Churches are in decline all across our nation, and a report just released by the Hartford Institute for Religion Research entitled, "A Decade of Change in American Congregations 2000 – 2010," indicates that the decline is accelerating. CNN provides an overview of the report in a news posting entitled, "A rough decade for American congregations." Both the news article and the larger report are worth reading. The executive summary of the report describes its contents in this way:Conducted in 2000, 2005, 2008 and 2010, the FACT series shows that the decade brought: A continued increase in innovative, adaptive worship; A surprisingly rapid adoption of electronic technologies; A dramatic increase in racial/ethnic congregations, many for immigrant groups; A general increase in the breadth of both member-oriented and mission-oriented programs.
It also gave witness to: An increase in connection across faith traditions; A twist in the historical pattern of religious involvement in support of the electoral process.
But the decade also saw: A steep drop in financial health; Continuing high levels of conflict;
Aging memberships.
The net, overall result: Fewer persons in the pews; Decreasing spiritual vitality.
One "interesting" fact contained in the Hartford report is that among the major Christian groups in the U.S. today, Presbyterian churches show the highest average age of congregations. Fully 62% of Presbyterians are 65 years old or older. In contrast, only 4% of Mormons are 65 or older.
