Category Archives: statistics

A Very Preliminary Look At Amendment Voting In The PC(USA)

2 Replies

The holidays are now behind us and traditionally this is the time when voting on amendments to the Book of Order of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) kicks into high gear.  So I thought that I would take the first, preliminary look at possible trends in the voting.  But first some preliminaries…

Let me first make a couple of comments about the question “why bother?”  Well, beyond the fact that crunching data is the sort of thing that I enjoy doing I also think that it gives one of the best windows into what is going on in the denomination at this time.  It is a widely accepted generalization that the decisions of the General Assembly do not necessarily reflect the thinking of the “people in the pews.”  The usual evidence that is pointed to is the fact that three times previously the GA has sent an amendment to remove or rewrite G-6.0106b in the Book of Order, and three times it has been rejected by the presbyteries.  Another example of a disconnect is the negative reaction from many churches to the GA decision to boycott companies who supply items linked to the Israel-Palestine conflict.  So, while Research Services gives us statistics based on opinion poles of sampled members, the vote counts, both the absolute and relative numbers, give us an insight into how ruling and teaching elders react to the issues the Assembly sends down to them.  In short, I think the vote numbers can give us an insight into how the PC(USA) is changing.

So what is different this year about the vote?  I think there are four things that need to be taken into account.

1) Each year the Assembly sends an amendment with a bit different wording and that might make a difference.  This year the proposed language speaks more about the examination, that the governing body is responsible for it, and that they are to be guided by the Scriptures and the confessions.   One of the more interesting lines is “The examination shall include, but not be limited to, a determination of the candidate’s ability and commitment to fulfill all requirements as expressed in the constitutional questions for ordination and installation (W-4.4003).” So while the confessions and the Scriptures are to guide the governing body, the candidate’s qualifications seem to be focused on the constitutional questions.  So, how will any individual commissioner view the proposed wording this time around?

2) This vote is coming right after another vote two years ago while the previous interval was seven years from 2001 to 2008.  There are a number of ways that this could manifest itself with two possibilities being the reduced turnout due to a “fatigue factor” and/or little change in the numbers due to less time for the church to evolve.

3) I will not develop this point here, but will just say that in looking at the numbers for the last four votes (96-B, 97-A, 01-A, 08-B ) I consider the vote on amendment 01-A to be a unique case with a turnout of conservative voters in proportions not seen in the other three votes.  I will say that so far for 10-A this observation seems to still hold with the current numbers looking a lot like the last round of voting.

4) Overall, the voting is not just about “fidelity and chastity” this year but there is also the addition of the Belhar Confession to the Book of Confessions and a whole new revision to the Form of Government.  The voting could have different dynamics this year due to this expanded slate and the dynamics of the timing of scheduling the votes.

OK, now the data.  While the official count is always kept by the Office of the General Assembly , it only gives the totals.  For the Amendment A vote I have been comparing the breakdown by presbytery from several sources: the Yes On Amendment A site, Covenant Network, Reclaim Biblical Teaching, and the Layman.  Voting on the Belhar and nFOG are covered by both the Layman and the Reclaim Biblical Teaching site.  Then for breaking news there is always Twitter.  I’ve got my own tally sheet shared online, but I don’t claim to have it updated as quickly as the others.  And if you want a detailed list of resources related to these votes you should start with Robert Austell’s GA Help web site.

So, at the present time the Belhar Confession trails by 17-12 (remember it needs 2/3 for a confession to be approved), nFog is passing 10-7, and after a flurry of voting yesterday Amendment A is currently failing 15-20.  In total, 67 of the 173 presbyteries have voted on at least one of these items, eight have voted on two and three have voted on all three.  You can see that so far the presbyteries are taking the votes deliberately and not usually taking more than one at a time.

Of the four that have voted on both the Belhar and 10-A the votes have been very similar: Alaska – 24% yes Belhar and 31% yes 10-A, Lackawanna – 45% yes Belhar and 40% yes 10-A, New Castle – 72% yes Belhar and 70% yes 10-A, Santa Barbara – 23% yes Belhar and 27% yes 10-A.  While this is not proof that commissioners view Belhar and 10-A as being closely linked, it is suggestive that many may view both of them through a common filter.

Correlations for nFOG with the other two are not as close.  Sometimes there is a similar proportion, like Alaska that had identical 7-22 votes on each, or Des Moines which had 64% yes on Belhar and 70% yes on nFOG. Sometimes it is not as close, such as Eastern Oklahoma that barely passed 10-A but passed nFOG on voice vote, or Northumberland which was 36% yes on Belhar but only 13% yes on nFOG.

