The latest stats from the Presbyterian Church (USA) show that the slide has continued for another year. The Presbyterian News Service reports:
Active membership in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) continues to decline, decreasing by more than 46,000 in 2006, and the number of people being baptized also continues to slide, according to statistics recently released.
Membership went from 2,313,662 in 2005 to 2,267,118 in 2006, according to the annual statistics compiled by the Office of the General Assembly (OGA). The numbers also show that fewer adults, 946 less; and children, 234 less; were baptized in 2006.
“The bottom line: For growth to appear, our overall losses need to go down and our overall gains need to go up,” [Kristine Valerius, manager of Office of the General Assembly records] said. “The 2006 picture shows we lost fewer people, but we also brought fewer into the church. Not the formula for growth.”
Between 2004 and 2005, the PC(USA) lost 48,474 active members.
These numbers are bad, but I suspect what would be even more revealing would be numbers on average Sunday worship attendance. I don’t doubt that there are lots of people who may still be on membership rolls who have voted with the lack of attendance. But fear not: there’s a silver lining, sort of:
One of the more promising aspects of the statistics is the increase in ministers, a trend upward over the last several years. The numbers show 21,360 ministers in 2006, compared to 21,312 in 2005, 21,287 in 2004 and 21,248 in 2003.
Of the 48 additional ministers logged in 2006, 22 of those were newly ordained Ministers of the Word and Sacrament.
“As a seminary president I am also attentive to the statistics that show a growing number of pastors for a smaller number of congregations,” the Rev. Laura S. Mendenhall, president of Columbia Theological Seminary, said in her Perspectives commentary.
There were 56 fewer congregations in 2006 than in 2005 – 10,903 compared to 10,959.
“I am grateful that there are more new pastors because so many of us are nearing retirement,” Mendenhall said. “We will need more pastors to take up the slack. And, we need more pastors who are willing and able to go to underserved areas to build and rebuild churches.”
This actually doesn’t say anything about the ministerial supply in the denomination. Questions: how many of these newly ordained ministers have or are preparing to go into counseling, chaplaincy, teaching, or other non-parish ministries? And of those who are going to parishes, how many of them have the preparation necessary to be able to turn those churches around? For that matter, given the shrinking number of congregations, and the decline of many others into part-time status, how are they going to find calls?
All in all, it’s yet another wake up call for the PCUSA.
June 17, 2007 at 8:21 am
PCUSA headquarters is really grasping at straws when they declare that one of the more promising aspects of the statistics is the growing number of ministers.
In actuality this is a very negative statistics. The raw numbers imply the PCUSA is putting more and more ministers to work and the result of that extra manpower is a decline in membership. That is hardly promising.
In reality the growth in the number of ministers is not due to there being more active ministers. No, the ministerial growth comes from the increasing number of retired ministers. In 1992 there were 5,600 retired ministers on the pension rolls in the PCUSA. In 2005 there are now 7,600 retired ministers being funded by the declining number of members.
The number of active ministers has actuality declined in the 1992 to 2005 time period. In 1992 there were 15,000 active ministers and in 2005 the number of active ministers had declined to 13,700.
As the PCUSA continues to chase away members, there will soon come a time when the only members are the retired ministers who chased away their parishioners.
But, the ministers are not worried at such an outcome. They are greedily looking at the huge amount of money that can be derived from the sale of church buildings sitting on valuable real estate.
So it come as no surprise to anyone that any church wanting to leave the PCUSA with the property it paid for will face much opposition.
June 17, 2007 at 2:00 pm
Well put.
July 1, 2011 at 10:48 pm
By these statistics, according to trends, by 2060 the PC-USA should have one pastor for every one member. Think of the level of pastoral care!