2008 EPISCOPAL CHURCH ATTENDANCE FIGURES AWASH IN RED
86 Domestic Dioceses show decline: 2008 ASA figure down 3% from 2007

News Analysis

By David W. Virtue and Mary Ann Mueller
www.virtueonline.org
10/14/2009

The Episcopal Church (USA) continued its downward spiral in church attendance in 2008 with 86 dioceses showing decline with the Diocese of South Dakota leading the way with the biggest single decline of 11.6%. Fourteen domestic dioceses revealed small or no gains. Twelve foreign dioceses split with six showing slight up ticks, four losing members and two not filing a report.

After realignment, The TEC "Diocese" of San Joaquin showed a drop of 3,050 from 3,950 to 900, a decline of 77.2%.

Overall Average Sunday Attendance in 2008 was 705257 down from 727822 in 2007, a decrease of 22,565 or 3%. Over the last five years the loss in active membership has been 14%.
The median average attendance went from 75 to 69.

The Episcopal Church claims a shade over 2 million members - (2,057,292) down 2.8% over 2007.

Overall it was not a good year for The Episcopal Church. With sharp losses expected in 2009 due to the departure of the dioceses of Pittsburgh, Quincy and Ft. Worth, attendance is expected to plunge even further.

Individually, dioceses showed even greater financial losses than human departures.

The Diocese of Connecticut met its shortfall of $574,000 for 2010 by slashing funds for youth ministry and congregational development while funding for the national church and the bishops' office, however, went up. Mission expenditure, as a percent of expenditure, was slashed. Evangelism as a line item was eliminated.

Parish income reported in 2008 (the base year for the 2010 funding) allowed projected budget income to be lowered by 12.8% below the 2009 level.


Total Proposed Budget in 2009 is $5,246,633 for 2010 from $5,820,345 down a colossal $573,000. A number of fleeing parishes affected their income and what they hoped to spend. Litigation costs are expected to rise in 2010.

Ironically, the pledge to the National church is going up. In 2009 it was $1,150,000. In 2010 it will be $1,155,000. The logic is they got the money by slashing congregational development and sending money to the national church to fund lawsuits.

The diocese lost three percent of its membership in 2008 dropping from 19,332 to 18,747.

The Diocese of Newark is also feeling the pain and it is not just the economy. Pledging units are declining.

"The challenging context within which we are working is an ever-shrinking diocese," said Bishop Mark Beckwith. "Our average Sunday attendance has gone down diocese-wide six consecutive years. So have the number of pledging units to the parishes. "Since that model was introduced 25 years ago, median average Sunday attendance has declined to 61, the number of pledging units has dropped and only 25 percent of churches can afford full-time clergy. The task force is looking at options including continuing the current model, introducing appoint toward any of them. ... There's nothing even close to a consensus on any of them."

Asked about a straight assessment model, using a model based on the biblical tithe or adopting different percentages for different sizes of parishes, Beckwith said. "Honestly, we are not leaning at this." The diocese lost another 2.6% in membership in 2008 from 2007.

In the Diocese of Massachusetts, six churches have closed over a period of three years. They include St. Andrew's Church, Belmont; St. David's Church, Halifax; St. Luke's Church, Malden; the Church of the Holy Trinity, Marlborough; St. George's Church, Maynard; and the Church of St. Matthew and the Redeemer, South Boston. Two churches (St. Mark's Church and St. John's-St. Stephen's Partnership) have merged with the former Church of the Ascension to form the new Church of the Holy Spirit, all in Fall River. Two are in the process of closing (St. Augustine's Church in Lawrence and St. Alban's Church in Lynn). As a result, the diocese has $1.6 million in hand from property sales, with an approximate additional $2 million in sales pending.

To maintain congregational vitality, a committee has recommended that saving for the future involves allocating up to 50% to an endowed fund and 30% of every dollar back to congregations. Overall income for 2010 is projected to be down with trusts and endowments dropping $280,553 and billed assessments from congregations down $275,912.

The biggest single reduction is in the amount allocated to the Episcopal Church. (The outdated term "the national church" is a misnomer, since the Episcopal Church is a multinational church with 110 dioceses in 16 countries.) The significant reduction of $170,000 reflects the actions taken by the General Convention this past July 17 which reduced the rate at which it "asks" for support from each diocese from 21% to 19% by 2012.

The Diocese of Maine also anticipates a reduction in revenue next year. Despite that, they are increasing their contribution to the National church, while slashing funding for congregational support. It would seem that national headquarters lawsuit costs (which is the biggest area of expense increase at the national level) are essentially being funded at the cost of the weakest parishes.

