Breaking: 2007 TEC numbers are out: It doesn’t look good

The data for Central New York (Matt+‘s former diocese) is here. As I cautioned elsewhere, the fact that Christmas fell on a weekend in 2006 but not in 2007 means that the ASA is expected to drop somewhat just due to that(the “Christmas” effect). Kirk Hadaway, the official TEO statistician, has a way to correct for this, but he has access to the raw numbers. The membership numbers are not affected in the same manner, but those numbers are fuzzier anyway.

Did any dioceses show improvement in ASA? I know about the Christmas effect, but even still, it looks like a church wide decline. It’s a not a dramatic decline, but it is quite noticeable.

My church went to the heretics and all I got was a lousy t-shirt

#1- I will not be surprised if, when they are finished with statistical adjustments, they claim growth.  All I can say is that, in a remarkable coincidence, Easter fell on a Sunday this year, and I didn’t see any great number of folks in church, here.  This diocese is down 10 or 12% (hard to read the little graphs).  I suspect that membership is really down by more than they show, but they have some parishes that, I suspect, do inflate their membership numbers like this. Note that even though the 2006 numbers show a membership that is 8 times ASA (let’s see some statistical adjustment for THAT), according to the parish, in 2007, membership grew from there, even though ASA further declined.  That is to say, they baptized some new folks, and presumably no one left, just some more stopped going to church.

Hi Rob Roy,

You are right about Christmas falling on a bad day for ASA is correct…which means there is a low Sunday in place of a high Sunday…I do not think that one Sunday accounts for the large drops we see. The charts show the ASA for a number of years running and most show a blip in 2006 followed by a return to the decline begun in previous years.

I looked at maybe 30 or 40 of the diocesan charts last night.  I saw at most two or three that remained basically stable (mostly South Carolina, Alabama & Diocese of Upper SC come to mind).  Couldn’t tell if there was actually GROWTH in any of them.  Will need to wait for the hard numbers to be published, that’s usually sometime in December, it seems.

But what I saw looked like evidence of widespread systematic decline, in some places much more serious and immediate than others, but seemingly inexorable, even in what should be the healthiest dioceses.  It was terribly sad to see.

KJS thinks the crisis is over.  No, in many respects it has only begun as parish after parish and diocese after diocese face financial shortfalls and crises and sheer inability to pursue their programs due to a lack of resources to carry them out.  I suppose we should be thankful if TEC/815 doesn’t have enough resources to carry out its programs.

tjmcmahon
I looked at my former church that we left years ago and like the one you linked to it shows a larger membership that ASA but nowhere near the difference your link shows. Are they inflated or has no one cleared the rolls in ten years or so. Sounds like someone needs to go through the cards and remove those not seen in one or two years.

Just wondering do those missing 400 hundred members show up each year at Annual meeting to vote?

More cynically, I can’t shake the belief that the numbers taht really matter to the hierarchy are the plate ‘n pledge numbers. Those are quantifiable with some precision and they continue to look good.

All is well.

The Episcopal Church: Where vox populi is always received as Vox Dei.

Hi mousetalkers…they won’t be able to get away with that. Kirk Hadaway, their own numbers guy, has been very clear that the reverse X you see in the stats…ASA decreasing while pledges increase…is a sure sign of systemic decline. It shows that as the ship is sinking the remaining members are doing their best to keep her afloat…it is desperation giving that cannot continue long term. I wrote an article on this…looking for the link

Hmmm.  How interesting.  I normally ignore the bottom section of the page which provides profiles of “growing” “stable” or “declining” congregations.  Today I was curious.

Try clicking on various scenarios for “growing”

I tried: Growing 141-225 Suburban
and got this:
Material for this section of the web site is still being prepared.  Meanwhile, we invite you to have a consultation with one of our congregational development staff.
http://www.episcopalchurch.org/growth_60617_ENG_HTM.htm

Same message for:
Growing 400+ Suburban
Growing 1-74 Urban

Things that make you go Hmmmmmmm.  Could be there aren’t so many growing congregations to use as examples to draw up a profile?

