Decline. [Updates]
Anglican blogger Karen B. came across the just-posted membership statistics for the Episcopal Church and did a quick compare and contrast excericise. It ain't a pretty picture, especially when the non-domestic dioceses are broken out: 
Click on image to enlarge.
Update: Considerable email discussion of these statistics, most of which is hard for me to follow because I'm pretty innumerate (got a "D" in statistics, as a matter of fact); however, there is some skewing in these numbers due to (1) non-domestic dioceses added between 2002 & 2005; and (2) calendar anomalies in 2005 - 53 Sundays, and Christmas falling on a Sunday.
More Update: In addition to Karen B.'s comments here, TitusOneNine has a summary of and links to discussion and number crunching. The only diocese to grow relative to general population growth? South Carolina.
posted by PSA+ at 15:58
3 Comments:
I'll get the numbers, but I am confident that our numbers were skewed last year due to the "Christmas effect" - in fact I believe I calculated it both ways.
Stand Firm has posted Karen's updated tables:
updated domestic v. foreign table
non-domestic data
By "last year" I mean, of course, 2005. I haven't recovered yet from New Year's Eve on St. Lucia.
Thanks, Karen - and I understood what you meant by "padding." I haven't had the chance to dig up our numbers, but I do recall when calculating the 2005 statistics wondering if it was quite "fair" to include the Christmas services, but the directions seemed quite clear. Again, I am not by any means a numbers/statistics person, but I would be shocked (shocked, I say) were there not a huge "Christmas effect." Glancing at the 2005 service register prior to preparing Christmas bulletins this year reminded me that on Christmas Day 2005 we had about 70 people (we had only one service that morning - normally 2 on a Sunday), about 2/3's of an average Sunday. In 2006 (Christmas on Monday) we had 30. In 2005, we had fairly massive (for us)Christmas Eve attendance (included is ASA), this year somewhat fewer total but spread fairly evenly among the 4 Dec. 24 services (2 morning IV Advent service, 2 Christmas Eve services).
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