Seventh-day Adventist denomination - said to be 5th largest Christian denomination world-wide

[tall73]

tall73 said: ↑

@The Liturgist listed specific churches which he claims are larger than the SDA church.

the Roman Rite of the Roman Catholic Church
the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate),
the Ethiopian Tewahedo Orthodox Church,
the Church of Christ in Congo,
the Church of England,
the Calvary Chapel
Assemblies of God in Brazil

So now it is your turn to address his list. Are these churches larger than the Adventist church? If so, then the Christianity Today article was wrong. So please address the list that he gave.

BobRyan said: ↑

Clearly Daniel Marsh's link above "also" did not make "that choice" for the top 5... so are they all "evil" except for Liturgist's choice?

You objected to the Liturgist's listing that went by communions, stating that Adventists are a specific group. So then he listed specific groups that were larger.

But instead of addressing it you deflect by quoting a different poster's list with communions, as though you hadn't made the specific church argument, and make some ridiculous argument about "evil" lists.

So back to the question you didn't answer Bob. Do these specific churches have more members than the SDA church?

the Roman Rite of the Roman Catholic Church
the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate),
the Ethiopian Tewahedo Orthodox Church,
the Church of Christ in Congo,
the Church of England,
the Calvary Chapel
Assemblies of God in Brazil

 

[The Liturgist]

one could argue that ChristiantyToday is expressing their "philosophy" in their Jan 2015 article saying that at a certain number of baptized members the Adventist church is the 5th largest denomination in the world where they then name the 4 denominations larger than Adventists.

Others will see that as a claim of fact about how one categorizes groups and relative sizes of each...

You have free will of course. Maybe you audited ChristiantyToday's categorizing method and determined that they were using philosphy... or maybe you did not get that audit done at all. Who knows? I am happy to have differing opinions posted.

I am not claiming ChristianityToday views statistics as philosophy, rather, I am trying to explain the matter to readers of your thread. When it comes to the relative sizes of a church in terms of the number of members, that is an easy and straightforward question that has a correct answer, and if in tabulating your answer you ignore five of the largest churches for no apparent logical reason, as ChristianityToday did, your answer is in error.

And they would realize that if they were aware of the error, but given that it is an insignificant article from 2015 that probably has attracted more clicks from this thread than it has since it was first published, I really doubt they give a care. Because for a major publication, time is money, and to fix the article, someone has to log into their content management system, find the article, look up the data, which is not that hard as Wikipedia has to my surprise an accurate summary which is slightly more up to date, but not different in terms of the end result, than my numbers*, and then update the article, posting it as an designated update if they have any journalistic integrity - because if they don’t, they look sleazy, but if they do, they still get egg on their face. It is in their best interests as a company to ignore the problem. However I will at some point contact the author, if he is still alive, to alert him to the error.

Now, if this were philosophy, which I know its not, and ChristianityToday knows its not, we could debate what is the correct answer, but this is statistics, which is defined as “ Statistics is the science concerned with developing and studying methods for collecting, analyzing, interpreting and presenting empirical data.”

So no, we all can’t have our opinions. There is one right answer, and reason compels us to accept that answer and move on.

*Which again shows the SDA has an impressive size, not fifth place, but still massive, but if I were the SDA, I would worry about growth rates in the Evangelical Church in Germany, which much loved and much subscribed to for its Christmas, Easter and saints day services, even by people who are not extremely “frum” to use a Yiddish term which might be valid Hochdeutsch, one never knows, and by the growth rates and actual size in the SBC if its membership is recalculated using the same methodology as the SDA.

 

[The Liturgist]

I think they used family groups and SDA is a family group by itself.

