Annual Meeting

[cenimo]

Our church had the annual meeting today (as I'm sure others did) and a few interesting stats were mentioned.

The "G.I." Generation - the parents of the baby boomer generation- were over 60% churched (church members or regular attenders). That generation is dying off at about 1,000 people a day. They are bing replaced by the "Millenial" generation, which is about 10% churched.

In the past 30 years the Episcopal church has lost about 35% of its membership.

The average Episcopalian today is a 58 year old white female with a college education.

[RobNJ]

Missed church & th annual meeting this Sunday.. It was still snowing & I hadn't dug out:sigh:

[AveMaria]

Eeek, how's all that snow? Shall I send some margaritas and chipotle sauce from Texas? :P

[Cjwinnit]

Our church had the annual meeting today (as I'm sure others did) and a few interesting stats were mentioned.

The "G.I." Generation - the parents of the baby boomer generation- were over 60% churched (church members or regular attenders). That generation is dying off at about 1,000 people a day. They are bing replaced by the "Millenial" generation, which is about 10% churched.

In the past 30 years the Episcopal church has lost about 35% of its membership.

The average Episcopalian today is a 58 year old white female with a college education.

I remember recently someone brought up the relative lack of men in the church. I forgot to do a head count yesterday of men and women but I will next week. Don't forget to remind me :)

[pmcleanj]

The statistics tell only part of the story, though. Another factor is the difference between "churched" and "committedly Christian". 70 years ago, church attendance was a social norm and the church was the primary locus of social and leisure activity. Most people were "churched", but their motivations were probably similar to many modern's motivations for going to the gym -- conformity, feelings of self-worth, and social interchange. The 10% that are left are more in it out of commitment, since the social necessity and conformity aspects of church attendance have diminished.

In otherwords, the church has gone from *being* the lump, to being the *leaven* in the lump. And the distinction between the two has become less blurred. And that may be a *good* thing!

[Iron Sun 254]

One problem I've seen very common in the Episcopal church is lack of ministry to young adults. There are always numerous youth, family and senior citizen programs but little if anything for those in college or just out of college. The churches are effectively saying "come back when your marrried and have children"

[Songspinner]

One problem I've seen very common in the Episcopal church is lack of ministry to young adults. There are always numerous youth, family and senior citizen programs but little if anything for those in college or just out of college. The churches are effectively saying "come back when your marrried and have children"

:amen:

[AveMaria]

I don't think it's just the Episcopal church that is failing, here - I think most churches have this problem.

And I have a feeling that the only way we'll change this, is from within.

[pmcleanj]

There's an underlying assumption there, which I think is a bigger problem.

Why do we have to divide ourselves up into all these little groups, anyway? For those of us who are misfits, it reduces our chance of finding anyone we can share a meeting of minds with. For those of us who fit right in, it reduces our chance of broadening our experience.

One of the things I enjoy about CF, is that we have members of different ages in all sorts of different roles and participating on all sorts of different boards. One of the things that makes me want to claw my way out through my own skin, if necessary, is going to an ACW (that's Anglican Church Women, by the way) and finding out that the only thing I have in common with anyone in the room is the number of X chromosomes I'm carrying.

Altar guild, choir, social outreach committee, sidesmen, worship team, -- there's no end of opportunities for young adults to get involved, as long as these service opportunities are not allowed to become closed cliques. But keeping them open means being aware enough of one anothers lives, that we accomodate one another. Perhaps altar guild is open to everyone (at Saint Stephen's it was open only to married women who could pay the relatively steep annual dues, but that's changed) -- but if they only meet on Thursday mornings from 10 to 12, well, that's not very open to anyone who has to earn their living, is it?

[AveMaria]

. . .but if they only meet on Thursday mornings from 10 to 12, well, that's not very open to anyone who has to earn their living, is it?

Precisely! As usual, you've hit the nail squarely on the head.

[Iron Sun 254]

The problem isn't so much that there are opportunities but that young adults are often going through a period of confusion (for lack of a better term) and need the kind of attention they're not getting. Often they're new to an area or they've just gotten back from college and are starting a new job and a new life. Suddenly, they're alone and looking for direction. I have left the Catholic church when I was 15 and didn't get back to a church until I was 25 and then it was only because I had someone there inviting me in. Knowing that you can serve the church is not the same as feeling like you're wanted and that's what people in that situation need. The Episcopal church I used to belong to continually lost young adults to the Baptist church across the street because they made them feel welcome. Another church in the area put out a full page ad in the local "alternative" newspaper which had a picture of Jesus with the following caption "He had long hair, got in trouble with the authorities and lived with his parents until he was in his thirties...He's our kind of guy!" Now, given the choice between that church and a church which doesn't bother to include you in any of their ministries...you're going to go where you feel you're wanted.