But these are early trends of just a small number of votes so we will see what develops over the next six months.

I want to finish by taking a quick look at the repeat voting on G-6.0106b comparing Amendment 10-A to 08-B.  We have reports on 35 presbyteries having held their votes and so far two have moved from “no” to “yes” (Eastern Oklahoma, Eastern Virginia) and one has moved the other way (Lake Huron).  So the net change at this point is one to the yes column.

Looking at the total yes and no votes, we find that there are 6% fewer total votes (3848 versus 4101) for these 33 presbyteries.  It is interesting to note that this 6% decline in commissioners voting exactly matches the overall decline in membership in the PC(USA) over the last two years (3.1% plus 2.9%).  Taken as a whole, the
number of commissioners voting yes is up 5% (1875 this vote versus 1786
in the last vote) while those voting no have declined 15% (1973 down
from 2315).  If the decline in total votes were proportionally represented in the yes and no votes we would expect 88 fewer yes votes and 199 more no votes.  So the decrease in no votes can not be explained only by the increase in yes votes but there must also be a decline in the number of commissioners who favor “fidelity and chastity” who are voting.

For the 33 presbyteries with reported numbers (Northern NY and Cayuga-Syracuse had hand or voice votes without recorded numbers), 23 had a decrease in the number of votes, 9 had an increase and one was exactly the same.  Now, some normal fluctuation in the number of commissioners attending the meeting is to be expected and I have usually placed this at +4%.  Taking this into account,  eight lower totals and five higher totals for a total of 13 more are added to the unchanged category.  This total of 14 is just a bit less than half of all the presbyteries voting so far.  The greatest decline is from Elizabeth Presbytery which had only 76% of the commissioners present as they had for the last vote.  This could easily be attributed to the inclement weather in the northeast this weekend. However, Genesee Valley, which voted at the same time, had only a slight decrease of 3%.  The largest increase was in Newton Presbytery which had 1.14 times the number of commissioners as the last vote.  Of the four increases that I consider significant (in a statistical but only quasi-rigorous sense), there are three presbyteries that voted no and one voted yes.  Tempting but dubious to draw conclusions from such a small sample.

If we look at yes and no votes broken down by presbytery, on average there are 19% more yes voters and 13% less no voters.  For the presbyteries that voted yes there was only a 1% increase in the number of yes voters and 16% decrease in no voters.  For the presbyteries that voted no, the increase in yes voters was 31% while the no voters decreased by 11%.  That increase in no votes was pulled by a couple of large increases, but it suggests that the Yes on A get out the vote campaign is having an effect while the similar effort for No on A is not as effective.

Let me warp up this discussion with the general observation that I am seeing the whole range of behaviors in different presbyteries.  The three presbyteries that switched all had significant increases on the prevailing side with 12%, 21% and 22% increases.  On the other side were varying decreases from 5%, to 14% to 23%.  The switch in position was a two-way street apparently caused by both gains and losses.  There were a couple of presbyteries with uniform change, such as Great Rivers which had a 3% increase in both the number of yes and no votes, or Newton which had a uniform 19% increase in both columns.  There are also presbyteries, like Central Florida and Stockton, where the total number of votes was very constant and the votes shifted columns.  It was into the yes column for Central Florida and towards no for Stockton.  There is only one presbytery, Mississippi, where the no votes were stable (47 versus 49) but the yes votes increased (up to 11 from 2).  And there are two presbyteries, Boston and New Castle, where the yes votes remained constant but the no votes declined significantly.  And then there are the rest of the presbyteries which exhibit more complex changes that can not be explained solely with these simple end-member models.

So, that is what I am seeing so far.  As I said, this is preliminary because with only around 30-40 presbyteries having voted on each amendment drawing statistical conclusions would be a bit early.  However, there are interesting trends developing and we will see how those play out.  Stay tuned… I’ll get out the white board and draw geeky charts and graphs next time.

Digging Into Presbyterian Statistics — PC(USA) Presbytery Growth Rates

Leave a reply

Well, I see that the U.N. Secretary General has declared that today, October 20, is the first Worldwide Statistics Day.  Now, I am not sure if that is a recognition of worldwide statistics, or a worldwide recognition of statistics, but I am only too happy to add my contribution in the spirit of the latter interpretation.

As regular readers are aware I am a bit, OK a lot, of a PresbyGeek or PresbyNerd when it comes to denominational statistics.  And I have the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) office of Research Services to thank as by “enabler.”  If you are not aware, they put out a daily Tweet with some tidbit or factoid of information.  I sometimes think that what they tweet is superficial or incomplete, but just like I do the best I can with Presbyterian History in 140 characters, they do the best that they can in that space as well.

