wfn.org | 1999 Yearbook of American and Canadian churches

[Daphne Mack <dmack@dfms.org>]

99-033
Yearbook of American and Canadian churches includes updated data

(NCC) The 1999 Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches is 
already being called the most valuable in the book's 67-year 
history, with more than one thousand updates and two new chapters 
enhancing its value for local church ministry.

Generally recognized as the most up-to-date, comprehensive 
available summary of membership and financial data from North 
America's churches, the annual Yearbook, prepared by staff of the 
National Council of Churches, also offers extensive descriptions 
and directories of national and regional denominational and 
ecumenical bodies. The new edition lists more U.S. church bodies 
than ever before, a total of 213.

Trends essays in the 1999 Yearbook include a reflection on 
"American Religion at the Millennium's End" by Gustav Niebuhr, 
senior religion correspondent for The New York Times.  Statistical 
charts and commentaries on a century of church growth in the 
United States and Canada go hand in hand with data on the 
continuing "flattening out" of "mainline" membership losses and 
"non-mainline" gains, along with evidence that giving to churches 
continues to increase.

The 408-page yearbooks also includes:
* A new index to help churches and others identify regional 
and local ecumenical programs in five key areas: 
Interfaith Dialogue, Hunger/Food Programs, Youth 
Activities, Faith and Order, and Homelessness/Shelter 
Ministries.
* A new chapter listing key religion research centers, a 
useful compendium for journalists, scholars and other 
"students" of contemporary American religion.
* A vastly expanded compendium of e-mail and World Wide 
Web addresses for North American denominations and 
cooperative organizations, local and regional ecumenical 
bodies, seminaries, religious periodicals; relief and 
disaster response agencies, databases and search engines, 
and for world religious bodies. Emerging the Electronic 
Church" chapter was six pages long when it premiered 
last year but this year it requires 23 pages.

The yearbook is edited by the Rev. Dr. Eileen W. Lindner, 
the NCC's Associate General Secretary for Christian Unity. It is 
published by Abingdon Press in Nashville, Tennessee, and available 
for U.S.$35 (including shipping) through the NCC's Friendship 
Press (212-870-2496) and at local bookstores across the United 
States and Canada.

"From the pulpit to the pew, from the podium to the press, 
this is the book for anyone who has anything to do with 
religion." said Roger Burgess, director of Friendship Press, New 
York City, hailing its value for local churches, denominational 
and ecumenical leaders, journalists, seminary and public 
libraries, researchers and scholars alike.