Another Year of Decline for Methodists

Every year, each United Methodist annual conference takes a tally of local church statistics to be placed in the subsequent year’s Annual Conference Journal. In the United States, these statistics are typically compiled for the summer annual conferences, and then posted on the UMC’s website. As summer comes to an end, it’s possible to compile these statistics to get a better picture of the general trend of the United Methodist Church in the United States. Unfortunately, 2013’s picture is no different from previous years: the vast majority of annual conferences are in a membership and attendance decline.