I received an email from a friend of mine two days ago, after the 2014 Yearbook and Directory for the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) came out, which contained some dispiriting numbers about membership decline. In the email my friend noted that, year-over-year, our loss of Total and Participating Membership sits close to 20 percent, but that our Average Worship Attendance is only a little over 4 percent. That is a shocking loss to absorb in a single year.
My friend then went on to point out that over the past ten years our denomination has declined by 35 percent in Total Membership, 38 percent in Participating Membership, and 28 percent in Average Worship Attendance. Obviously, you don't get to have many more decades like that and expect to survive.
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