Back about three weeks ago they put out the following tweet –

Membership increased in 2009 in 13 presbyteries. Does that include yours? http://bit.ly/cxn1mn #pcusa

That factoid got me wondering about what growth rates were long-term, and not just for 2009.

So, time to dig out some data.  Presbytery size for 2008 and 2009 came from the annual Comparative Research reports, Table 4.  The oldest edition of Table 4 that I am aware of is 1996, so turning to the trusty WayBack Machine, that data is also available.  So all of that was fed into a spreadsheet and the annualized growth rate over the 13 year period 1996-2009 was calculated along with the annual rate for 2009.

Now, looking at the data, two presbyteries (Atlantic Korean-American, Eastern Korean) were excluded because they were formed after 1996 so there is not a long-term growth rate for them over the same time period as the other presbyteries.  Two more presbyteries were seen as significant outliers and removed from the analysis as well.  In the long-term growth category Midwest Hanmi had a growth rate of 4.4%, over twice the growth rate of its next closest presbytery.  In the short-term column San Joaquin dismissed several churches in 2009 and so had a growth rate of -24.3%, ten percentage points higher than the next closest presbytery.  The concern was that when the correlation was calculated these significant outliers would leverage the correlation result.

So what do we get for these 169 presbyteries?  Here are the descriptive statistics:

  Annualized
Long-term		 2009
Short-term
Mean -1.7%  -3.0%
 Median -1.9%  -2.6%
 St. Dev.  0.8  2.4

As you can see there is generally good agreement in each distribution between the mean and median.  Between the two distributions the mean and median are significantly lower and the standard deviation of the short-term is significantly higher indicating a much broader distribution.  Visually, here are the two distributions.  Both horizontal and vertical axes are scaled the same to facilitate direct comparison of the charts.

The broader nature of the short-term distribution is now apparent but without other short-term distributions to compare it to drawing specific conclusions from this is a bit more challenging.  If fluctuations have a random nature to them stacking multiple broad annual distributions to produce the long-term distribution will generally result in a decrease in the standard deviation.

The left-ward shift in the distribution, or higher rate of decline, is statistically significant, and whether this represents a one-time higher decline or the end-member of a trend towards increasing rate of decline can not be told from this graph alone, my previous analysis of the decline rates suggests the latter.

But my main interest is in a comparison of short-term and long-term rates and particularly looking at specific presbyteries.  So, here is the graph of the correlation of short-term versus long-term growth rates.

As you can see there is noticeable scatter in the data but a general positive trend.  However, with an R-squared correlation coefficient of 0.14 the correlation is not strong.  With a slope of >1 there is the suggestion that for all presbyteries the short-term rate is of greater magnitude than the long-term rate.

But here is what I really wanted to get at:  The Research Services tweet pointed out that in 2009 13 presbyteries increased in size. (And the three with the largest percentage membership increases were excluded from this analysis as described above.) Over the long-term the membership has increased in five presbyteries (Charleston-Atlantic, Middle Tennessee, Northwest, Seattle, and the excluded Midwest Hanmi).  Of those, only Northwest (Puerto Rico) and Midwest Hanmi have shown an increase in membership over both the 13 year long-term and 2009 short-term periods.  In fact, it was probably not necessary to exclude Midwest Hanmi since for a long-term growth rate of 4.4%, the trend-line calculated above predicts a short-term rate of 6.0%, reasonably close to the actual of 5.4%.  The leverage would not have been too great.

Well, lots more could be done with this but that is enough for Worldwide Statistics Day.  If you looked carefully at the spreadsheet you can see that what I really prepared it for was my own tracking of the presbytery voting trends in the next few months.  In particular, I am very interested to see how the votes on the three big issues, the Belhar Confession, the new Form of Government, and Amendment 10-A correlate, or don’t as the case may be.  You are welcome to check back but I don’t intend it to be the “up to the minute latest and greatest source of news.”  I’ll probably update it weekly with what I can find and it will be my base for further statistical analysis.  If you are interested in that feel free to follow along.  Stay tuned…

All Churches Great And Small — Congregation Size Distribution And Changes In The PC(USA)

2 Replies

I have been poking around with some data for a little bit now and I think it might be time for some of it to be discussed here…

One of the things that has interested me recently in the vast multitude of data that that the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) office of Research Services puts out is the size distributions of congregations.  Undoubtedly, one of the reasons that I have been looking at it is because in my professional work with earthquakes there is a very well-established and useful relationship for magnitude distribution of quakes.  I have found that a similar, though proportionately different, relationship seems to hold for congregation size distribution in churches.  More on the details of that another time, but here I want to take a first look at congregation size in the PC(USA) over time.

