Fastest-Growing Dioceses? Those Requesting Alternative Oversight

Where’d this come from?
It would be kinda ironic if it’s a reorganization of Quean’s data.

Greg, thanks for posting this.  I fear the headline you’ve given it could be misleading, however. 

I’d compiled and sent out the table since it shows an interesting pattern. I like looking at data and trying to spot “trends” (I do alot of it for my job.) But as I look at the data more closely in the light of day, the problem is, you cannot say each and every APO-requesting or Network diocese is growing faster than the other dioceses. 

Statistically, what is REALLY happening above is that the data are being heavily skewed by South Carolina and Dallas which were the #1 and #2 fastest growing dioceses in terms of ASA within ECUSA for the 1992 - 2004 period.  (38% and 26% respectively).

Fort Worth also grew (1%) which ranks it #24 of 100 in ECUSA during the period, well above average.  Beyond that Pittsburgh declined by 5.6% (rank 39, still “above average”). San Joaquin declined by 8% (rank 48), Central Florida declined by 9% (rank 50).  Springfield declined worse than average, by 12% ranking it #63.

Here are the top 10 dioceses in terms of ASA growth 1992-2004.  Hard to find any clear theological / affiliational pattern in THESE data.

Diocese // % change //  rank
South Carolina // 38.2%  // 1
Dallas //  25.6%  // 2
Tennessee // 24.0%  // 3
Texas // 16.2%  // 4
Western North Carolina // 11.9%  // 5
North Carolina // 10.2%  // 6
Rio Grande // 10.1%  // 7
San Diego // 10.1%  // 8
Atlanta // 9.4%  // 9
Nevada // 9.1%  10

Hope this is helpful and will prevent people from drawing hasty and incorrect conclusions.

“Progressives” now argue that “growth is not a measure of fidelity” - some even argue that growth indicates selling out to the evil, “oppressive” right-wing culture!

But that’s the nature of “progressive” illness - it keeps getting worse the longer it goes untreated.

Imagine my surprise…..

the snarkster

And of course the systemic decline of ECUSA makes statistics tricky.

The figures for SC and Dallas are clearly impressive.  But, in our many dinky dioceses, the growth or shrinkage of even one congregation can have a significant impact on diocesan percentages.

The diocese of South Dakota has been in free-fall for about a decade…Good Shepherd, Sioux Falls (admittedly a small parish at this time) has doubled its ASA - will be interesting to see the impact on the overall diocesan trend.  Could be very misleading.

In looking at statistics (there are lies, damn lies and statistics), I noticed that too many diocese have very few members attending.  I wonder what the result would be if we required an ASA of 10,000 to become a diocese.  In looking at the 2004 ASA figures, 71 dioceses have ASA < 10,000.  The ones that don’t are (in descending order of ASA): Virginia, Texas, New York, Massachusetts, Los Angeles, Connecticut, Long Island, Pennsylvania, Atlanta, New Jersy, Washington, North Carolina, SW Florida, Cen Florida, Dallas, Chicago, South Carolina, SE Florida, Maryland, Colorado, S. Virginia, Florida, Olympia, Alabama, Newark, W. Texas, Arizona, California, and Ohio

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Thanks for that list, Karen.
Without saying anything positive about the election of the next Presiding Bishop, I do note that the last two listings were candidates for PB and that the elected PB actually shows a growing diocese. Hm-m-m-m.

I am very interested in the 2004 data on ASA where can that be found?
Doug

Snarkster, are you o.k.? I imagine you may have fainted due to being surprised by these figures! 

You have to factor in the growth of the area also.  Rural areas continue to shrink and big cities get bigger.  Also, collapse of industry or business can shrink an area for all churches and business, i.e. the steel industry.  Over all for all religious groups the conservatives are growing and the liberals are shrinking.  Really have to have some good reason to get out of bed on Sunday morning or not go to the lake or St.Starbucks.  The Episcopal church is thought of by the rest of Christiandom as that last great bastion of not much.

Karen B. says ...

Here are the top 10 dioceses in terms of ASA growth 1992-2004.  Hard to find any clear theological / affiliational pattern in THESE data.