I did get a profile for one growing demographic:
Growing 75-140 Urban

Lots of profiles for declining:
http://www.episcopalchurch.org/growth_61003_ENG_HTM.htm

Curiously, my former parish is no longer listed for the Dio CT.  The rector, vestry, and 90% of the small congregation left on Dec 31, 2007; but the Bp appointed a priest-in-charge to conduct services for the few that remained.  I hadn’t heard that it had closed up shop.  Maybe they just don’t have anybody to file parochial reports; but then, we stopped a few years ago and the Dio just kept re-reporting our last counts.  Anyway, I’m glad to finally be off the books.

The numbers for New Hampshire are down. Quelle surprise! Nobody wants to go to the “inclusive” church. Actually, plate and pledge are going up, up, up. I wonder how much of it is outside money, propping up the house of cards.

Father Matt, the article you are looking for is “Why Pledges Increase as Membership and Attendance figures Decrease.” I noted that here in Colorado, there is an ominous drop in the P&P;numbers which could signal that those who were trying to prop up this diocese are tiring.

None of this matters to 815 I reckon.  They are not Christians and are radically anti-Christian left wing, secularist pressure group using Christian language (occasionally and in a totally distorted way.)  Many joined specifically to ‘change the Church.’  The TEc is Church taken over by the ACLU or NSS.

Killing a Christian Church was the idea.  If TEc sinks, sherries all around.  Mission accomplished.  At both spiritual and political levels our opponents are about destroying Christianity by any means possible.  If TEc sinks.  Great. Move onto the next denomination.

At the moment TEc is operating as battleship taken over by enemies forces. The ship is being used to bombard those who once owned her. While TEc floats it is of use to our enemies. If it sinks, no great loss as it was never technically theirs anyway and they can hijack another one having used TEc to good killing effect.

The visciousness of TEc makes much more sense that way.  This isn’t about property. It’s about money and pressuring Christians to quit the faith.  Money is no object to oppress Christians.  Membership?  That’s what they want to go!  They few that stay will be super-liberals who can be trained as warriors in the fight against us.  But if you aren’t militant enough, you’ll be discarded eventually.

A group of four or five churches like mine would be larger than some of these dioceses.

With these kinds of statistics that are drawn from self-reporting congregations on their annual parochial reports, you can never be sure how reliable the precise numbers are, but the general trends are what are significant.  And as already noted, the trend lines are BAD for TEC, stagnant figures in the healthiest dioceses (like South Carolina) and pervasive decline virtually everywhere you look.  In some places rather steep decline.

But these charts don’t tell the half of it.  One of the most telling figures to track would be the average/mean AGE of those attending TEC.  For years, indeed for decades, that average age has been inching upward.  It is already FAR above the national mean for the age of the population in the US, and I strongly suspect that the ominous trend is getting worse with time.  And my hunch is that this is especially true since 2003 as the TEC leadership’s embrace of the folly of the “gay is OK” delusion is making more and more young couples and families aware that a gay-frinedly church is not a family-friendly church.  And that bodes ill for the future of TEC (just look at the trend lines of the UCC, which is in even worse shape).

When the average Episcopalian goes from being age 50 to rising to age 55, and then gradually increases to 60 (about the norm now), it’s bad enough.  But obviously that trend can’t continue indefinitely.  At some point, the steady, slow decline reaches a tipping point, and the gentle slope turns into a cliff, with the membership and ASA number plummeting steeply.  Just imagine what happens when the national average age in TEC hits 70.  How about 75?  And that fateful day isn’t as far away as the blind, “All is Well” leaders of TEC think.

Remember the Titanic.  If enough compartments are filling with water, it’s a “mathematical certainty” that the supposedly unsinkable ship WILL sink.  And these charts show that the damage (in places even devastation) suffered by TEC is massive.  No diocese is immune.

This elegant, luxury liner is slowly sinking now.  But soon, the pace wil pick up rapidly.  Humanly speaking, I think is certain.  Alas, TEC will surely sink.

And it fully deserves that terrible fate.

David Handy+

The Christmas effect just reminds of how boggled I am that Church on Christmas is not an “of course” for most Protestants, to the extent that some megachurches cancelled the service when it fell on Sunday because Christmas was such important family time.

That is not Christianity.  That is the conservative American national religion.

Robroy,
I couldn’t get the Colorado numbers.  I kept getting the Chicago chart.  I did notice they still listed parishes that have left or closed, although no chart came up.  I think O’Neil chose not to participate.  I do know that once you are listed on a Colorado TEC membership the only way you can be removed is to transfer to another TEC “church”.

