EPISCOPAL CHURCH ATTENDANCE CONTINUES STEEP DECLINE

By David W. Virtue

WEST CHESTER, PA (12-10-2004)--Attendance statistics for The Episcopal Church USA in 2003 reveal a church in continued steep decline with nearly 36,000 active baptized members leaving for greener theological pastures, a significant drop from 8,000 in 2002. Another 24,000 Sunday worshippers left the ECUSA last year, more than twice the previous year.

In 2002 the church claimed a membership of 2,320,221. In 2003 it was down to 2,284,233, the church officially declared.

Some 85 parishes closed their doors - 7,305 in 2002 to 7,220 in 2003.

Average Sunday attendance in 2002 was 846,640. In 2003 it was 823,017.

The percentage of churches with any increase in average Sunday attendance (ASA) also dropped from 39 percent to 34 percent.

And for the first time churches with any loss in average Sunday attendance rose from 49 percent to 54 percent, the first time in living memory that it has reached over 50 percent.

Even those churches that were growing by 10 percent in the past five years dropped from 31 percent to 28 percent with those churches declining 10 percent in the past five years rising from 39 percent to 43 percent. Even when people leave, some churches keep them on the books.

The two parishes with the largest membership (but not necessarily attendees) were St. Martin's in Houston with 7,365 members. It claims an increase of 228 over the previous year and St. Michael's & All Angels in Dallas which rose to 7,243 from 7,166 in 2002.

But the largest attended parish in the ECUSA is the evangelical parish of Christ Church, Plano under the leadership of Canon David Roseberry. In 2003 it had 1,975 members a slight increase of 42 members over the previous year.

The number of congregations with 10 members or less jumped from 234 to 247. Those with congregations between 100 and 300 registered a significant loss in members.

The most startling figure was that the median average Sunday worship attendance of all Episcopal churches across the whole country is 77 members (down from 79).

And who's running the churches these days?

Female clergy account for 28 percent of all congregations, up from 27 percent in 2002. Solo female clergy make up 22 percent of the total. But the percentage of clergy under age 40 make up only 9 percent, with nearly 50 percent of all clergy now aged between 50 and 60. The median average age of all clergy is 53 which is also the same figure for women clergy.

The average pledge was slightly up from $1,723 in 2002 to $1,791 in 2003 a rise of $68. Total plate and pledge income rose from $1,201,765,153 to $ 1,231,401,494, with total income up from $1.993 billion to $2,044 billion.

But an insider said that the numbers reported include money given by people to their churches even when the churches are no longer supporting their diocese or 815, the church's national headquarters. "You will never get the real numbers on how much the consecration of V. Gene Robinson has cost ECUSA," he said.

On National Public Radio this week Pittsburgh bishop Robert Duncan told listeners that the purported growth statistics for those leaving the Episcopal Church were three times the decrease from the previous year.

"The purported growth statistics do not bear out V. Gene Robinson's view that the acceptance of homosexuality would make churches grow," he said in a nationwide broadcast.

In a question from Terry Gross who asked whether gays and lesbians coming into the church were counterbalancing folks that were leaving, Duncan responded saying, "The latest statistics show we lost 36,000 members last year, three times what we lost the year before."

Those dioceses which have stayed steady [to the church's doctrine] and growing like Pittsburgh, and that bishop's stand is clear on Christian transformation are growing, said Duncan.

The Rt. Rev. Dr. C. FitzSimons Allison (SC ret.) said that what is far more troublng than the numbers of people leaving the ECUSA is the quality of some of the scholars who perceive the theological bankruptcy of our leadership. "I can name almost a score of personal friends who are published scholars who have left the ECUSA, not because they are unbelieving Anglicans but beacuse they are believing Anglicans who feel there is no place in the apostasy of the House of Bishops."

"When the bishops voted down the substance of what they swore to uphold when they were consecrated in defeating Bishop Keith Ackerman's (Quincy) resolution B001, they lost any claim to respect or obedience," he said.

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