Stories from the Spreadsheet: Ethnicity, Gender, Membership

February 4, 2015

3:14 PM

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Each United Methodist congregation maintains records on membership, worship attendance, and a host of other statistics. This information is submitted on a yearly basis to the annual conference and then on to the General Council of Finance and Administration. The staff at GCFA diligently processes this data so that we have a snapshot of the state of the denomination. I am a firm believer that our statistical tables are more than dry numbers in neat columns. Behind each number is a story. The numbers do not provide answers, but they do lead to good questions.

This post and those that follow will deal with the 2013 statistics of The United Methodist Church. I hope that they encourage meaningful conversation and raise intriguing questions. The information below is based on a composite of churches with at least five members (32,154 congregations). You may want to read this post from last year to see the similar statistics from 2012.

Ethnicity as a Percentage of the total number of United Methodist Members

African American: 6.11% (This represents a net increase of 2,571 people from 2012)

Asian American: 1.26%(This represents a net decrease of 619 people from 2012)

Hispanic American: 1.03% (This represents a net increase of 303 people from 2012)

Native American: .29% (This represents a net decrease of 266 people from 2012)

Euro American: 90.1% (This represents a net decrease of 72,183 people from 2012)

Pacific Islander: .19% (This represents a net increase of 241 people from 2012)

Multi Racial: .78% (This represents net increase of 7,099 people from 2012)

Not Reporting: .24% (This represents a net decrease of 30,492 people from 2012)

(Note: There were a total of 57,160 people reported as multi-racial, however, this includes 25,714 people from 59 congregations in which 100% of the congregation was reported as multi-racial. I am doubtful that those 59 congregations were defining multi-racial in the same way as the other 32,095 congregations.)

Gender as a percentage of the total number of United Methodists

Men: 42.51% (There were 30,488 fewer men reported in 2013 than in 2012)

Women: 57.49% (These were 42,227 fewer women reported in 2013 than in 2012)

Membership Related Statistics

Professing Members: 7,298,907

Baptized Members who are not professing members: 648,861

Constituents: 1,591,833

Average Worship Attendance: 2,900,627

Change in professing membership from 2012 to 2013: -72,829 or -.99%

Change in baptized (non-professing) membership from 2012 to 2013: -46,154 or -6.6%

Change in constituents from 2012 to 2013: 6,138 or .39%

Change in worship attendance from 2012 to 2013: -55,775 or -1.89%

Number of people baptized : 91,650 (A decrease of 5.6% from 2012)

Number of people in confirmation classes: 64,061 (A decrease of 7.6% from 2012)

Number of professions of faith: 118,079 (A decrease of 5.2% from 2012)

Number of people received from other denominations: 46,920 (A decrease of 6.2% from 2012)

Number of people who transferred to another denomination: 25,329 (An increase of 1.9% from 2012)

Number of deaths: 96,903 (A decrease of .14% from 2012)

Number removed by charge conference: 88,420 (A decrease of 6.2% from 2012)

Things I Wonder About

• In 2012 there was a slight increase in professions of faith, but in 2013 there was a fairly significant decrease. I wonder how that is related to the decrease in number of people baptized and the number in confirmation?

• I wonder why we increased in the number of constituents but decreased in almost everything else?

The statistical data included herein were provided at no charge by the General Council on Finance and Administration of The United Methodist Church (GCFA) and may be obtained directly from GCFA, PO Box 340020, Nashville, TN 37203-0029. This data is proprietary and is owned by GCFA and may not be used in any commercial or exploitative way, to make a financial profit, or in a manner that defames the United Methodist denomination or its agencies or organizations. GCFA does not endorse any particular use of the data or accept responsibility for its interpretation or analysis by another.

The Rev. Deb Smith is a deacon in the Tennessee Annual Conference. She previously served as director of best practices at the General Board of Discipleship, and she blogs at Stories from the Spreadsheet.

