MWR : MC USA membership drops

Last updated January 23.

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Jan. 21 issue

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MC USA membership drops

Numbers down by nearly 7,000; U.S. Mennonite Brethren hold steady

By Tim Huber Mennonite World Review

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Mennonite Church USA membership is down by nearly 7,000 over the past two years.

The 6.6 percent decrease to 97,737 comes two years after 104,687 members were reported.

Those figures do not include church plants, which would raise membership to 98,696.

Marty Lehman, MC USA associate executive director of churchwide operations, said while members and congregations are tracked regularly, accuracy has been an issue due to spotty participation.

“Getting congregations to report membership numbers is increasingly difficult as we have no uniform way of doing this,” Lehman said. “Some don’t distinguish between membership and attendance. Some only track attendance.”

She said much of MC USA’s recent growth isn’t officially recorded because it has mostly been with non-white congregations and church plants.

“Many of our racial-ethnic congregations don’t focus much on membership — it is more of an Anglo thing,” she said. “So as you can see, it is a complex issue.”

Some churches have left area conferences. MC USA counts 839 active congregations — 29 of which do not report a membership total. Including church plants, which have not yet formally joined, the number of congregations is 904. Two years ago, there were 872 active MC USA congregations.

MC USA Leadership Development Office manager Beth Hunsberger said part of the decrease comes from changing how some “nonparticipating” Lancaster Mennonite Conference churches are categorized.

“They are active congregations with Lancaster Conference but inactive congregations with Mennonite Church USA,” she said.

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Comments

And this is news?

- Debra Bender (jan 15 at 3:25 a.m.)
Not to worry, Debra, "news" is an Anglo thing.

- Bruce Leichty (jan 15 at 7:51 p.m.)
It seems that the Mennonite Church is increasingly like the mainline Protestant denominations in both style and rapidly receding membership.

- Gary Olsen-Hasek (jan 16 at 4:32 a.m.)
I thought all of this "inclusiveness" was supposed to bring a great influx of souls into the church. What happened?

- Jake (jan 16 at 7:48 a.m.)
I don't get it. Hasn't there been a denominational campaign for the past decade to be more "missional"? Or has that just been talk and PR?

- Charlie Kraybill (jan 16 at 3:54 p.m.)
Our church has grown as it has moved in an inclusive direction. I can't speak for every situation and every church, but I think there are many young people who would come back to church if it really embraced the inclusive and reconciling love of Jesus.

James M. Branum Minister of Peace & Justice Joy Mennonite Church, OKC

- James M. Branum (jan 16 at 6:01 p.m.)
I'm too excited - someone other than me thinks this is nothing but a "shell game." Part of the problem may be that at least three different people (Lehman, Hunsberger and Coffman) are involved, with three different approaches, three different stories, three different numbers. Too many cooks in the kitchen? Left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing? Here's an offer. Provide me with contact info for every single MC USA congregation (pastor name and phone number) and I'll get you a number. It really can't be that hard.

I believe Marty Lehman's quote (“Many of our racial-ethnic congregations don’t focus much on membership — it is more of an Anglo thing. . . ”) begs a response. I find this remark extremely offensive, totally out of line and contributing nothing to the subject at hand. Consider this my request, consistent with MWR's comment policy, that it be immediately removed from the article, by Board consensus, if you please.

- Debra Bender (jan 16 at 6:16 p.m.)
The On-line MC-USA Congregation Directory:

http://directory.mennoniteusa.org/directory/CongregationList.aspx

There's a lot of interesting info available via that link.

- Charlie Kraybill, Bronx, NYC (jan 16 at 8:27 p.m.)
Being in the world, but not of the world does not require dogma. Where I am, Thou are also. Faith without buildings is part of the new cyber age. Menno would agree.

- jim herr (jan 16 at 9:26 p.m.)
I am frustrated by this report because there is no surprise. If we didn't assume this decrease was the case, then we've not been paying attention. I have not found denominational resources or the resource people focused enough on helping congregations and conferences actually embed a new missional culture. We have talked about missional but have not invested in the ecclesiological experiments needed, have not developed the lay-based leadership training, not moved the denominational resourcing toward reaching non-Christian folks where they live. Instead, this report speaks about how to count people or the churches that don't count people the same way. That is not, or at least should not be the point.

- Craig (jan 26 at 7:36 p.m.)
Yes and we will continue to lose churches. I know of at least 4 churches that have started the process with their congregations to leave MCUSA since this article was published. I would disagree with a take that we would gain several young people if we moved more to an inclusive stance. Our local congregation has lost several young couples for what they perceive as MCUSA's inclusive nature.

- Jeff (feb 2 at 2:49 p.m.)

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