That is correct. The article specifically measured the size of communions, and two of the entries, the Roman Catholic Church and the SDA, are individual denominations, or communions of one (some Roman Catholic members might argue that the Eastern Catholic Churches are separate denominations, which is fine; their total membership is small enough to have no bearing on this list as they have I think around 12 million members, maximum, mostly Ukrainian Greek Catholics (in 1910, 5 years before the Turkish genocide, the Catholic Encyclopedia reported the Armenian Catholic Church was the largest, and now they are one of the smallest, which should give you an idea of the scope of the horror faced by my friend @ArmenianJohn ‘s people, and their Syriac, Assyrian and Pontic Greek brethren, the acts of sheer mayhem, literally defined, I refuse to discuss on a public forum, it was so evil).

 

[The Liturgist]

Note: you also claimed something like "fastest growing" denomination. And, the other tables I posted shows that was not true. I am guessing our Catholic friends would be the fastest growing based on physical births.

Indeed, and the majority of articles I have seen indicate that in terms of conversions, the Assemblies of God are the fastest growing.

I also personally know more former Adventists than currently practicing Adventists, including a lady who married into an ethnic church, and an entire family which became alienated and is still Christian but unchurched, effectively.

A member of that family, who dated me for a time, cited Ellen White as her reason for leaving.

 

[Gregory Thompson]

Weeds grow fast, so check the fruit. How are the fast growing traditions faring after the congregants enter into the world for the week? Are people only Christians on Sunday? What is the criteria for true growth?

 

[tall73]

Net growth "is funny that way". Turns out all denominations on planet earth gain new members every year and lose some members every year. But I like that this news is on your radar. so nice going.

Yes, people leave every church. However, the rate for Adventists has been growing. It went from around 28 leaving per 100 added in the late 80s, to 49 per hundred in 2019.

Is there a higher goal than baptisms?

The Adventist Church is rejoicing that since October 1,1982, it has had an average of one thousand persons per day becoming members. What is not so well known is that 278 per day officially left our church during the same period. And the church has no way of knowing how many have "unofficially" removed themselves from the fellowship of believers. Should our church change its goals as it plans for 1990? If so, what kind of goals would be most meaningful?

Nurture, retention, reclamation: Can you hear their cry?

The Seventh-day Adventist Church is losing members at an alarming rate. Even though the evangelism in our churches is winning people, we lose about 49 of every 100 baptized. This hemorrhaging of our members cannot continue. It is expected to get worse, especially in countries where soul winning is difficult; and if it continues, entire conferences maybe closed for lack of members.

General Conference Secretary G. T. Ng, in addressing this issue, made a serious statement: “This 49 percent apostasy rate is alarming and is a serious drain on the human and financial resources of the church.” Then he asked some pertinent questions: “What happens to an army with 49 percent desertion among its soldiers? What happens to a school when 49 percent of its students drop out of classes? What happens to a factory when 49 percent of its employees decide to defect?”

The SDA church does a lot right with evangelism. But they do have a problem with retention.


Also:

 

[BobRyan]

Yes, people leave every church. However, the rate for Adventists has been growing. It went from around 28 leaving per 100 added in the late 80s, to 49 per hundred in 2019.

Your projection of "zero growth" has failed so far. You might need "A lot more COVID" to get that to work

Adventists Are Fastest-Growing Denomination In North America – tedNEWS Network

 

[tampasteve]

Your projection of "zero growth" has failed so far. You might need "A lot more COVID" to get that to work

Adventists Are Fastest-Growing Denomination In North America – tedNEWS Network

According to Adventist research, the church was losing 43 people for every one that comes in:
The Adventist world church, now with nearly 18 million members, has lost at least 1 in 3 Seventh-day Adventist members in the last 50 years, according to summit organizers. Also, in this century, the ratio of people lost versus new converts is 43 per 100.

I'm not claiming "doom and gloom" for the SDA church, but it needs to be realized that they are facing similar issues to all large churches.

 

[tall73]

Your projection of "zero growth" has failed so far. You might need "A lot more COVID" to get that to work

Adventists Are Fastest-Growing Denomination In North America – tedNEWS Network

Your ability to produce a statement by me indicating a projection of "zero growth" has also failed so far.

