Membership drops in the Episcopal Church: CEN 10.23.09 p 7.

First published in The Church of England Newspaper. Membership and average Sunday attendance in the Episcopal Church have continued their downward spiral, statistics released by the church last week report. Average Sunday attendance for the Episcopal Church’s domestic dioceses declined by three per cent from 2007 to 2008; with an additional 22,565 people missing from the pews last year. Average Sunday attendance for 2008 was 705,257.

The church’s membership, counted as active baptized members, also declined by three per cent, falling by 59,457 to 2,057,292. The rate of decline in attendance and membership also rose last year, with the 10-year rate of decline in attendance rising from 13 to 16 per cent, and the 10-year rate of decline in active membership rising from 10 to 11 per cent.

Fifty per cent of US Episcopal churches saw a decline in attendance last year, while only 35 per cent registered growth. The median average Sunday worship attendance in 2008 was 69.

For the first time the church’s income fell, with recorded “pledge and plate” income falling by 0.2 per cent.

Critics assert the numbers may be overstated as some dioceses have not recorded the secession of breakaway congregations. While the Diocese of San Joaquin recorded a membership drop of almost 8,000, or 77 per cent — reflecting the secession of a majority of its congregations, the Diocese of Los Angeles continues to carry St James Newport Beach’s 1,500 members on its books — even though the congregation’s fight to quit has already taken the fight to the US Supreme Court.

At the autumn meeting of the Executive Council meeting, the Church’s two presiding officers declined to answer questions on membership.

The President of the House of Deputies, Mrs Bonnie Anderson told reporters that the statistics had been “circulated to the Executive Council.” However, “we’re not going to be talking about those per se. Our agenda’s pretty full and we’ll probably be taking those up in the future at our next meeting,” she explained. Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori stated she was “not able to comment” on what the numbers were, as “I don’t have it in my head.”

However, some liberal leaders had claimed the decline had been stemmed. Speaking to the New York Times at the July 2009 General Convention, Bishop Robinson said his diocese was bucking national trends and had grown, and numbered “15,000 people.”

“We have received so many Roman Catholics and young families,” he said, “particularly families who are saying, ‘We don’t want to raise our daughters in a church that doesn’t value young people’,” such that the diocese “grew by three per cent last year.”

The report issued this week showed that New Hampshire did buck the national trend, with its membership rising from 14,160 to 14,501, but this did not translate into more people in the pews, as attendance continued to decline, falling a further 1.1 per cent from 4,281 to 4,234.