As I said, Research Services puts out a whole bunch of information about the church every year and for this post I want to focus on two particular data sets — Table 2: Distribution of PC(USA) Congregations by Membership Size and Synod (2009 data ) and Table 6: Fifteen Largest PC(USA) Congregations Based on Membership Size (2009 data ).

Unfortunately, with the revamped PC(USA) web site it appears that a lot of this older data is no longer on-line from the church, but thanks to the Internet Archive and the Way Back Machine we can get data back to 1994. The equivalent of Table 6 is there, while Table 2 goes back to 1995.

First, as usual, a couple of technical notes about the data.  Concerning Table 2:  1) For my own purposes it would be helpful to have the distributions reported in equal size ranges (e.g. 0-50, 51-100,… 301-350, etc.) rather than the uneven ones in the table (0-50, 51-100, … 301-500…). (They are pretty evenly spaced on a logrithmic scale which does work well for some of my calculations.)  2) It is interesting that the largest range used is >1600 when going to >2000 would correspond to the usual definition of a megachurch.  But it is also important to note that the PC(USA) tables are based on membership while the megachurch definition is based on worship attendance.

Now, I have taken the sixteen available annual reports for Table 6 and put together a spreadsheet covering 1994-2009. For those years when a church was not one of the top fifteen there is no entry in the rank column for that year and the membership number is taken from the on-line statistical report for that church.  Since that is only a 10 year report numbers were directly reported for 1999-2009 and 1998 was calculated from the 1999 membership and the gains and losses reported that year.  Those numbers are not included before 1998.  And yes, I did graph up all the data but most of the lines are so tightly clustered that I did not think it added anything to include here.  At a future date I may present it as groups of churches and include graphs of the subsets then.

OK, I think that does it for the obligatory introduction and geeky details — on to the data.

Turning first to the large churches over the course of these 16 annual reports (1994 – 2009) nineteen different churches have appeared on the list of 15 largest.  Of those, nine have been on the list all 16 years, five were on the list at the beginning and have dropped off, one left the list and later returned, and four have been added.  A couple of the congregations have held fairly steady positions on the list, only moving up or down four places or less in 16 years, and Peachtree (Atlanta) has held the number one spot for all 16 reports.  All 19 churches were part of the PC(USA) in 2009.

Looking at membership numbers, five of the original 15 are larger than they were in 1996, a couple of them significantly larger.  For the other ten, one has a minimal (<5%) decrease, but looking at the churches whole histories over this time most show fluctuations and it is not unusual to see periods of several years with very stable membership numbers.  Over the whole time range one church, Fourth (Chicago) showed no declining years and two churches that joined the list had no declines in the time they were on the list – Second (Indianapolis, 99-09) and Christ (Edina, MN, 02-09).  While some of the churches showed significant declines from 1994 to 2009, no church had declines all 15 intervals.

One of the most interesting properties of this list over time is that for the 15 largest churches there is a fairly constant total membership.  The combined membership begins at 73,689, increases to a peak of 75,872 in 1998, generally decreases to 71,368 in 2004, and then moves up and down again until finishing at 71,722.  This represents a 2.7% decline over 15 years and a 5.9% total variation.

But when looking at this pattern it is clear that the variation is less a function of the general decline of the PC(USA) and more a reflection of significant membership changes in individual congregations occasioned by some event or transition in the congregation, usually a change in the senior pastor.  For instance, the 1998 peak marks the year just before changes at both Peachtree and Menlo Park.

In fact, maybe the thing I find most interesting in this analysis is the response of membership at these churches to changes, particularly in pastoral leadership.  While I won’t explore this in depth now, here is the graph of church membership for three churches, Peachtree, First (Orlando), and First (Nashville).  I have normalized the membership numbers to the peak just before the transition and placed that peak at Year 5 on the graph.  The similarity of the growth-transition/drop-growth pattern is strikingly similar and I’ll be looking at it in more detail in the future.

normalized church membership change

But for our purposes today, what this analysis does show is that for the largest churches in the denomination over the last 15 years the decline as a group is nowhere near what it was for the denomination as a whole and factors that are usually cited for decline in the denomination are subordinate to local influences when it comes to changes in the size of the membership at these churches.  It is not so much that the 15 largest churches at any given time are necessarily declining, but that there is rotation in the members of the list and the total size of the churches on the list remain relatively constant, or at least fluctuate within a certain narrow (+/- 3%) range.

