Really not much of a surprise.  The URL for the diocesan stats does not work, the correct link is http://12.0.101.92/reports/PR_ChartsDemo/exports/ParishRPT_224201093841AM.pdf

Looking at the ASA portion of the graph supplied by wvanglican, one sees how the decline is accelerating. It was remarkably constant from 2000 to 2003 and the decline began. It then seemed to get worse after 2006. Hmmm. What happened in 2003 and 2006? ASA dropped 8.9% last year alone in the diocese. They only have 3,279 posteriors in the pews on a given Sunday. I see in their diocesan newspaper they will be hosting Ms Schori in September: “I pray that each of you will make an effort to meet this remarkable woman.” I wonder if anyone from the diocese will have the courage to tell her that her “leadership” is killing the diocese.

These links to the diocesan charts never work.  It seems they have some kind of system generating unique keys for them.  I think they want people to go to the site itself and choose them, and don’t want people linking to them.

If you want to link to one of these charts, you need to upload it somewhere and then put a link to the chart where you’ve saved it.

West Virginia had the usual tough times during 2002 through 2008 with Members down 18.7 percent, ASA down 17.4 percent, and Plate & Pledge (adjusted for inflation) down 9.5 percent. Using these data I ranked the diocese at 66 of 95 considered. The future also looks difficultt. In 2008 there were 126 Infant Baptisms and 158 Burials. Also in 2008, 75 percent (50 of 67) of its churches had Plate & Pledge of less than $150 thousand which means that each “rich” church had three “poor” churches to help. And also in 2008, 51 of the 67 churches had ASA of 70 or less (where the TEC median would predict 33 or 34).  And of these 51, 21 had ASA of 20 or less. Not to be unkind, the diocese has plenty of choices for closure. And yet there are surprises. Of the 51 with ASA of 70 or less, there are THREE with Plate & Pledge of $150 thousand or more. And one deserves special attention: Emmanuel in Keyser, WV had Plate & Pledge increase from about $40,000 in 2006 to almost $200,000 in 2008 !!! Now THAT is something to investigate. God bless them.  Statmann

If you go to this link
http://12.0.101.92/Charts.aspx
You can create plots for any of the dioceses.
I agree with the thought that there should be some thinking about a minimum size for a diocese.

Thanks to Statmann (#5) for his usual, insightful contribution from his vast storehouse of such statistics.  As usual, I’m particularly glad he pointed out that 50 of the 67 churches in the WV diocese have Plate & Pledge under the critical threshold of $150K, and 21 of them have an ASA of 20 or less.  Pretty gloomy prospects indeed.

But as dismal as these stats are, WV still came out better than 30 of the 95 dioceses he looked at.

David Handy+