Conference Statistician’s Report2015

ANOTHER YEARPASSES

Itremainsapleasureandaprivilegeformetoworkwithpastors,churchsecretaries,membershipsecretaries,treasurersandothersinlocalchurchestogatherthestatisticalreportsandverifytheiraccuracy and comparability. Thank you for yourassistance!

Onceagainthisyear,werequestedthatchurchesentertheirstatisticsonlinethroughtheGCFAEzrasystem.Ourdifficultiesingettinginstructionsreliablytosomechurchescontinued,regrettably,andresulted in late entry of some statistics. I want to thank all those churches who got their statistics inontime(orevenearly!).Itreallyhelps!Wecontinuetoimprovethisprocessandaregratefulforallthefeedbackreceived.

In this report, I will present a summary of the 2014 statistics, and then focus on trends in twoparticularareas over the past fewyears

SUMMARY

At the time of writing this report, we are still missing information from 21 of our churchesandfellowships, a slight improvement on last year. I continue to hope that we can improve on this figure–thisyearwehavehadsomechurchesreportingforthefirsttime.Thankyou!Ontheotherhand,however, a few churches which had reported in the past did not do so thisyear.

On the positive side, first, we added 1,901 members during the year – 1,409 on professionorreaffirmationoffaith,171onnettransferfromotherUMchurchesand271onnettransferfromnon-UMchurches.Thisismorethanlastyearandalmostdoublethenumberofthosewhoarerecordedashaving passed away during the year (1,024). Clearly there isgrowth!

Overall,though,ourconferencemembershipfellby600to74,228–asmallerfallthananyyearsince2000. 375 people voluntarily withdrew their membership and 970 were removed from themembershiprollsof76churchesthroughchurchconferenceaction.Finally,87churchescarriedoutsomeformofaudit of their membership records this year, resulting in a net reduction of 132members.

Worship attendance for 2014 as reported stands at 31,099, down a little from 31,573 in2013.1

COMINGS ANDGOINGS

Over the last couple of years, I have looked at two particular areas where we seek to “Make DisciplesofJesus Christ for the Transformation of the World” – Christian Formation groups, and BaptismandConfirmation. This year, I intend to take a broader look at trends in church membership in recent years

–you may wish to refer back to the previous reports for some related information andcaveats.

The following chart shows increases and decreases of membership across the various categories thatwetrack:

1Theeagle-eyedmaynotesomechangesinfiguresforlastyear.Thisisaresultofinformationreceivedafterlastyear’s report wasprepared.

Whilethetoplinemetric(membership)continuesdownwardonamoderatelystraightline,itisworthconsidering the trends on the individualcomponents.

  • Membership transfers continue to be a positive contribution to our membership. In only oneofthe last 15 years have these beennegative.
  • Removals by church conference action in 2015 were the lowest in 15years
  • Likewise, withdrawals in 2015 were lower than all but one of the last 15years
  • Losses to death in 2015 were 30% lower than in 2000, continuing atrend.
  • Corrections through membership audits were less than in previousyears.

Why,then,doesourmembershipcontinuetofall?Thenumberofthosebeingaddedtoourrollsonprofessionorreaffirmationoffaithhasfallenverysignificantly–downfrom3,332in2000to1,409in2015. We are making far fewer new disciples than in the past by thismeasure.

How is this reflected across the conference? The chart on the previous page shows thechurchesstackedbythenumbersofprofessionsoffaithoverthepast15years.Thestrikingpartsofthisformeare:

  • Thenumberofchurchesreporting0or1professionsoffaithhasgrownfrom150to186.Indeed, in 2014, 160 churches (45%) reported no professions of faith – up from 31% in2000.
  • The number of churches reporting more than 20 professions of faith has fallen from 17 in2000to 8 in2014.

Questions for discussion: where does your church fit in this picture? What is your trend? [Hint: youcanfind this information in the Charts section of Ezra – or ask your statistician!] Have there beensignificantchanges in the demographics of the population around your church that could affect this? Whatcouldyou do aboutthat?

HOW DOES THE CHURCH RUN?

In addition to much valuable information about membership and participation, our annualstatisticalreturnalsocollectsfinancialinformationaboutchurches.Someofthishasonlybeenavailablesince2005 so the trends will be shorter. This year, I want to look at one area –staffing.

The chart above shows the average proportion of total church operational income used to fundstaffother than appointed clergy, grouped by worship attendance (an arguably better measure ofthefinancial strength of a church thanmembership).

It would be entirely expected that larger churches spend more on staff than smaller churches – butthischart shows that they use a greater percentage of income also – reaching almost 40% of income forourlargest churches. Of more interest is that, over the past 10 years, in most groups, the percentagespenton staff hasincreased.

Itisworthnotingthatthisreflectsonlythecostofstaffemployedbylocalchurches.Manychurches,largeandsmall,alsousecontractlabortoperformcertaintasks–janitorial,landscaping,etc. The

amountsinthisareaaremostlikelyconsideredtoberegularoperatingexpensesandarenotreportedseparately. Total operating expenses for all churches have increased over 50% in the sameperiod.

For reference, the 2014 values shown aboveare:

#Worship / Staff / %Income / #Worship / Staff / %Income
1-30 / $3,653 / 7.6% / 101-150 / $57,736 / 22.6%
31-50 / $12,696 / 13.5% / 151-200 / $107,165 / 27.9%
51-75 / $25,169 / 18.1% / 201-300 / $145,403 / 29.5%
76-100 / $37,557 / 20.9% / 301- / $361,800 / 37.4%

Questionfordiscussion:Howdoesyourchurchstackupintheappropriategroup?Areyouoverorunder the average? [Hint: all the information is in your statistical report … or ask yourstatistician!]

MISSIONINSITE

Don’tforgetthattheAnnualConferencehasasubscriptiontothe“MissionInsite”demographicstool.That means that it is available to all churches without charge! It’s free and makes it verystraightforwardtogenerateareportofyourlocalareabyradius,zipcodeorsomeotherareathatyoudrawyourself!Check it out – you might be surprised what youfind.

INCONCLUSION

Ilookforwardtocontinuingtoworkwithourlocalchurchesinthenextfewyears.Wehavealongstreamofstatisticaldatastretchingbackmanyyears.Myhopeisthat,asyourstatistician,Icanhelpchurches to make use of this data. You may have questions about changes in your local churchstatistics, or about comparisons with similar-sized churches across the conference, or you might justbecuriousaboutsomeothertrendwhichyouhaveobserved.Iwouldwelcomeyourcallsoremailstodiscuss these topicsfurther.

Finally,mythankstoClarePowellandDianeKnudsenintheconferenceofficefortheirassistanceingathering the statistics, to Cindy Buna and Jasmine Johnson for their persistence inencouragingchurches to submit their statistics and to Bishop Brown and the Cabinet for their invaluable insightsandadvice throughout theyear.

The detailed statistical tables can be found elsewhere in the Conference Journal and on theconferencewebsite.

Don’t forget, you can always find resources to help with your statistical analysis on the conferencewebsite:

I look forward to seeing many of you at the upcoming Annual ConferenceSession.

Respectfullysubmitted,Adrian Pell

ConferenceStatistician

Email:hone: (530)863-0254