Turning now to the other data set, it is important to note that for the largest churches in the denomination there has been a decline when viewed as the number of churches with membership >1600.  I have compiled the data for the whole PC(USA) from Table 2 from 1995 to 2009 into another spreadsheet and looking at the top category we can see that the number of large churches held fairly steady from 1995 to 2003 (in the range of 113 to 124 churches) and then from 2003 has steadily declined to 91 churches in 2009.

Looking at all the data ranges we see that only the lowest two ranges, churches with memberships of 0-50 and 51-100 have increased over the range of the chart.

Because of the large scale differences between the lower ranges and the largest ranges I also plotted the distributions normalized to their size in 1995.

Now it is easier to see that the number of churches with memberships of 50 or less increased almost 30% and the next higher range (51-100 members) increased slightly (5%).  All other ranges showed a decrease of between 13% and 36%.  And while the largest churches showed significant decrease in numbers, the greatest percentage decrease was with the slightly smaller churches in the range of 301-1200 members.

Clearly what is happening is that as members have left the PC(USA) individual congregations have remained active and the churches have been slipping from the larger size ranges to the smaller ranges.  This is not an unexpected conclusion since membership has declined 22.1% in this time period, but the number of churches has only declined 6.2%.  With this change the mean size of congregations has dropped from 235 to 195 and the median size has gone from 128 to 97.  This increasing concentration in the lower size ranges is a reflection of the Presbyterian tendency to let a congregation continue until the membership drops to a point where the members themselves realize that the church can no longer sustain itself.

That is probably enough data for today and by now you have probably come up with some of your own applications from this exercise.  Let me mention two of concern to me: 

1) Are we training our seminary students for this world of lots and lots of very small churches?  If more than one-quarter are 50 members or less and half have less than 100 members what should seminary students know about the world they will be stepping into.  Taking this a step further, what are the best models for a pastor in small churches?  Yoked ministry?  Tent-making? Commissioned Lay Pastor? House churches? Something else?  If the future is full of lots of very-small churches what should pastoral leadership look like?

2) Should the future be full of lots of very small churches?  Should presbyteries be considering what is the best model for congregations?  Should the number of congregations decrease in proportion to the decrease in total membership?  Should governing bodies at all levels be more aggressive about counseling and shepherding congregations into a new reality?  I don’t know, but these are questions Presbyterians around the world are asking.

So two ends of the size spectra – two differing behaviors in membership variation.  But what does each suggest to us about ministry at that end of the distribution?

Thoughts On Modeling The Future Of The Mainline Churches

Leave a reply
It requires a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious.  — Alfred North Whitehead

In a couple of weeks I will be taking my annual vacation and this year I will have to pack light.  No thick volumes on the ecumenical movement or church history this year.  After looking around and thinking about this I decided to take along for reading several of the articles in a collection on the Patheos web site on The Future of Mainline Protestantism.  This is an interesting collection of opinions coming almost completely from progressive authors.  I know several of the authors, have heard several more speak, and have read other works by most of the rest.  And based on the skimming I have done so far, they all see a positive future for the mainline.  So check back at the end of the month when I’ll post my thoughts on what I have read from there.

But in preparation for that I have started going through a series of purely mathematical thought exercises about possible numerical futures for the mainline, and specifically the PC(USA).  For the most part these are intended to be disconnected from theological, institutional or political specifics, although the more detailed model at the end does use some of that.  They are also intended to be general concept models that represent particular cases, not specific predictions of the size of the church in fifty years.  On the one hand, I will be making specific calculations based on the numbers for the PC(USA).  On the other hand, these cases apply to more than one of the mainline churches and can probably be applied to other denominations as well. So here is what I have thought about.

Case 1 – Status quo
At the present time the mainline denominations are all declining in membership at the rate of a few percent per year.  Clearly if this continues into the future each will reach a point where that church will not be viable.

For example, for 2009 the PC(USA) reported a total membership of 2,077,138, a net loss of 63,027 from the year before.  A quick calculation shows that with a constant loss of this many members the denomination would reach zero in 33 years in 2042.

As you can probably figure out this is not realistic for a number of reasons, some of which I’ll talk about in the last, and most complex, model.  A better way to look at the status quo is to consider a constant rate of loss.  In 2008 the rate was 3% and in 2009 it was 2.9% so if we look at three different constant rates – 2.5%, 3.0% and 3.5% – this is what we get for the PC(USA).