Only 8,000 ASA in the diocese of Atlanta? Hey, progressivism works. :-( I wonder if it even reaches 2,000 in DioGA.

The Episcopal Church, speaking generally consists of middle aged to elderly congregants. Those that leave due to disgust, disagreement or death are almost, but not quite, replaced by people leaving other denominations (catholic or Baptist or what have you) who wish to discard their former theology and retain the habit of church going. The problem is the new recruits are the same age as those they are joining.

There has been a fair amount of ‘churn’ in the membership rolls of the Episcopal Church. An example of this is seen in the histories of a number of the bishops, including my former bishop, Bishop Alexander, and the Presiding Bishop.

I think the examples of persons joining the Episcopal Church has led to some degree of complacency amongst the leadership. I’ve read and largely agree with the article that Father Matt alluded to. Some of the leaders are concerned about the decline in membership. But the lack of any effort to reverse it suggests to me that none of the core leadership considers it admitting of an institutionally acceptable solution.

Which goes back to the point about persons joining the Episcopal Church. IF you yourself, as well as those you consider to be your core membership left churches with coherent theology to join an incoherent church, then you probably don’t want to hear that the problem with the church you joined is that it has no real theology.

The problem isn’t that they don’t know there is a problem. The problem is that they don’t wish to try to solve the problem as the solutions are not ones they desire to try. “Better to reign in hell than serve in Heaven.”

I concede that my money comment was a bit snarky. But I do believe, having met them, that there are bishops that are short-sighted enough to settle for income increases while they are bishop and leave the problems of decline and deterioration to their successors. “Apres moi, le deluge” and all that.

When I go to church, I get incensed.

Ed, actually the “Christmas effect” folks are speaking of is related to Chrismas Eve services, not Christmas Day.  The way it works is as follows.

To calculate ASA TEC asks parishes to sum up the attendance of all its services on Saturday night or Sunday.  This then gets divided by the number of Sundays.  So, in years when Christmas Eve is Saturday night or Sunday night, it counts as a “normal” Sunday in calculating ASA.  So, you get a “Sunday” that is probably 2X or even 3X the normal ASA, but no change in your denominator (number of Sundays.)

Here’s an example.  Imagine you have a parish that has 100 people every Sunday for 51 weeks.  On Christmas Eve it has 250.

For 2006 attendance would be 5350 (5100 + 250) for an ASA of 102.8, with Christmas Eve (Sunday night) included in the calculations.

For 2007, there would be 52 Sundays of 100 attendees, for a total attendance of 5200, or an ASA of 100. Which would show a “drop” of 2.8%

So it really IS a statistical nightmare to have Christmas included in some years data but not others.

But, lest one tend to dismiss the 2007 decline because it is NOT a Christmas effect year, don’t be so hasty.  The whole point is that if ASA were stable, we should have seen ASA INCREASES in the Christmas effect years of 2005 and 2006.  But no, instead we saw more declines in both of those years.  And the decline continues apace in 2007.  So this is not some statistical anomaly, but a persistent trend. 

And more worrying, I think, is that membership decline appears to be accelerating quite rapidly.  Membership data is not affected by any “Christmas effect.”  And perhaps more notable, it’s very HARD to get taken off the books in TEC.  But it is happening.  Folks are really leaving.  And they are not being replaced.

mousestalker, it may be snarky, but I think it has a lot of truth to it. To *do something* about membership, TEC would have to consider actually doing something about the Great Commission. I think they would be far happier, and likelier, to hold a membership drive, like our local arts council. They’d draw in some money, but people still wouldn’t come to their productions. And that’s me falling off the snarky wall…

Gramma used to say:  “You plant beans, you get beans”.

I complained last year that the Diocese of Florida figures were dishonest in the reports of those parishes whose members left for the Anglican Alliance of North Florida and South Georgia.  I’m happy (I guess that’s the word) to say that this year’s report seems accurate, honest, and fair.

Elizabeth, I too got quite a few errors with wrong charts displaying at times.  The chart site is finicky at best.  Usually if I tried again later I got the chart I was wanting.

Note, it seems there is a lot of inconsistency as to how departing parishes are treated.  In some cases (St. James Newport Beach in Los Angeles being the prime example), the data are just made up, continued from 2003 as if the church is still there, even though it’s been gone for years.