Income to the diocese in 2009 is $2,105,928, but it is expected to drop to $2,089,895 in 2010. At the same time, National Church asking goes from $374,708 (18%) in 2009 to $399,538 (19%) in 2010.

Anecdotal evidence reveals a number of congregations are experiencing financial difficulty while the number of congregations receiving financial assistance is large. However, changing needs and the possibility of falling congregational incomes led them to examine priorities resulting in total support to congregations going from $613,291 in 2009 to $565,478 in 2010.

In the Diocese of Minneapolis, a proposed 2010 budget offers three options for slashing the Diocese assessment and national church assessment, and handing back money for local use. All the options are based on decreasing income into the diocese.

The most extreme option would involve slashing the assessment rate from an average rate of 16% in 2009 to between 10% and 11% in 2010. Under this option, the assessment to the national church would be cut from $506 000 in the 2009 Budget down to $304 835 in the 2010 budget - a 40% decrease.

All three proposed 2010 budget options have the following similarities which include eliminating five staff positions for a total reduction of $349,142. They include a full time Canon Missioner in Congregational Development, full time Assistant Financial Officer in Finance, full time Development Director in Development, part time Administrative Assistant in Administration and part time Assisting Bishop in Episcopate. Another option is to maintain all remaining salaries at the 2009 level with no Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) for staff, except where noted.

At the parish level, The Episcopal Church's pansexual push does not seem to be paying off.

A case in point is St. Marks in Seattle. The Very Rev. Robert Taylor resigned as the gay dean of the Episcopal cathedral after leading the congregation for eight years. He said he and the church had differing visions for the church, but declined to say what they were. His tenure there has devastated the church. Attendance at the cathedral went from 1,520 two years ago to around 500 in 2008. The overall ASA for the Diocese of Olympia dropped 7.4 percent as a result.

Clergy statistics. Between 2003 and 2007, TEC lost 10% of its clergy, with the losses hitting the rank of 'Senior Clergy' hardest. The male clergy rank was the hardest hit, declining 14%. The number of missions and parishes has only declined by 2% over the same period indicating a significant number of parishes have survived only by eliminating full time clergy. Total number of senior clergy in 2003 was 986 by 2007 it was 883, a loss of 12%. Solo Clergy totaled 3764 in 2003, by 2007 it was 3400, a loss of 10%. Total male clergy went from 4355 to 3752 while female clergy rose from 1696 in 2003 to 1715 in 2007 a gain of 1%.

Lawsuits have consumed millions of dollars in a number of dioceses.

Foremost among them is the Diocese of Colorado. Bishop Rob O'Neill commented, "As a result of the extraordinary legal expenses associated with the property litigation involving Grace Church in Colorado Springs our reserves have been substantially reduced. Such litigation totaled $2,900,000. The combination of withdrawals for litigation expenditures and the stock market decline have caused the Diocesan unrestricted reserves to decline from $4,900,000 at January 1, 2006 to $750,000 currently. This decline has also led to a significant decrease in the investment income to be received from these reserves in 2010." The diocese fell by 5.4 percent (ASA) in 2008 with 10,772 members down from 11,392.

A lesson for the National Church is that the only winners in litigation are the lawyers. This begs the question: Who is the better steward of diocesan resources: the Bishop of Colorado, or the Bishop of Central Florida? When a number of parishes sought to leave the latter, Bishop John W. Howe spent not a penny on attorneys. Peace flowed with little or no recriminations. Looking at the situation in the Diocese of Massachusetts where they report the large income generated by selling the buildings of those closed parishes, one wonders if this is a new funding model for the Episcopal Church. That is, withdraw support from the weakest parishes. When they fold, use the income generated to continue paying for the expensive diocesan overheads and the huge lawsuit costs.

"Mission" in TEC it seems has come to mean paying for lots of lawyers, accountants, administrators, archivists, and very expensive bishops who don't add much value anyway. Is this the real future of The Episcopal Church?

Official statistics for 2008 released:

http://www.episcopalchurch.org/documents/Statisical_Totals_for_the_Episcopal_Church_by_Province_2007-2008.pdf

http://www.episcopalchurch.org/documents/Statistical_Totals_for_the_Episcopal_Church_by_Province_and_Diocese_2007-2008.pdf

http://www.episcopalchurch.org/documents/Domestic__FAST_FACTS_Trends_2004-2008.pdf