United Methodism in the U.S. lost over 114,000 members from 2013-2014, the 49th consecutive year of loss for the UMC and its predecessor bodies, whose last U.S. membership growth was in 1963-1964. So there are almost no active clergy now who have any memory of a growing denomination.
Over 50 years United Methodism in the U.S. lost over 4 million members, a number larger than the membership of nearly all U.S. denominations, and a numerical decline unprecedented in U.S. history, with little precedent in world history.
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