Comments (4)

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We Must Stop Being the Methodist Statistical Church

Back in Seminary, I engaged in a process of at least skimming the Journals of my own Annual Conference from 1900 until 1970. It was a story of the growth of our area, the starting of lots of new churches, and the beginning of decline.
However, that was not what struck me as the most surprising. What was surprising was the Statistical Reports turned in each year by every local church. It wasn't the numbers on the sheet; it was the columnar categories which intrigued me. Other than changes in our Statistical Report based on changes in names of groups in our church (Such as Women's Home Missionary Society to WSCS to UMW, for example), there was only one column which had a change in title: Column 2. Today it reads: "Members Received by Profession of Faith." in 1900, the same column title simply read: "Souls Saved." Those categories were the same in the reports of the Methodist Episcopal Church earlier than that.
Think about it: we are trying to measure the effectiveness of our denomination in the twenty-first century, using nineteenth century categories!
The statistic that really counts should be: how many people are worshipping in our worship services, on average, each Sunday. Membership has become a meaningless category. I can join the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, People for the American Way, the National Rifle Association, and the National Psoriasis Society (Plus any of thousands of other non-profit groups) simply by writing a check. I'm not really asked to do anything except occasionally signing a petition online. That's what membership in a group means today.
For years, I've said we might be smarter to eliminate our current understanding of Church membership and to replace it with an Annual Affirmation of Membership. Each member's membership would end on December 31 of each year. We could have the first Sunday in January, our celebration of Epiphany, to use something like the Wesley Covenant Service to invite people to re-up their membership. We could still have the Sacrament of Baptism and a Confirmation process. Our Columns on the Statistical Report would read 1) Membership at the Close of Previous Year; 2) New members confirmed or received during this year; 3) Persons who renewed their Membership; 4) Deaths of Members; and 5) Membership at the end of this year.
Yes, our membership might drop by a third. But it would be more honest. And, it would allow us to have the best of all possible worlds: a high percentage of our membership being with us, worshipping every Sunday. Some churches might even have a worship to membership ratio on excess of 100%! To me, that is the sign of a healthy church.
There is nothing to be celebrated in measuring today's church in nineteenth century categories. We need to stop being the Methodist Statistical Church!

Rev. Tom Griffith more than 11 years ago

Response

Amen. 23 yrs ago I was told by a DS that little 12 member churches were not really a part of the future. Consolidation, programs, activities were the keys to the future. Small congregations were made irrelevant and would assimilated into larger bodies.
I made the statement that As as a Lay Speaker I would stay there until I buried the last of the 12. Then I would turn out the lights,, lock the door and give umc the key and be done.
As a congregation we decided a few changes were needed for our survival. We got rid of everything that does not relate to 11:00 worship! No Sunday School, no choir, no debt, no committees , and.as a 230 yr old Body of Christ we found freedom
And liberation. I’m 72 my wife is 70 and we are the youth group. But don’t be fooled. We have 21 grandchildren that come on occasion and stay in wordship to witness their grands and learn. We have the same lesson each week by using the next book of scripture and asking where is the story if Jesus and the presence of the Holy Spirit found?
We have become liberal in our giving. We spend a little over 50% of our tithe buying food or electricity or cutting cell phones back on for lots of folks we don’t know!
We take the tact that if you see hunger or darkness FIX IT and bring the receipt and you will be paid in Service the next Sunday. You don’t need approval to act for others in Christ Spirit. we have ministered to a fraternity at ga southern and they have liberally blessed us in both giving and serving as dates and partners in a rural Nite to shine. We believe in old style Faith and Healing Spirits. We sing old Hymns (usually off key). We have a Masonic Lodge that came home to where they were founded in 1853. ( we were initiated in 1790). We don’t do paper work cause we don’t have a phone or email account but we lead our district in per member giving in need circumstances. They can’t shoot ya if your #1 in something. What I know is we don’t fit in the current image and we aren’t convenient but those 10 of our 12 members present each week trust in what they are doing and are not shy about listening and then acting.
The real vulnerable in the turmoil today are these
Congregations.. i get more info on classes to take and programs and projects yet after 24?years I am not supposed to serve communion without the blessing of someone qualified. If I went on line for ordination I could legally marry a couple but yet it would not be recognized by UMC because I am not an Elder or Deacon. The scary part is very likely 40% of our body is in that same boat.
Thanks for the spot to vent but there’s not a lot of symptom of healing or improvement so these next few years may be like the Body in the Catacombs!!

Steve brown more than 6 years ago

Global or US?

You nowhere state that these are United States-only data, but from your list of ethnic categories, I have to assume you are looking at only United Methodist congregations in the United States. Is that correct?

Emily more than 11 years ago

US Stats

Yes, these are U.S. stats only. Global statistics are not available.

Deb Smith more than 11 years ago