wfn.org | Church membership: Who's counting? And how?

["Philip Jenks" <pjenks@ncccusa.org>]

>Church membership:
>Who's counting? And how?

See also: Southern Baptists, Catholics declining,  www.ncccusa.org/news/090130yearbook2.html

New York, February 23, 2009 -- How many church members are there in the  world?

Well, no one knows, as your Sunday school teacher may already have told  you. God is keeping track of the roll in the Lamb's book of life (see  Revelation 21 for technical details), but those pages aren't open to  demographers.

So the job of counting church members falls to frailer institutions like  your church office or communion headquarters. Each year more than 200  American and Canadian Christian communions report their numbers to the  Yearbook of American & Canadian Churches, which adds them up. The 2009  Yearbook, published this week, announces the result. There are  146,663,972 church members north of the Río Grande.

Give or take. The actual figure, according to the Rev. Dr. Eileen W.  Lindner, Yearbook editor, depends on who's doing the counting, and how.
For some churches, "membership accrues to children brought for baptism,"  Lindner writes in an essay entitled, "The Meaning of Membership:  Reassessing the Counting of Sheep."

"Others confirm membership at the time a youth confirms the intention to  follow in the faith tradition of baptism. Still others rely primarily  upon adult affirmation of faith or of a born again experience in  adulthood."

That makes comparisons "quite difficult," Lindner says. Some churches  count active and inactive members while others keep all baptized infants  on their rolls.

"Many church members relocate, affiliate with other churches, lose  interest in church membership or relocate permanently" without deleting  their membership, Lindner writes. Untold numbers of college students and  military personnel keep their local membership active long after they  have moved away -- as do adults who retire in communities far away from  their home churches.

Some traditions, Lindner points out, estimate the number of members in  their churches. Many Orthodox and African American communions base their  estimates on the ethnic or racial population in neighborhoods.

Some national church bodies count members annually and others collect  data at unpredictable intervals. Other groups, including Megachurches  and Emergent church fellowships stress participation in their  congregations rather than membership. And millions of younger adults  born between 1977 and 1998 attend church regularly but are loathe to  become members.

For these churches, the measure "is counted in hot meals served,  children taught, elderly and infirmed visited and other forms of  ministry and mission," Lindner writes.

These trends and disparities are of special interest to the Yearbook of  American & Canadian Churches which for 92 years has been widely regarded  as the most reliable and accurate source of church statistics in North  America. Each year the appearance of the Yearbook is a major story in  church and secular news outlets because of its documentation of church  membership increases and declines, and the relative ranking of the top  25 largest churches.

"Those accustomed to the assembling of such data know that development  of annual reports is a rather imprecise art," Lindner writes. "This lack  of precision derives, in part, from the wide diversity of practice among  the churches concerning the definition of 'membership.'"

Whether or not church membership remains a common measure of church  vitality, she says, the Yearbook will continue to monitor and report on  developments.

"More research will be needed if we are to follow the variety of  responses to the issues of membership and affiliation in American church  life and gain a deeper understanding of the meaning of church  membership."

Order the Yearbook at www.electronicchurch.org

NCC News contact:  Philip E. Jenks, 212-870-2228 (office),  646-853-4212 (cell) , pjenks@ncccusa.org