According to a press release dated July 1, 2011, the the Presbyterian Church (USA) Office of the General Assembly has released our denominational statistics for 2010, and they aren't pretty. Our decades' long statistical decline continued unabated last year, showing a 2.9% decrease in membership and decreases in virtually every other statistical measure of denominational life: fewer churches, fewer elders and deacons, fewer baptisms, and a drop in giving. In 2010, 26 churches left PC(USA) for other denominations. We can expect that number to rise in 2011 with the passage of Amnedment 10A and the change in our ordination standards (see the RPK posting here).The financial figures, however, are not quite as grim. For one thing, they show that members of our churches contributed slightly more than $2 billion to the work of the church in 2010—yes, $2 billion. Giving overall dropped by .35% (three tenths of a percent), substantially less than the 2.9% loss in membership, which suggests that those who remain are stepping up to the plate and that at least some of the membership loss is a shedding of less involved members who tend to give little to their churches.
A couple of things seem to be happening. On the one hand, we are "losing" members who for one reason or another were contributing very little to the life of their churches anyway. Some were once active and have drifted away for one reason or another, often to escape the conflict that is all too prevalent in our local churches (see the RPK posting, "Where's the Laughter Going?"). In that regard, statistical decline is not an entirely bad thing. On the other hand, we are also losing active members for a variety of reasons—some move, some get discouraged, some get caught in conflict, some don't like our stands on issues, some don't like the minister, and the list goes on. However we look at, on the whole statistical decline points to issues and challenges that we talk about a lot but have not found ways to address effectively. And meanwhile the decline continues.