And so has your ability to answer a straight-forward question:

the Roman Rite of the Roman Catholic Church
the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate),
the Ethiopian Tewahedo Orthodox Church,
the Church of Christ in Congo,
the Church of England,
the Calvary Chapel
Assemblies of God in Brazil

Are these churches larger than the Adventist church?

 

[tall73]

According to Adventist research, the church was losing 43 people for every one that comes in:
The Adventist world church, now with nearly 18 million members, has lost at least 1 in 3 Seventh-day Adventist members in the last 50 years, according to summit organizers. Also, in this century, the ratio of people lost versus new converts is 43 per 100.

Yes, it was around 28 in the late 80's. It was 43 in 2013 which the article you posted was from. It continued going up and was up to 49 per 100 recently.

Nurture, retention, reclamation: Can you hear their cry?

Even though the evangelism in our churches is winning people, we lose about 49 of every 100 baptized.

 

[Daniel Marsh]

Weeds grow fast, so check the fruit. How are the fast growing traditions faring after the congregants enter into the world for the week? Are people only Christians on Sunday? What is the criteria for true growth?

II Peter 1

 

[Daniel Marsh]

read to here

 

[BobRyan]

Your ability to produce a statement by me indicating a projection of "zero growth" has also failed so far.

And so has your ability to answer a straight-forward question:

the Roman Rite of the Roman Catholic Church
the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate),
the Ethiopian Tewahedo Orthodox Church,
the Church of Christ in Congo,
the Church of England,
the Calvary Chapel
Assemblies of God in Brazil

Are these churches larger than the Adventist church?

I am not ChristianityToday and I do not know the method they used for grouping denominations.

I did not audit their work and also did not audit these guys

Here is another group having a similar top 4 list as ChristianityToday's "Top Four"
The 10 Biggest Christian Denominations in the World - Generation95

Interesting "top four" in that group - are very close to ChristianityToday.

1. - Catholic 1.3 B
2. - Pentecostal ISM (with Assemblies of God as part of it at 67M) - 280 M
3. - Eastern Orthodox 240 M
4. - Anglican 85 M

So when they get to 5 - they take all Baptist denominations and lump them into one single denomination

 

[BobRyan]

According to Adventist research, the church was losing 43 people for every one that comes in:

That would be a huge negative net growth. I have not seen numbers that are negative. Have you???

The Adventist world church, now with nearly 18 million members, has lost at least 1 in 3 Seventh-day Adventist members in the last 50 years,

The numbers the SDA church has published in 2021 for 2020 is 21,723,000 baptized members and 25 million adherents. Is that what you are calling 18 Million??

COVID year 2020 is the first year in a long time that we fall below the "A pentecost influx of 3000+ baptisms every single day on average"

 

[BobRyan]

The source you mention called for the SDA to engage in the kind of reforms @icedragon101 is advocating.

From what I have seen every single "reform" he proposes there is reforming/downgrading a doctrine, policy in the church that has been fully promoted in every single one of the high-growth years for this denomination.

 

[The Liturgist]

That would be a huge negative net growth. I have not seen numbers that are negative. Have you???



The numbers the SDA church has published in 2021 for 2020 is 21,723,000 baptized members and 25 million adherents. Is that what you are calling 18 Million??

What it means is that the SDA has a common phenomenon that most mainline denominations admit they have, which I like to call “ghost members,” where someone join, gets disappointed, stops going, never formally resigns and stays on the membership rolls for years. There is no avoiding ghost members, either, unless you run some kind of 9Marks church discipline program where you miss two Sundays and get disfellowshipped. Some of them return at holidays and some return only for major sacramentals, like baptisms, marriage and funerals, and some have brier moments of piety and resume frequent attendance, and some die and no one realizes it until the membership data is audited and someone finds an entry for Mr. Lloyd Rutland Barron-Jennings, Esq., d/o/b March 16th, 1889.

 

[BobRyan]

What it means is that the SDA has a common phenomenon that most mainline denominations admit they have, which I like to call “ghost members,” where someone join, gets disappointed, stops going, never formally resigns and stays on the membership rolls for years.