In other cases, the church just disappears (Truro in Virginia.)  Not even the historical data is there to show it ever existed. The few attempts at “TEC remnant” congregations in Virginia (Falls Church, St. Margaret’s Woodbridge, etc.) seem to portray the departure of the vast majority of members accurately.

Some dioceses are schizophrenic.  They do different things with departing parishes.  I’m thinking of San Diego here. 

In one case (St. Anne’s Oceanside) they seem to be playing the “make up the numbers” game, as if the parish still existed at its former attendance. 
http://12.0.101.92/reports/PR_ChartsDemo/exports/ParishRPT_10152008101628AM.pdf

But in another case, they portray the fact that most of the parish left.
http://12.0.101.92/reports/PR_ChartsDemo/exports/ParishRPT_10152008101802AM.pdf

It’s odd and infuriating.  Just another sign of TEC’s dysfunction, that even within individual dioceses the numbers are manipulated and played with such that they are impossible to trust, let alone hoping for any consistency from one diocese to another.

Diocese of South Dakota and the cathedral - flatline.  It would appear they just cut and paste the same information from 2006 into 2007.  Then again, the bishop is busy with lawsuits from tribes and such…

Oscewicee-
Ironically, the local community theater here just bought the church that the local Baptist congregation outgrew (for conversion into an auditorium). The community theater consistently draws a larger audience than the TEC church.  No need to mention that the Baptists also outdraw the Piskies.

The two dioceses I used to belong to both show about a 20% decline over the last few years.  From looking at the chart, the Dio. of Southern Ohio dropped to 8g from 10g since 2001 and the Dio. of Eastern MI is down to about 3g from 4g in the same time period.  I cannot find the last TEC church I attended listed in Eastern MI.  It was Grace in Mt. Clemens, but I see all the other tiny churches in Marysville, St. Clair and Marine City listed.  Strange as I know that Grace is still there and has the TEC sign out front.

Pageantmaster-
As I read the chart, this diocese (N. Michigan) “boasts” an ASA of 700.  I believe that at least 4 of the parishes that left TEC in the last couple years are larger, at least in terms of ASA. (Falls Church, Truro, Colorado Springs and Plano).
Given that in 2006, the diocese claimed 800, the decline is 100/year.  If that keeps up, if I can stay in until 2014, I will be the bishop- as no one else will be left.

Perhaps we should give more attention to Sarah’s strategies for staying in TEC.  At current rates, by 2020 or 2025, in the average diocese, we would be the only ones left.  When the 30 people left in the diocese met in convention, there would be 4 liberal deputies, 1 liberal bishop, and 25 people to vote them out of office.

For those who are having trouble with “wrong charts being displayed” - I finally figured out that there is a delay at the server end, wherein the page takes several seconds to reload with the proper information.  For instance, if I select a diocese in the “Diocese” drop box, it takes about 10-20 seconds before I can successfully select a parish from the “Church” drop box. and several seconds more before I can successfully click either of the “View Chart” buttons.

In other words, be patient (as if we haven’t been for the last 5+ years . . .).

Elizabeth, try this:
http://12.0.101.92/reports/PR_ChartsDemo/exports/ParishRPT_10152008105700AM.pdf

As I continue to look at diocesan charts, I’m actually quite struck by the uniformity.  There are a very few examples of relative stability, and quite a few more examples of SHARP decline, but I’d say that something like 80-90% of the dioceses are quite consistent in pattern.  There appears to be a steady decline of 12-15% of ASA since 2001, roughly 2% per year, which is pretty much what “Fast Facts 2006” has documented for 2004 - 2006.
http://www.episcopalchurch.org/documents/FAST_FACTS_for_Domestic_Dioceses_20061.pdf

We’ll know more when we have the actual parochial data numbers for 2007 from the Red Book, but for now I’ll guess that MEMBERSHIP is going to be reported around 2,110,000—or another decline of about 45,000.  Membership should drop below 2,000,000 at this rate in 2009 - 2010.

ASA will probably clock in around 750,000, a decline of 15,000.

Of course, 2008 will probably break the trend of more or less steady decline, and show a very sharp declines if the departures of most of San Joaquin, Pittsburgh, Fort Worth and Quincy are accurately reflected.  That would be a drop right there of about 15,000 in ASA. So, there’s no end to the slide in sight.