PC(USA) Membership for Constant Decline Model

 Year  Constant
Number 		Constant
Rate 		   
   63,027/yr  2.5%/yr 3.0%/yr 3.5%/yr
 2010  2,014,011 2,025,210 2,014,824 2,004,438
 2020  1,383,841 1,572,230 1,485,780 1,403,673
 2030  753,571 1,220,569 1,095,650 982,967
 2040  123,301 947,564 807,959 688,354
 2042  0  900,778 760,208 641,013
 2050   735,622  595,808 482,042
 2060   571,085 439,363 337,566


Case 2 – Renewed Growth
I saw you roll your eyes at this one.  Yes, there is a case to be made that the mainline represents an out-dated model that will not survive but rather decay into oblivion as outlined in Case 1.

But remember that this is only a thought experiment.  Furthermore, while there is a denomination-wide decline in church membership, on a congregation-by-congregation level this is not necessarily so.  Several congregations in my presbytery have shown stable membership over the last ten years (example 1, example 2, example 3 ). (And I will note that this crosses theological lines.)  In addition, every so often a national entity issues a list of growing PC(USA) churches and there is a general document abut the characteristics of the fastest growing churches.  I could not quickly find that list (I’ll update here if I do) but checking three high-profile congregations I found recent (5-10 year) growth rates of 11.0%, 3.5%, and 2.6%.  This is not a scientific sample of growing churches, only a few that I checked.  The point is that the decline is not uniform across all the congregations in the PC(USA) and that is probably true of other mainline churches as well.  In fact, there is a book out there (that I have not read) that looks at 15 growing Presbyterian churches and why they are growing.

Now, without my actually saying what needs to be done to reverse the decline and begin growing, let me present the model for this case that would propose that a mainline church can get itself organized and take steps to help enough congregations reverse their decline and begin growing in the next decade so that beginning in 2020 the denomination as a whole can begin growing at 1% per year.

(The disclaimers: I am not advocating anything specific at this time, and especially not advocating a cookie-cutter one-size-fits-all franchise scheme for the mainline denominations that would produce a business plan for homogenous churches that are all the same. And I do know that the PC(USA) has been working on doing this one way or another, with out a reversal of the membership decline, for years now. I am also well aware of some of the other complexities of church growth these days, such as the argument that when churches grow all they are really doing is attracting members that are leaving other churches so church growth in many cases is competition for a limited, and declining, resource.  Remember, this is just a thought experiment.)

So here is what the reversal model looks like:

PC(USA) Membership For The Reversal Model

Year Annual
Growth
Rate		 Membership
 2009    2,077,138
 2010  -3.0%  2,014,824
 2011  -2.6%  1,962,438
 2012  -2.2%  1,919,265
 2013  -1.8%  1,884,718
 2014  -1.4%  1,858,332
 2015  -1.0%  1,839,749
 2016  -0.6%  1,828,710
 2017  -0.2%  1,825,053
 2018  0.2%  1,828,703
 2019  0.6%  1,839,675
 2020  1.0%  1,858,072
 2030  1.0%  2,052,467
 2040  1.0%  2,267,201
 2050  1.0%  2,504,400
 2060  1.0%  2,766,416

Case 3 – Partitioning or Pruning Model
What if, to use the cliche, we are “right-sizing” the mainline.  Consider that the decline in the churches will continue until the target size is reached and then the membership will reach a stable equilibrium.

Well, that is the idea in the abstract but to actually crank out some numbers here I will have to propose certain conditions that I can model.  Taking the conventional wisdom that the mainline is becoming more liberal or progressive, why don’t we set as a target size the number of liberals in the church suggesting that all the conservatives will eventually be departing one way or another.

For the PC(USA) I have previously commented on the changes seen in the Presbyterian Panel surveys. (Sorry with the change in the PC(USA) web site links in that post to some of those data sources are now broken and I am trying to restore them.)  By one measure, in 2008 34% of the PC(USA) considered itself theologically conservative, 41% moderate, and 25% liberal.  Another measure is the question of whether “Only followers of Jesus Christ can be saved” where 39% agreed, 25% were not sure, and 36% disagreed.