[pmcleanj]

The problem isn't so much that there are opportunities but that young adults are often going through a period of confusion (for lack of a better term) and need the kind of attention they're not getting. Often they're new to an area or they've just gotten back from college and are starting a new job and a new life. Suddenly, they're alone and looking for direction. I have left the Catholic church when I was 15 and didn't get back to a church until I was 25 and then it was only because I had someone there inviting me in. Knowing that you can serve the church is not the same as feeling like you're wanted and that's what people in that situation need. The Episcopal church I used to belong to continually lost young adults to the Baptist church across the street because they made them feel welcome. Another church in the area put out a full page ad in the local "alternative" newspaper which had a picture of Jesus with the following caption "He had long hair, got in trouble with the authorities and lived with his parents until he was in his thirties...He's our kind of guy!" Now, given the choice between that church and a church which doesn't bother to include you in any of their ministries...you're going to go where you feel you're wanted.
Bingo!

We grey-hairs and parents are in church in disproportionate numbers, first of all because we are more settled than young adults, and secondly because we have had an extra ten.twenty or thirty years of throwing ourselves against the closed doors of the church, with the consequent higher likelihood of having finally found a door that was unlocked, or that we could batter down.

And once we did manage to bash our way in, we've stayed.

It's not just young adults. It's *anyone* who's on the outside: and you've put your finger on exactly what they need:

1) to be invited
2) to be made to feel welcome once they get there, and
3) to have their gifts accepted and utilized.

[Iron Sun 254]

The most disheartening thing I ever heard was in a discussion with a vestry member who stated that they concentrate on bringing in mattied people with children because they'll give more money to the church. Any church which has this attitude is in trouble.

[pmcleanj]

The most disheartening thing I ever heard was in a discussion with a vestry member who stated that they concentrate on bringing in mattied people with children because they'll give more money to the church. Any church which has this attitude is in trouble. :sigh: :(

My experience with that kind of church was, that they also wanted those married people with children to check their children at the door and not pollute the country-club atmosphere of the worship service with their little sprogs. The priest was understanding when I explained that it was important to me to *keep* the vows I made at their baptism, that I would "bring them to take their part in public worship", but explained that the people who were objecting were the people with big money, so he couldn't ignore them. :o

:D That was 1999, the year my long-haired T-shirted jeans-wearing low-class husband sold the Y2K-software company he had a share in, and our tithe spiked quite satisfactorily. Since we'd been more-or-less asked to leave if we weren't willing to store our children in the Sunday-School during worship, and consequently didn't have a parish to tithe to, that whole tithe had to go to Primate's Fund, Unicef, and the Food Bank. ^_^

[AveMaria]

The most disheartening thing I ever heard was in a discussion with a vestry member who stated that they concentrate on bringing in mattied people with children because they'll give more money to the church. Any church which has this attitude is in trouble.

:cry: That is tragic.

[RobNJ]

One thing I've noticed in my area...as soon as the family has kids old enough to be in softball, soccer, etc...there goes some of mom & dads Sunday morning...running The Parental Taxi Servce.
Too much going on here to get everyone in on Saturday

[AveMaria]

One thing I've noticed in my area...as soon as the family has kids old enough to be in softball, soccer, etc...there goes some of mom & dads Sunday morning...running The Parental Taxi Servce.


One reason why I'm only having cats. I'd like a dog too, but they're too much of a commitment. ^_^

[Iron Sun 254]

The good news was that the attitude of this particular vestry member was a minority viewpoint....the bad news is the church had all sorts of other issues for us which I can't begin to get into.

[cenimo]

On another board there's a lot of controversy over Rick Warren and the PDC stuff (Purpose Driven Church). Part of that is so much emphasis on being "seeker-sensitive" that the church service itself may become unrecognizable.

So that's another part of the problem of growing a church, not letting it become so far removed from the origial as it grows. Just a thought.

[pmcleanj]

On another board there's a lot of controversy over Rick Warren and the PDC stuff (Purpose Driven Church). Part of that is so much emphasis on being "seeker-sensitive" that the church service itself may become unrecognizable.
We are struggling with this ourselves at Emmanuel.

Part of the problem with being seeker-sensitive, is it really isn't clear how committed we are, ourselves.

I speculate that the best way to seek seekers, is to let the main Sunday worship serve the worshippers -- and then in addition open your doors to seekers in seeker-friendly services, and create transition programmes to transition former-seekers-who've-found-it (as it were) into the more fulfilling, full-spectrum worship that serves the believing church. After all, seekers and worshippers are meeting two very different needs when they come to church.

But meeting the needs of both groups, would require that the worshippers spend more time in worship: going to church twice, perhaps, first to meet their own needs and second to serve the seekers. But we, at least, can't get the turn-out for such an arrangement. And so we have resorted to half-measures that try to meet both needs in one service, and so meet neither.