While the median size of Episcopal Church congregations and overall membership has declined in recent years, that pattern matches trends in most mainline Protestant denominations and points to larger patterns in U.S. culture, according to analyses of recent data.
The median Episcopal Church congregation in 2007 had 168 active members and 69 people in Sunday worship, according to Episcopal Church reports. That compares to the median congregation in 2003, which had 182 active members and 77 on average in Sunday worship. Meanwhile in 2007, parishes with 351 or more people in worship constitute 3.5 percent of all the church's congregations.
There were 37,823 fewer active members of Episcopal Church congregations in 2007 than in 2006, a two-percent decline. Over the past ten years, the church has experienced a 10-percent decline in active membership, the statistical reports show. Slightly more than 167,000 people left the Episcopal Church between 2003 and 2007, reducing the church's active baptized members from 2,284,233 to 2,116,749.
The number of congregations during the 2003-2007 period declined from 7,220 to 7,055. In 2007, 43 percent of congregations experienced membership declines of 10 percent or more over the past five years, more while 26 percent increased their size by 10 percent or more.
The statistical view of the Episcopal Church comes from two reports by Kirk Hadaway, program officer for congregational research in the Episcopal Church's Evangelism and Congregational Life Center. One is a summary of 2007 Parochial Report data and the other is a six-page report about information gathered through the Episcopal Church's participation in the 2008 version of the on-going Faith Communities Today Survey (FACTS) run by Hartford Seminary in Hartford, Connecticut. The full results of the multi-denomination survey are due to be released in April, according to the project's website.
http://www.episcopal-life.org/79901_105950_ENG_HTM.htm
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