I looked up my childhood diocese, Western New York.  In 1997 there were 20,000 members.  In 2007, a decade later, there are 12,500.  That is a 37% drop in membership!

When I remember standing before the altar of St. Andrews
while Bishop Scaife sat in his chair, and waited for the choir to finish so he could confirm the twenty of us in my confirmation class, it breaks my heart.

It is interesting to compare the 20/20 Full Report, available as a link on the left side of the page where you look up ASA numbers discussed here, with the actual numbers being reported. Page 18 of the report (PDF document page 21) has the projected growth numbers. I’ll give a few ASAs here:

2001: 830,000
2003: 877,131
2005: 926,928
2007: 991,961
2009: 1,074,969
2015: 1,368,045
2020: 1,672,453

South Dakota flatlined around 2100

Waiting didn’t work. Ft. Worth’s chart keeps coming up instead of Los Angeles. However, the parishes are all listed correctly, AND STILL INCLUDE THE FOUR PARISHES THAT LEFT IN 2004, giving L.A. about 2,000 “non-people” to boost its ASA. (They’ve copied and pasted the 2003 figures across the years.)  I guess they think they know the outcome of their property suit that last week was argued before the CA Supreme Court. If they win, they’ll get the buildings, but they’ll never get the people back!

Rodney Stark, the Baylor sociologist, published a terrific little book this year called “What Americans Really Believe”. In it he demonstrates that Americans have been attending church at roughly the same rates for about a hundred years (36%ish) but that they are steadily moving from “Liberal Protestant” denominations to “Conservative Protestant” denominations. As a group churches like the Episcopal Church, the Unitarian Church etc have declined about 58% while conservative denominations like the Missionary Christian Alliance have increased about 158%.
If you take a look at Joseph Bottum’s article in last month’s “First Things”, “The Death of Protestant America: A Political Theory of the Protestant Mainline” and accept his argument that the Episcopal Church has essentially become the church of the National Organization for Women, then I think we could reliably forecast the ultimate membership of The Episcopal Church as the church as 180,000 Americans. (Dues paying members of NOW = 500,000, American Church attendance = 36%, (500,000*36% = 180,000)

http://www.amazon.com/Americans-Really-Believe-Rodney-Stark/dp/1602581789/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1224077967&sr=8-1

Re: the 20/20 attendance projections.  ACTUAL ASA for 2001 was higher than the 20/20 prediction.

The 2001 ASA 857,566 (that was TEC’s highest ASA since 1992, the earliest years for which I have data).

If you take the 20/20 projection of 19.5% growth from 2001 - 2007, TEC should have had a 2007 ASA of about 1,023,000.  Instead we’ll be about 275,000 below that projection.  Wow.

Well, actually, 20/20’s predictions of magnitude of change aren’t that far off really.  They just happen to be going in the opposite direction.  Instead of a 19-20% gain in ASA since 2001, we have maybe a 16% drop.

Tim (#33),

It was typically humble of you not to blow your own horn to call attention to the dramatic rise in ASA in your own parish there in SD over the last few years.  So I’ll do it for you.

I invite people to check out the chart for Good Shepherd, Sioux Falls, and note the steep rise in ASA over the last four years, where the attenance DOUBLED in that short time (since he became rector there in late 2004).

And lest anyone misunderstand Tim’s post, let me clarify that his reference to SD flatlining around 2100 was a reference to the ASA for the whole diocese, and not a comic reference to the whole state of SD dying off (flatline on a heart monitor) by the year 2100.  Though the way the state population is declining outside Sioux Falls, you might be tempted to think so.

FWIW, while you are checking out the Diocese of SD stats, just look at the dismal decline in the cathedral’s figures.  Calvary Cathedral has suffered a major drop over the last few years, probably even more than its chart reflects.

Midwestnorwegian, I LOVED your sarcastic comment about the proably misleading SD figures.  Priceless.

Keep up the good work, Tim!

David Handy+

Sue, you have probably heard the line about “lies, damn lies, and then there’s statistics.” I think we need to add a fourth category, damnable lying with statistics, for Jon Bruno and the carrying over the same stats year after year.

