• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
  • Sermons
  • About
  • Contact

So What Faith

Greg Smith

  • Books
  • Discipleship
  • Social Media
  • Leadership
  • Trends
  • Prayer

decline

PC(USA) Membership Declines by “Only 50K” (#1872)

2020/06/08 By Greg

The Office of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A) recently published denominational statistics for 2019.  I first learned of this new data by reading an article titled "PC(USA) Statistics Show a Leveling Off in Membership Decline." Recent Decline While the denomination has been in decline since its formation, this article seeks to tell the more positive micro story within that ongoing macro story. It seeks to achieve this by focusing on recent positive trends, Read More …

Presbyterian Decline: PCUSA -The First 35 Years (#1856)

2020/03/08 By Greg

The Presbyterian Church (USA) was created by a merger of the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. and the Presbyterian Church in the United States in June 1983. The newly formed denomination started with a membership of 3,131,228. Membership Decline The denomination has experienced year-over-year membership decline every year since it began. Over the last three decades, the rate of decline has increased: 1988-1998 – 11.9%1998-2008 – 17.3%2008-2018 Read More …

Dwindling Membership: The United Church of Christ from 1965-2015 (#1654)

2016/11/14 By Greg

While I consider myself a post-denominational follower of the Way of Jesus, I have spent the most of the last six years involved in the life of congregations affiliated with the United Church of Christ.  This Mainline Protestant denomination has experienced a significant decline in membership over the last 50 years from over 2 million members in 1965 to under 1 million members in 2015. The graph at right shows the denomination's total membership by year in blue and the percent Read More …

Southern Baptist Decline (#1425)

2014/05/23 By Greg

Southern Baptists, the largest Protestant tradition in the United States, are in decline.  They have lost nearly 1 million members over the last decade yielding a membership of just under 16 million. Conversion has always been an essential reason for growth in this Evangelical denomination.  Since peaking in 1999, the number of baptisms conducted each year has declined by 25%. So What? Emma Green, associate editor for The Atlantic and author of the article I linked to Read More …

Church Size & Growth Potential (#1242)

2013/11/21 By Greg

The Fall 2013 edition of Facts and Trends contains a graphic (p.4) from Leadership Network showing that Protestant megachurches are four times more likely to be growing than are all Protestant churches (79% compared to 20%). So What? This statistic is one of many that highlight the reality that America's largest Protestant churches are among the healthiest of all churches when it comes to growth. Since most congregations are smaller in size, the 20% number must be something that Read More …

Southern Baptist Decline (#1121)

2013/06/11 By Greg

2012 was another rough year for the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC).  More specifically, "according to the Annual Church Profile (ACP) compiled by LifeWay Christian Resources in cooperation with Baptist state conventions, most of the ACP metrics declined in 2012 including membership, average attendance, baptisms . . ."  Expressed as percentages, the declines are membership: 0.7%, average worship attendance: 3.1%, and baptisms: 5.5%. So What? While the SBC still Read More …

So Many Dwindling Congregations (#1012)

2013/02/22 By Greg

The cover story of the January 2013 edition of The Lutheran is "Shrinking Church," an article focusing on the pragmatic issues of decline within the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).  To substantiate the problem, Nicole Radziszewski notes the following statistics about the ELCA: In 2010, almost 30% of congregations had an average worship attendance of fewer than 50 people. From 2003 to 2011, average weekly worship attendance dropped 26%. From 2009 to 2010, Read More …

Can Christianity Be Saved? (#0793)

2012/07/17 By Greg

As I read Ross Douthat's latest New York Times editorial, "Can Liberal Christianity Be Saved?," I knew I had to respond.  In short, he suggests that the end could well be near for progressive or liberal Christianity unless something changes rather significantly as a result of decades of decline.  While not proposing that other forms of Christianity have all fared well, he suggests that they have by way of comparison to progressive denominations. (For more on Douthat's perspective, read my review Read More …

The Church in 2020 – Major Changes Ahead (#0697)

2012/04/12 By Greg

I have spent a considerable amount of time studying the landscape of American Christianity since the 1950s.  Any time I make a presentation on the topic, people always ask about the future.  In order to more fully answer those questions I devised a list of changes I believe to be most likely.  The original list was created in 2006, before I entered the blogosphere. When I revised the list and turned it into a "top ten" in 2009, I published it on my blog.  In light Read More …

Top Challenges for the Mainline (#0667)

2012/03/13 By Greg

Carol Howard Merritt, a Presbyterian pastor and the author of Tribal Church: Ministering to the Missing Generation (2007 – read my review here) and Reframing Hope: Vital Ministry in a New Generation (2010 – read my review here), chaired a national committee for the Presbyterian Church (USA).  She shares the four significant challenges for the next generation as identified by the committee: Our denomination is over 90% white, while the overall population Read More …

  • « Go to Previous Page
  • Go to page 1
  • Go to page 2
  • Go to page 3
  • Go to Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Greg Smith

Greg is a follower of the Way of Jesus who strives to make the world a better place for all people. Currently, he serves as Chief Executive Officer of White Rock Center of Hope and as Interim Senior Pastor of Advent Lutheran Church. He has served ten congregations, taught religion to undergraduates for eight years, and helped three organizations provide quality healthcare to underserved populations. (Read More)

Categories

Recent Posts

  • Going Electric! (#2229)
  • Living by Faith (#2228)
  • Fewer Master of Divinity Students (#2227)
  • Welcoming Everyone (#2226)
  • The Increasingly Purple Mainline (#2225)

Tags

Advent Lutheran Church Bible blogging Catholic change Christian Christianity church COVID-19 Dallas decline Diana Butler Bass discipleship education ELCA Episcopal Evangelical facebook faith Jesus Leadership love mainline Mainline Protestant marcus borg membership Ministry Naples United Church of Christ ordination pastor PCUSA Pew Research Center Prayer preaching Presbyterian Protestant religion Scot McKnight social media technology theology twitter United Church of Christ United Methodist worship

Copyright © 2025 · So What Faith, a member of The Faith Growth Digital Ministry Network