Now, as a simple first-order model what if we say the evangelicals leave, the progressives say and the moderates split.  There is some symmetry in the survey results so for the sake of argument let’s say that the denomination’s target size is 50% of the 2009 membership and that the total membership loss rate of 3% per year comes completely from the half that is experiencing the departures so we reduce the size of those in the group that remain by 6% per year.  This is then constant rate of decline for part of the church and no decline for the other with the total size slowly approaching the target size.  Numerically this wold look like:

PC(USA) Membership for Partition Model

Year Membership
 2009  2,077,138
 2010  2,014,824
 2020  1,564,395
 2030  1,321,787
 2040  1,191,114
 2050  1,120,732
 2060  1,082,823
 Target  1,038,569

Case 3a – Complex Partitioning or Multiple Effect
OK, as a final model let us leave the realm of first-order models and consider something with two levels of complexity. As those that have looked at membership statistics know, there are many different factors involved in the mainline decline.  For this model let us take the 3% decline of the Partition Model and say that 2.5% of that is theology-based departures and it gets applied fully to the declining group.  Let us also say that there is a 0.5% decrease for other reasons – cultural, political, social – all lumped into that one decline.  This decline is applied uniformly to both groups.  (I arrived at this 0.5% number from looking at general rates of decline of Protestant denominations in the American Religious Identification Survey.)  So now, instead of “right-sizing” the denomination to a fixed target size we have a model where the membership is rapidly declining towards a target size that is declining itself, but at a much slower rate.

PC(USA) Membership for Multiple Effect Model

Year Membership
 2009  2,077,138
 2010  2,014,824
 2020  1,540,278
 2030  1,251,397
 2040  1,068,914
 2050  947,759
 2060  862,294


Putting it all together
Here is a chart showing the five different models for direct comparison.


Closing words and Commentary
As I wrap this up I should probably repeat again that these are mostly first-order models that use constant or smooth variations in the constants.  Other cases could be developed for the rapid departure of particular groups or for the outright division of the church.  And while I have modeled the partitioning into two groups you could also imagine the case where it is best modeled as three groups – conservatives, moderates and liberals each in their own partition, or maybe conservatives, emergents, and everyone else.

Having put all of these forward I will state that my own leaning at the present time is to view the future of the PC(USA), and probably some other mainline churches, as following a hybrid model where the church experiences a partition decline coupled with a general decline model.  But I think at some time, and maybe not in the next 50 years, the church will reach a “right-size” or equilibrium state where membership will hold fairly steady.  But based on these models I will say that the current PC(USA), and similar churches, will not look anything like the present church in size or structure.  Time will tell if this is right and what the church will actually look like.

But having said what I expect to happen, let me also say that I am praying for the reversal model.  I look to God to find a way for the PC(USA) and other churches to move beyond the current divisions and find a way to bring the Gospel to the world in such a way that people are attracted to the church and the numbers grow again.  It does occur to me that maybe this would require partition in order for the witness to begin again and the churches to grow.  I don’t know what the answer is but I pray we are attentive to God’s leading as we honestly and prayerfully discern together where we are going.

Now on to another general look at this sort of thing from a different angle, coming up in two or three days.

The 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) — But Will The Presbyteries Concur?

4 Replies

Yesterday at the 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) two high-profile business items were approved that will now require the concurrence of the presbyteries.  As a change to the Book of Order, or maybe better expressed as a revision of a major portion of the Book of Order, the new revised Form of Government and new Foundations of Presbyterian Polity sections will require a majority vote of the presbyteries to be adopted.  On the other hand, the Belhar Confession will require two-thirds of the presbyteries to agree to be included in the Book of Confessions.  After these were approved by the Assembly plenary I was musing on my commute home from work on the basic question – “Will the presbyteries concur?”

Well, if I ponder something long enough I usually head in an analytical direction and this was no different.  So in the spirit of the alternate hashtag for GA – #presbynerdfest10 – this post is about to get really geeky really fast.

Let me begin with the data:  The nFOG passed the plenary by a vote of 468 yes to 204 no, a 69.6% yes vote.  The Belhar Confession was endorsed by the plenary with a 525 to 150 vote, a 77.8% yes vote.  Clearly, if the presbyteries mirror the Assembly in their voting than both will be approved.  However, we know from past experience that this is not the case.  In the most recent example the 218th General Assembly approved the change to G-6.0106b by a 380 to 325 margin, a 53.9% yes vote but the presbyteries voted 78 to 94 on 08-B with only a 45.3% yes vote.  The ratio of presbytery “yes” to assembly “yes” is 0.840.  If we apply that to the nFOG vote we get 58.5% yes in the presbyteries and for Belhar 65.4%.  nFOG passes and Belhar is very close.

Why is there a difference between Assembly and presbytery votes?  As polity wonks know, this is really a comparison of apples to oranges.  In the presbytery voting each presbytery has equal weight regardless of their size.  The smallest presbyteries’ votes count just the same as the largest and as a general rule the smaller presbyteries tend to be more conservative.  The other element in play here is that past voting patterns have shown that commissioners to the General Assembly are, on balance, more progressive than the average elder back home — or at least the elders back home are more resistant to change.  Finally, there is more time before the presbytery votes allowing for more organizing and educating of commissioners that can influence the final vote.