Even with our “ghosts,” robroy, +Bruno can’t hide the downward trend of the diocese that started in 2003.  Even that bastion of liberalism, All Saints’ Pasadena, lost members in 2007. You’d think that with such a huge and growing population (15 million+ in L.A. and Orange counties alone) that TEC could do better in L.A. than what looks like a tiny bit above 20,000—and if you subtract our 2,000, it’s really 18,000. (BTW, the proper chart is now coming up.)

All, we’ve posted an update to Kendall’s post on TEC Stats over at T19 to include a link to a spreadsheet we created earlier this year tracking ASA data trends from 1992 to 2006.

http://kendallharmon.net/t19/media/ASA_Change_1992-2006.xls

It will be interesting to see what the 2007 numbers look like when they become available.  I don’t think there are many growing dioceses out there.

To add to Father Handy’s note: South Dakota stats are here. Note the impressive rock solid ASA! Father Tim’s church is here. The Cathedral’s stats are here.

An aside: Susan Russell’s church is here. ASA down slightly, P&P;leveling off, but membership up somewhat. She has boasted in the parish’s numbers. I pointed out that probably the most radical churches in the spectrum benefit from the discord but the overall the numbers like that of the diocese of Los Angeles suffer.

Hmm…  I can see the 2007-2008 figures now, well the news stories.

Massive Church growth!  Church grow increases 280% in a year.  Parish figures are up across the whole of the US.

And furthermore, giving figures were up with families increasing their weekly giving from 100 rubles per week to 300 rubles.  Many are donating tractors to the Church too!

Does anyone else see the irony of the verse in the upper right corner of TEC’s Growth and Development page:

“Go therefore and make all…my disciples” (Matthew 28:19)

Sometimes I think that when we edit and shrink God’s Word, God edits and shrinks us.

It is interesting that the argument made to those in the developing world has been: we must do this thing in order to effectively spread the gospel in our context. Can that argument be made given these declining numbers…especially in the most liberal regions of the country like NYC?

http://12.0.101.92/reports/PR_ChartsDemo/exports/ParishRPT_10152008125457PM.pdf

Sometimes I think that when we edit and shrink God’s Word, God edits and shrinks us.

That’s my favorite comment on this thread.  Great stuff, Rom 1:16 - that should be on billboards!

An aside: Susan Russell’s church is here. ASA down slightly, P&P;leveling off, but membership up somewhat. She has boasted in the parish’s numbers.

That parish has been liberal for quite some time.  Anyone objecting would have left decades ago.  I wonder how the numbers compare to the local RC parishes or SBC congregations.

#10 - You reported your former parish wasn’t listed, and they left on 12/31.  Our vestry was “declared extinct” the second week in December and our priest inhibited on 12/24… which made that the day we left TEC for CANA!  420 or so came with us, out of ~500.  However, all the old stats are still listed in Southern Ohio!  2008 will look MUCH different!  With only about 80 folk, most of whom were not active or large givers…...

All Saints’ Pasadena needs to clean out their membership files. It looks to me like they’ve added new ones to the old, but aren’t successful in actually getting them to show up on a Sunday. There’s a huge discrepancy between their baptized members and their actual attendance, which declined slightly from 2006. When you’ve got 7500 on file and an Average Worship Attendance of 12-1300, something’s wrong! What I’m saying is that 1300 isn’t anything to be sneezed at, but 7500? But then, where would they put them if they all did show up?

Rom 1:16 (#43),

I agree, as usual, with my friend Tim Fountain+ (#45).  Your marvelous line about when we shrink God’s Word, we shouldn’t be surprised if he shrinks us is just priceless.  The money quote indeed on this thread.

And robroy (#41),

Thanks for posting the links for the SD stats I mentioned, but didn’t provide myself.  It’s always geat to see the NRAFC working together.

David Handy+

The financial figures for St. John’s, Bristol, CT for the last two years show what happens when a bishop thinks he can improve relationships with a congregation by changing the locks on its doors and deposing its priest.  I just cannot help but wonder who these people are who keep the attendance figures up but do not give anything from week to week.

The Los Angeles Diocese is not accurate. They still show St. James in Newport Beach numbers the exact same over the last 4 or 5 years.

Martin5, see what I said in #34.  They’ve been doing this with all four parishes that left. The last numbers they got from my parish was 2003.

This is the other CT Six parish in Bristol, CT.  Christ Church, Watertown, simply does not show up anymore.