The fact that Nevada grew 9.1% needs to be take into account the large relative population growth of the area. So it is with any of the dioceses that are experiencing growth.

Karen B. is right in her assertion that statisically one should not draw hasty or incorrect conclusions.

What the charts really show me is that the larger population centers of TEC have little say in the HOB or the HOD when it comes to decision making power. There is a set number of votes per diocese regardless of size or importance.

This chart really shows democracy does not exist in TEC at all when it comes to the choices that TEC makes.

It is interesting that the liberals will argue one person one vote when it comes to politics but ignore that demand when it comes to them dominating TEC with their minority viewpoint.

Brooks: Yeah, people my age just can’t take all these surprises.

the snarkster

Doug:

Here is a link to 2004 numbers for ECUSA or TEC or whatever it is called.

http://12.0.101.88/charts.aspx

Thank you

Just a look at my diocese ( SW Florida) which is touted asa microcosm of the national church due to the demographics here, we see that the ASA is steadily declining and is now about 40% of the reported number of baptised members..( we all know that those roles are full of stale information)..We also see that the diocese has been plateaued for ten years but the area served by this diocese is growing at a much higher rate than national average…so we should be seeing actual growth and not plateau and actual decline in ASA.  I suspect that is influenced by the state of the national church at least indirectly if not directly…how many members are really that excited about the state of their own church enough to invite people to join the denomination?  They may be content to stay, but it certainly would chill any zeal for evangelism… I know it has for me…I am embarrassed to mention Episcopal Church
Doug

My dad always said that “figures lie and liars figure”.  I must echo the cautions issued by Karen and the previous post from aacswfl1.  As a grad student in policy studies, I am well aware of the potential for abuse of statistical data.  The growth or shrinkage of dioceses and parishes must be considered along with other demographic factors, as well as prevailing cultural norms in the area.  There are numerous qualitative variables as well, which are extremely difficult to correlate with the quantitative data.  Brooks Kelley hits it on the nailhead when he addresses the lack of true representation vis-a-vis the size of a diocese and the fact that each diocese has eight deputies, regardless of communicant membership or ASA.

It would also be interesting to know how much of the attrition is due to “natural causes” (death, for those of you in Rio Linda) and those members not being replaced (so much for TEC “evangelism”).

We were all assured after GC03 that TEC/ECUSA was doing a “new and improved” thing and that, as a result, new members would be flocking to our doors. In spite of this “new” thing and the highly touted 20/20 initiative, TEC/ECUSA continues to hemorrage communicants. There is no way that you can dismiss this as simply “demographics”.

the snarkster

All, sorry I couldn’t join in the discussion earlier.  My ISP has been down for several hours.

I was in the middle of composing a reply to Texican (comment #1) when I lost my connection this morning.  Wanted to give the links to the data.

First:  you can find a slightly earlier version of the Excel spreadsheet I used to compile this table right here on Stand Firm.  Greg kindly archived if for me awhile back so it would be available online for others.  Look at the media archive section on the left menu bar.  The last two links are the 1992-2004 ASA data by diocese.

Here’s the download link:
http://www.standfirminfaith.com/media/ECUSA_1992-2004_attendance.zip

As to where the data came from originally, it is all official ECUSA parochial data.

The website where the parochial data is found is Tens.org (The Episcopal Network for Stewardship)

http://tens.org/

There is also this Research & Statistics page from the Congregational Development section of ECUSA’s website:
http://www.anglicanslistening.org/research.htm

The parochial report data for years 2000 - 2004 is here:
http://tens.org/PReportindex.html

The 1992-2002 data came from a PDF document compiled by Kirk Hadaway which reflects various corrections and updates to the original data.

http://www.anglicanslistening.org/documents/ASAbyDiocese19922002.pdf

As to the categorizations of dioceses (how the bishops voted on VGR, etc.) that’s my own work.  Louie Crew DOES have the Bishops’ and dioceses’ VGR voting record on his website.
http://newark.rutgers.edu/~lcrew/2003_c045.html

As to the list of Bishops who attended the VGR consecration, the best link I know of for that is from Forward in Faith.
http://www.forwardinfaith.com/artman/publish/03-11-06-consec.shtml

Hope these links are helpful, and glad the data has sparked some discussion.