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ECUSA: Attendance Decline Puts 20/20 Goals in Jeopardy
The Living Church Foundation
1/31/2006
Just 11 of the Episcopal Church's 100 domestic dioceses had an increase in average Sunday attendance (ASA) from 2003 to 2004, figures released by the Episcopal Church Center indicate, with attendance for the whole Church declining by 3.3 percent.
Church-wide attendance information was released last summer, but the attendance information for each diocese has only recently been made available.
The missionary Diocese of Navajoland experienced the sharpest percentage increase among all dioceses in 2004, increasing its ASA by 10.4 percent, followed by North Dakota at 4.0 percent. Other dioceses that had an increase in ASA were South Carolina at 3.1 percent, Western Kansas at 2.9 percent, Southwestern Virginia 1.8, Quincy 1.6, Dallas 1.4, Nevada 0.7, Western Michigan 0.6, Wyoming 0.6, and Alabama 0.1.
The Diocese of Eastern Michigan experienced the highest one-year drop in attendance, falling by 12.5 percent, followed by El Camino Real at 9.2 percent, Minnesota at 7.9 percent, Oklahoma at 7.8 percent, Northern Indiana at 7.1 percent, East Tennessee at 6.6 percent, Spokane at 6.4 percent, Central Florida at 6.4 percent, Utah at 6.4 percent, and Western Louisiana 6.3 percent.
Kirk Hadaway, director of research and congregational development at the Episcopal Church Center, cautioned against putting too much emphasis on one-year changes in ASA for individual dioceses because small changes at even one congregation can have a significant effect on diocesan ASA.
Between 1994 and 2004, ASA for the Church as a whole declined by 32,749, or by 4 percent. The dioceses of South Carolina and Tennessee each grew by 26.2 percent, closely followed by Dallas at 21.8, San Diego 13 and Texas 12.7.
Western Louisiana declined by 20.7 percent in the same period, followed by South Dakota 20.5, Rochester 20.2, Western New York 19.7 and Central New York 19.3.
"Through 2001 attendance was increasing," Mr. Hadaway said. "As recently as 2002 there was optimism about where we were heading. We were one of the few mainline denominations experiencing growth up to that point. [The 74th] General Convention [in 2003] was certainly a factor, but we can't say exactly how much."
Mr. Hadaway said that other factors such as the average age of Episcopalians and secularizing cultural trends probably account for more of the decline than any specific incident. As more of the Church's resources become focused on dealing with conflict, however, less attention is paid to mission and planting new churches.
"You don't hear much about 20/20 right now," he said. "We need to grow just to offset the mortality rate. If the 2003 General Convention had never happened, the statistics would still be problematic."
http://www.livingchurch.org/publishertlc/printarticle.asp?ID=1671
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