Drew Smith now props up empty buildings because he was angry with the CT Six for not paying their full diocesan assessment.

One problem is the difficulty in getting one’s name off the books, whether entire parishes or individual members.  When we left our Episcopal parish four years ago, I asked the church secretary how to go about getting our names taken off the church’s membership roll.  She said the only way she could remove someone was through death or by letter of transfer to another Episcopal parish.  Otherwise, they remained in the “inactive” file.  I did ask the priest to sign a letter of transfer to our new AMiA parish, which he did quite graciously.  However, we were the only ones to do that out of the five families that left with us.  Presumably, even though they are no longer accounted for in the red ASA column, they are likely still being counted in the baptized membership (blue)column.

I remember the months after GC2003 when all the revisionistas were walking around basking in the glow of their victory and patting themselves on the back. Not to worry, they said. Sure, we might lose a few members but the losses will be more than made up for by the throngs of unchurched liberals and homosexuals that will flock to our churches because of our enlightened and heroic stand.
Hmmmm…..How’d that work out for ya, guys?

the snarkster™

#55, what they want is quality not quantity, don’tchaknow?

Gay realtors, not gay waiters in other words are the targeted group.

The Episcopal Church: Choosing our beneficiaries carefully in case those slobs actually join us.

Hey folks, in regards to the mauling of the Word accomplished at the TEC website, why not send them a comment/question using the link provided at the top of that page?  Ask them what they hoped to accomplish by seeming intentionally to misquote or edit Scripture?  I did so, and it was quite liberating…

Fr. Darin Lovelace+
St. Pauls’, Durant, Iowa

These graphs of plate and pledge income are a bit deceptive because they ignore inflation. It’s possible for a church to graph a slight upward trend in nominal income that in real dollar terms is actually negative growth.

The Episcopal Fudgery is in full production in Dio. East Carolina.  In an amazing blast of irony, I received in the mail today,  a copy of the proposed diocesan budget for the coming year.

Strange, I thought I left Kinston for Kenya two years ago.  Did Fudgemeister Daniel not get my memo???

The Post Office now has instructions to “Return to Sender”.

One of the elves had a very good discussion of the Christmas effect and he or she contacted Kirk Hadaway. There is also a 53 Sundays a year effect where people don’t realize that there are 53 Sundays and sum up the yearly total and divide by only 52 rather than 53 which will give a bigger ASA. This when Jan 1st is a Sunday during a regular year or Jan 1st is a Saturday or Sunday in a leap year. This happened in 2006, 2000, and 1995. See the discussion here.

Snarkster #53, It was Gene Robinson who is on record having said that countless will replace the few that leave. We also have this from Gene, “He says that he knows countless gay partnered clergy who have their bishop over for dinner, but are told that they must not reveal they are in a homosexual relationship.”

Gene Robinson’s use of countless sort of reminds me of the character Vizzini in the Princess Bride who kept saying “inconceivable.” To which Inigo Montoya (Mandy Patinkin) replies, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” (I have watched that movie “countless” times, and I still crack up at that line.)

New Hampshire has around 4,300 ASA (sinking every year since 2003). State population in 2006 was 1,314,900. That’s 3/10 of one percent. 3 out of 1,000 Granite Staters are drawn to the message and life of TEC. There are megachurch congregations around me with 4,300 on an average Sunday. You reap what you sow.

The numbers I found was the amount of growth/decline by province.  They were
1 2
3 4
5 6
7 8

The numbers I found were by province.  They were:
1   11% decline
2   11% decline
3.  13% decline
4.  8% decline
5.  13% decline
6.  11% decline
7.  10% decline
8.  11% decline
An average of 11% decline overall.  If by TECs membership numbers are correct, by their figures, they’ve lost nearly 200.000 members since 1991.

I don’t know what’s up w/ the connections, but all I get when I click on one of the posted links is “the page you are looking for is not available” blahblah. 

Are the 815 imps fixing things?  Are they on to the fact that the stats are being discussed in places like this and need to clean things up?

Apologizes for repeating the churches in LA Dioceses ... check out San Joaquin. Perhaps it is a Californian Bishops conspiracy ....