Yeah people do leave and books of record are not often "instantly updated" -- I don't have the "ghosting" documents audited either... but I do see that each year they include a large number of "names dropped" in their ongoing annual totals. So reconciliation of the numbers is being done over time via that "names dropped" column (Actually three columns on that report "dropped", "Missing", "adjustments") -- I wonder how many denominations track this as well as that..

One thing is for sure - the existing numbers do not include any of the following

• Atheists or members of other denominations that still appear as SDA members because they were baptized as infants by their families as SDA and no record update was made when they left home and joined some other denomination.
• Atheists or members of other denominations that still appear as SDA members because they were "born in a certain nation" that deems all it's citizens to be members of the SDA denomination whether they are or not.

 

[tall73]

I am not ChristianityToday and I do not know the method they used for grouping denominations.

I did not audit their work and also did not audit these guys

You once again ignored the actual question, instead referencing the methodology of two other groups.


the Roman Rite of the Roman Catholic Church
the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate),
the Ethiopian Tewahedo Orthodox Church,
the Church of Christ in Congo,
the Church of England,
the Calvary Chapel
Assemblies of God in Brazil

Are these churches larger than the Adventist church?

 

[SabbathBlessings]

You once again ignored the actual question, instead referencing the methodology of two other groups.


the Roman Rite of the Roman Catholic Church
the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate),
the Ethiopian Tewahedo Orthodox Church,
the Church of Christ in Congo,
the Church of England,
the Calvary Chapel
Assemblies of God in Brazil

Are these churches larger than the Adventist church?

@BobRyan did not write the Christian Today article, so it's not his job to audit the article or even answer your question about other churches. He was simply sharing an independent article that the Adventist Church is doing just fine despite the few posters on CF trying to make a case that its doom and gloom for the church, when that far from the truth. I know the church is thriving in many areas from global media outreach (AmazingFacts.com, Itiswritten.com, Hopechannel.com, 3ABN - Three Angels Broadcasting Network to name just a few) to healthcare systems and schools and the Ellen White method for faster growth on orchards/trees (its still a thing even for “non Adventists” 100’s of years later). Another independent study shows that Adventists living in the US live 10 years longer than the average person due to lifestyle. Loma Linda, California - Blue Zones . My SDA pastor in CA had to keep moving to bigger churches to keep up with the growth of membership. So, it's not gloom and doom for SDA's but appreciate all the concern.

Be well and God bless.

 

[BobRyan]

Your ability to produce a statement by me indicating a projection of "zero growth" has also failed so far.

And so has your ability to answer a straight-forward question:

the Roman Rite of the Roman Catholic Church
the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate),
the Ethiopian Tewahedo Orthodox Church,
the Church of Christ in Congo,
the Church of England,
the Calvary Chapel
Assemblies of God in Brazil

Are these churches larger than the Adventist church?

I am not ChristianityToday and I do not know the method they used for grouping denominations.

I did not audit their work and also did not audit these guys in this next example:

Here is another group having a similar top 4 list as ChristianityToday's "Top Four"
The 10 Biggest Christian Denominations in the World - Generation95

Interesting "top four" in that group - are very close to ChristianityToday.

1. - Catholic 1.3 B
2. - Pentecostal ISM (with Assemblies of God as part of it at 67M) - 280 M
3. - Eastern Orthodox 240 M
4. - Anglican 85 M

So when they get to 5 - they take all Baptist denominations and lump them into one single denomination

The numbers the SDA church has published in 2021 for 2020 is 21,723,000 baptized members and 25 million adherents. Is that what you are calling 18 Million??

COVID year 2020 is the first year in a long time that we fall below the "A pentecost influx of 3000+ baptisms every single day on average"

You once again ignored the actual question,

"The actual question"? I assume you have a topic where I personally am the auditor and categorizer of all Christian denominations if I dare to quote two independent sources that do not agree with your POV.

I am ok with you having that POV.