer to your question is ‘under 5%.’ Maybe 2-3%.
Hmmmm. I’m gonna guess less than 5%.. How about 2-3%. I think that’s about 2 standard deviations above the norm.
Well done Dr. Seitz- that would make your parish larger than a number of dioceses that come to mind.
My inclination is to think that the first 2 gentlemen are correct in their 2-3% range, although perhaps KH is having us on, and it is 3.51% (although that seems high- that would work out to 225 parishes) or .351% (which seems low, and would be 22 or 23 parishes).
I’m guessing 2 percent.
[i]Waving at cseitz![/i] I live west of DFW. 🙂
2
In my parish 50% of those on our rolls are present every Sunday. We have a high demand high expectation church. If you are not worshipping and contributing regularly, and we have made an effort to engage you to no avail, we move on to others and move those people from our books until they agree to come back more fully engaged…and sometimes removing backsliders from the mailing list is precisely what they need to catch their attention and reorder their priorities.
I’m guessing 3%.
I would guess higher as small parishes are closing quite rapidly thus reducing the overall population. Hmm. I would guess 5%.
I am looking to my left and looking to my right and I don’t see any program sized churches on the horizon so I’ll say 1%.
In fact I don’t see any rectors at all in the 3 nearby churches.
I suspect that in the turmoil of the past few years a lot of common sense administrative work at the Diocesan level has gone unattended to. Parishes that may have made sense a century, two centuries or even three centuries ago simply don’t make sense today. It’s hard to generalize, but my guess is that there would be great benefit in consolidating many of the current parishes into larger groupings. Not many Bishops have the requisite steely gaze and sharp pencil to make progress in this area.
Correct answer is 3.3%. Well done.
My guess is 3%. I used to know the numbers well and 3% is what sticks in my mind. But the brain cells as I get close to 50 are not what they once were and I’m slowly forgetting the vast trove of TEC data that I once readily knew without looking it up….
The way I came up with the number is I looked at my diocese. Ten years ago we had 4 “program-sized” parishes, now we have two. That, plus knowing how many parishes we had in the diocese led to 3%.
Pewster, I know what you mean. Here is the chart for the LARGEST parish in the local TEC diocese:
http://pr.dfms.org/study/exports/4985-0670_20110630_11514119.pdf
And, Dr. Seitz’ parish probably draws more for some individual services, than the whole diocese here does in a week of services (ASA has a VERY loose definition in N Mich)
http://pr.dfms.org/study/exports/4985-0670_20110630_11514119.pdf