Frs Fountain (45) & Handy (49);

Thanks for the kind words.  Yet, I think it is Fr Matt who has the question of the day:

How can TEC be selling the innovative theology/ecclesiology/liturgy to the rest of the world as the necessary means to reach our contemporary, Western society with the Gospel, while displaying such a negative growth pattern?

A diocese near where I live has taken up the Mutual Ministry banner yet only seems to draw 700 ASA.  Everywhere I’ve gone in ministry, the reality has been that the more ownership people feel with their church/parish life, the more they will invite people who will then get involved themselves.  That includes small, rural communities where people will drive 35-40 miles to be a part of a congregation that makes them feel welcome and involved.

The bumper sticker on the pamphlet rack at church may say “The Episcopal Church welcomes you!”  But these numbers say otherwise.  Radical hospitality is being perceived as radical hostility because the Gospel has been edited and the Trinity deleted from the Great Commission.

I can’t pull up any of the charts. What’s happened?

I can’t get the charts either.  It worked yesterday.

Perhaps, they are fixing them.

I have the perfect plan to reverse the trend.  The elves at Tituonenine bounced it so I will offer it here.  815 should hire ACORN to recruit new members.  Pay them ten bucks a head and before you know it, TEC will have three million members rather than the 2 it now claims.  Of course, a million of the members will be named Donald Duck but heck, anthropocentrism is a sin, isn’t it?

Oh, very good, DaveG.  Very good.  Shame on those T19 elves for trying to keep this delicious suggestion from us!

Now you see the charts…............and now you don’t.  Probably being “updated”. :0(

They are still gone. . .very convenient.

The dio of NH is still counting me, even though I haven’t been there in two years.  I keep getting the dio rag which is a nothing but a platform for VGR, MDG’s and “going green”.  I wouldn’t use it to line a bird cage - it would offend the bird.  As an aside, I had an arthroscopy in August, so had an epidural and was awake for it.  I have been witnessing to my orthopedic surgeon for a number of years (your prayers would be appreciated).  She struggles with the issue b/c her 13 yo daughter is unchurched.  She brought the subject up during surgery - about bringing her daughter to church.  I announced “whatever you do, don’t take her to the Episcopal church”.  To a person - EVERYONE- even the Jewish anesthetist- in the operating room agreed that anywhere but the Epis. church in NH!  In fact, most of us agreed that one of our local RC churches (which is VERY Christian) would be the best place to go!

DaveG - great idea.  ACORN could give a lot of canons to the ordinary some part time work out there.

Aaaack! Unavailable. 
Surprise.  Surprise.  Surprise.

Still unavailable.  Maybe the info is now on a need to know basis.

Maybe the rest left?

There is a “questions” link in the upper right corner of the page.  I just asked “what happened to the charts?”

We’ll see if I get an answer.

There is a WEALTH of information on the site beyond the church charts.  For example, they have a slew of charts showing factors that are predictors of growth or decline.  Evidently use of drums and percussion is a strong predictor of growth.  Drums, Percussion and Growth   Who knew?

HOW, you might ask, do I get to all this info?  You have to go to this page Research and Statistics   You have to scroll down to the bottom of the page to access the pertinent links.  Enjoy!

old lady (81) - Children seem to be a good indicator of church growth.  Interesting to see that it’s the one slide whose left edge, “Percent of congregations ___” reads “declining,” not “growing.”  Having been looking at 16 slides of “growing,”  to come across the Q of “How often do children or youth speak, read, or perform during your congregation’s worship services?”  The highest % is for “Never” (53%), lowest (31%) Always.  I thought they had the numbers backwards, till I looked at the question and saw that was what was backwards.  Makes it look like the Old St Staid Always Done It This Way is the one growing….. 

MY BAD!!  Just looked through them again and there are a couple of other “declining” slides: the % of regular participants who are female is done on decline (slide #7); slide #8, theological orientation and decline (48% of predominantly conservative are declining, only 34% of predom liberal. SEE? The liberals are right, they’ve got what people want!!! They’ve got the stats/graph to prove it!!!).  Slide 12, conflict in past 5 yrs: guess what, the stronger the conflict, the more the decline.  Slide 13, seriousness of conflict over issue, w/ 2 strands: (a) priest’s leadership style or (b) actions of 2003 GC

Now the area to enter diocese and parish names to search is missing!  “Internet Explorer cannot…”

I keep trying too. Something is not right.