The only churches to suffer steeper losses than TEC percentage-wise are the PCUSA and UCC.  Quel surprise.

Actually, the figures for National Baptist Convention etc are meaningless.

Churches listed in the Yearbook as experiencing the highest rate of membership loss are the United Church of Christ (down 6.01 percent), the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (down 3.01 percent), the Presbyterian Church (USA) (down 2.79 percent), the Lutheran Church -  Missouri Synod (down 1.44 percent) and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (down 1.35 percent).

It was weird that they didn’t mention the TEClub in this paragraph. The TEClub is now number 4 in membership decline with the ultraliberal UCC-ers #1. The one surprising one is the Missouri Synod continues fairly steep decline.

The conservative denominations continue to grow, Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses, the two main Pentecostals (Assemblies of God and the Church of God). The Southern Baptists continue with slight decline. I tried unsuccessfully to figure out why the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church is dropping so acutely.

I think the unsaid other half to this is that church growth is largely coming from non-denominational and community churches.  I have a feeling a lot of people are tired of denominationalism, especially when the denominations don’t stand for anything, or worse, have become politicized or taken over by secular ideology and stand for things that the people in the pews don’t support.

There are a lot of growing churches where people don’t waste time arguing about gay clergy or same-sex marriage and what the authority of the Bible is.  However, those churches by and large are not in the mainline denominations.

The Yearbook covers far more than mainline churches.  There are some surpisingly small groups covered by the volume.  One approach is to view the facts and reach a conclusion rather than starting with an opinion and trying to explain away the facts.

It would be more interesting (and useful) to see ASA.  We have 1.5 million that the church claims are members, but do they ever grace our doors or support our ministries (through prayer or finance)?

Are these figures based on self-reporting by the churches concerned?  If so then we may indeed wonder at their accuracy.

Terry, most definitely self reported. Hence, many of the denominations report “no change” despite have millions of members.

Many of the denominations report “no change” despite have millions of members

Or at least having had millions of members. Churches that chronically report no membership change are often concealing large membership losses.

It’s interesting to watch Southern Baptists start to react to this… For years they considered themselves immune to the demographic changes that plagued the mainlines, but demographics are finally catching up.

The Mormons report anybody who has been baptized Mormon (not sure if they count people who resigned their memberships.)  They don’t have any attendance requirements for being a ‘member.’  They also don’t report activity rates, so no ASA figures for them.

In wikipedia’s article on US demographics, it gives both church-reported and individual-reported statistics. For stats reported by individuals, the LDS membership is well below ECUSA.  I doubt there are many more than 2 million Americans who call themselves Mormon.

It’s interesting to watch Southern Baptists start to react to this… For years they considered themselves immune to the demographic changes that plagued the mainlines, but demographics are finally catching up.

The Episcopalians respond “Yawn” (that is if the homosexual agenda is moving forward) or the untruth “All denominations are declining”. In contrast, the Southern Baptists are in crisis mode, and their decrease is tiny in comparison.

I notice that the mormon Church and the Jehovah Witnesses she marked increases.  The significance of this is, IMHO, due to their never flagging door-to-door evangelism which is a profound message to us all.

The fact that 9 in 10 denominations have declining numbers is no excuse for TEC, robroy, but it is empirical fact and driven primarily by demographics. Southern Baptist membership decline is less than TEC and the other mainlines because their demographics are still quite different: lower income and less urban. Just compare attrition rates with declining birth rates among the primary constituencies. Consider similarly the demographics of the two denominations posting gains: pentecostals that are disproportionately lower income and less educated. One of the two has a much higher number of minorities, the other is disproportionately rural. These are all indicators of higher birth rates.

For years, Southern Baptists thought their conservative theology was the secret to their success. It was actually that the denomination was more rural and lower income than its peers. But as the SBC’s aggregate income level increases and it becomes increasingly urban, demographics are catching up. As the denomination continues its urban/income shift, watch for the declines to increase.

ASA rates are another matter entirely and may indeed show disproportionate decline among mainlines. But self-reporting makes that a much harder statistic to measure.

Birth rates?