Religion In America - Statistical Picture

[Craig Laughlin]

Here is a link to a statistical look at religion in American. Some of it is pretty up to date and some of it is older data.

Some things I found interesting.
- Most people attend larger churches
- Mega churches are on the rise in a big sort of way
- Only 20% of Americans are in church on Sunday.
- The median age for Protestant clergy is 51

What do you think?

http://hirr.hartsem.edu/research/fas....html#sizecong

[Benjamin Burch]

I think it is nice that the ECUSA is not losing members as quickly as we once were!

I think it is going to be impossible to find myself a good Christian woman to date in San Diego while attending St, Paul's Cathedral instead of THE ROCK.

[John Reilly]

quote "The median age for Protestant clergy is 51" !!! WOW!!! I was looking around our district assembly and saw this stat walking around. Only one young guy ordained who serves now as a youth pastor. The other four people ordained were about the median, maybe lower.

[Craig Laughlin]

My only comment is about the survey itself. Is it consistent to decide that people lie about how often they attend church, but don't lie about anything else? If we can't believe the answer to the first question, why should we accept as accurate anything else in the survey answers? To be consistent, shouldn't they just throw out the entire survey?

My sense of it was that the information on the page was derived from a lot of sources. Many of them My (limited) understanding is folks that do this sort of thing have discovered over the years that there are certain topics in which people are more or less likely to be truthful and try the folks doing surveys try and compensate. What I like about this particular one was that they were honest enough to admit that and then were clear that the 20% was in fact not survey results but a number derived after the experts had factored in their thinking.

From other reading (and experience with talking to people, especially in the Midwest) I already knew that people exaggerate church attendance. The fact that they would be up front about it only increases my confidence in the folks who put this together. -- That being said... it is still an educated guess.

[Gina Stevenson]

I think it is nice that the ECUSA is not losing members as quickly as we once were!

I think it is going to be impossible to find myself a good Christian woman to date in San Diego while attending St, Paul's Cathedral instead of THE ROCK.

Visit Virginia.

[Ryan Scott]

My thoughts have been for a while that in 50 years (maybe less) people will either attend a mega-church or some non-traditional home church/organic ministry sort of thing.

These numbers sort of bear that out. If nothing else, the numbers of clergy going down so quickly will pretty much mean small/poor congregations won't have pastors in the near future.

[Craig Laughlin]

My thoughts have been for a while that in 50 years (maybe less) people will either attend a mega-church or some non-traditional home church/organic ministry sort of thing.

These numbers sort of bear that out. If nothing else, the numbers of clergy going down so quickly will pretty much mean small/poor congregations won't have pastors in the near future.

20 years ago I read a futurist that said exactly that. At the time I thought he was crazy, not so much anymore.

[Benjamin Burch]

20 years ago I read a futurist that said exactly that. At the time I thought he was crazy, not so much anymore.

This makes me very sad. I love my beautiful Episcopal Cathedral with about 500 people.