Here are the latest numbers on membership, professions of faith, attendance, etc… from The United Methodist Church. If the bleeding is not stopped according to numbers I read recently the UMC will cease to exist before I am 75 years old and currently I am 44.
It is time for us to stop fighting battles that never needed to be fought and start leading people to Jesus Christ. I believe as the UMC we have the best platform from which to win the world to Jesus Christ. However, when we tolerate and allow those who take vows of Ordained and licensed Ministry and say they will abide by the Book of Discipline and then they choose to work against it, when this is allowed to go un-corrected we will continue to get what we already have, loss.
I understand that people have a difference of opinion on various issues but I also understand that when I came into the UMC I took matters seriously, I read the Book of Discipline from Cover to Cover and I could agree to uphold that church book of law. I also said if it ever came about that I could not abide by the rules contained in our Book of Discipline that I would take the proper route to try to change things, while abiding by what is there and without tearing down God’s church, and if I couldn’t make the change and be satisfied that I am doing what God has called me to do then I would leave.
It is time to stop the fighting and move on. We have a message that has to be shared, we are mandated to share it.
Ronnie
Here is the official word on the numbers:
Once again the Research Office is presenting the latest (now 2008) United Methodist Church (USA) official church statistics. Generally this
yearly report sounds much like the previous year’s, and this year is no exception. Membership change has not deviated notably from the pattern of the last four decades. All major categories are down, including number of churches, which has declined by 330 (-1%). This is compared to -198 the previous year, and -305 the year before that.
All jurisdictions had a net loss of membership, yielding a combined loss of 79,535 (-1%). (2007’s figure was minus 77,778.) All annual conferences in the Northeastern, North Central, and Western Jurisdictions lost members. Two conferences in the South Central and
six in the Southeastern Jurisdictions gained members, matching the previous period. The Northeastern and North Central Jurisdictions accounted for over 50,000 of the membership decrease. The Western Jurisdiction had the highest percentage drop at 2.3%. Once again North Georgia Conference had the largest membership increase in numbers at 3,989, followed by Texas at 2,052. Interestingly, if North Georgia Conference and the Western Jurisdiction continue their current trending, within two years North Georgia Conference will have
more members than the Western Jurisdiction. Worship attendance continued the trend of recent years and again declined significantly. The most recent period’s drop is 65,386 (-2.1%), compared to 73,323 in the previous period. If non-reporting of some churches
were to be factored in, this would improve by nearly 10,000.* All jurisdictions declined in attendance in worship with six annual conferences showing an increase. None were in the Northeastern, North Central, or Western Jurisdictions. Other categories displayed declines as well.
Church school attendance, as measured, dropped by March 2010 • Volume 22, No. 3 58,081 (2.3%), an improvement over last year’s nearly 4% drop. Members received by profession of faith dropped by 4,465, or -3.3%. This compares unfavorably with last period’s 1% drop. However, a stunning 25 conferences showed increases, compared to last year’s 8. Average members per church remained at 230 for the third straight year, as numbers of churches and members changed by the same percentage. Average worship attendance continued the trend of recent years in dropping by one to 94. Half of all United Methodist churches had 108 members or fewer, down by one as well. Half had 50 or less in attendance. When factoring out non-reporting, this is 49. The following pages contain individual annual
conference figures and have not been altered per the footnote below. All data used here has been provided by the General Council on Finance and Administration, which gets its numbers from annual conferences, who in turn get its numbers from year-end reports filled out by the churches. As one looks over the year-to-year changes, there is a lot of red ink. Hopefully, rather than causing discouragement, this will serve to instill new resolve in fulfilling God’s mission through The United Methodist Church. * Many churches fail to submit their year-end reports. In most annual conferences, this results in a 0 or 1 being reported for attendance in those churches. When those churches do report in the other year used in comparison, there is obviously a notable change in the numbers. For example, a church reporting 100 in attendance in 2007 and 0 in 2008 will appear to have decreased by 100. It is possible to alleviate this issue
by replacing those zeroes with the number reported in the comparison year. When this is done for all churches, there are some conferences with notable changes, but the intent of this report is to present the official numbers reported.
Here is the link for the breakdown by Conferences: 100416dlbackgrounddataformission.pdf