While I won’t go into the details, mathematicians will quickly realize that the ratio is not the only, and probably not the best, way to go in this case and rather we would be better served by having more data.  Much to my surprise, there is none from the 218th GA — Until I went searching I did not realize that every other item from that Assembly that went to the presbyteries for concurrence was approved by the plenary on voice or other non-recorded vote.  (There is something interesting in that alone but I need to do some more thinking about that.)

So, as another measure of the Assembly’s strength of opinion let me turn to the vote in the committee for each item since that is required to be a recorded vote.  Here is what happened in the Assembly committee and the presbyteries.  The link for each item takes you to the PC-Biz page for that item.

Item  Comm. % Yes Presby. % Yes
 08-A  96.1%  64.3%
 08-B  78.8%  45.3%
 08-C  94.7%  88.9%
 08-D  98.3%  93.6%
 08-E  100%  89.5%
 08-F  100%  65.3%
 08-G  100%  88.3%
 08-H  100%  89.1%
 08-I  79.3%  57.6%
 08-J  100%  95.9%
 08-K  100%  98.8%
 08-L  100%  93.6%
 08-M  100%  99.4%
 08-N  100%  98.2%

So looking at 08-B, the only one with counted votes in all three arenas, we have 78.8% yes in committee, 53.9% yes in full Assembly, and 45.3% yes in the presbyteries.

Taking this data and graphing it gives the chart below. It is a bit busy but the primary data are the blue squares.  I’ve included the full Assembly vote on  08-B as a red square for reference.  Statisticians will quickly see that while the left-hand blue data points are nicely clustered together, they are away from the other points and do leverage the best-fit line in blue.  I’ve put on the bounding lines in black.  The two thresholds, 50% and 66.7% are marked in purple.


Now, using this as a predictor, we see that a Book of Order change should get greater than 78% in committee and for Confessions above 87%.  nFOG was 37-5, 88% so probable passage.  Belhar was 43-11, 79.6% so it would fail on the main trend and closer on the upper bound.  Revisions to ordination standards was 69.2% so also a predicted failure by presbyteries to approve.

But is this valid?  This was the correlation for the PC(USA) after the 218th GA, does this correlation still hold for the church today?  I don’t know but we will see what happens in the next year.

Anyway, some speculative geekiness.  I will say that I do think the church has changed enough that the correlation probably won’t hold.  We will see how close it is.  Stay tuned.  Now, out of geek mode and back to polity wonk — next topic: the defeat of a non-geographic presbytery today.

Update:  Between the time I wrote this and when I proofed and posted it the 219th GA voted on item 06-09 to propose a change to G-6.0106b.  As I said above the committee vote would predict not enough presbyteries concurring based on past trends.  With full Assembly approval by 373 to 323, a 53.6% yes vote.  This is almost identical to the vote on the corresponding item for the 218th General Assembly and may suggest little shift in the church since then.  If the ratio from the last Assembly holds this Book of Order change would again fail. Time will tell.

Annual Statistical Report Of The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

2 Replies

Earlier today the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) released their annual statistics in the form of the comparative statistics summary, a statement from the Office of the General Assembly, and the miscellaneous information which gives some demographic breakdowns.  On the one hand it is temping to say “there it is – nothing new” and move on to other business.  The magnitude of the numbers and the trends seen are generally in line with the trends over the previous decade.  But there are a couple of interesting numbers in the statistics I would like to bring out.

First, for the geeks in the crowd here are the background details.  I will look at the numbers from the statistical summaries for 2001 to 2009.  These can be compiled from the 2004, 2006 and 2009 reports.  (Warning: The PC(USA) has said they will roll out a new web site at the GA next week and I don’t know how many of these links will break.)  More complete statistics covering a greater time period can be found with the full Comparative Statistics but the 2009 report will not be available until the Fall and certain numbers don’t correspond between the two reports so I have limited myself to the summaries.  My compilation and calculations are available from a sheet on Google Docs .

The first number everyone looks at is the total membership of the PC(USA).  That has declined from 2,140,165 in 2008 to 2,077,138 in 2009, a loss of 63,027 members or 2.9%.  On a percentage basis, this is on the high side, only a bit lower than the 3.14% decline seen last year and well above the smallest decline of 1.68% in 2002.  Looking at the gains in membership over the last eight years, the number of youth under 18 has been a very steady percentage of the total at about 20%.  Interestingly, the number joining by certificate has declined from 31% in 2001 to 26% in 2009.  Most of this is offset by the “other” and adult profession of faith categories.

Looking at the losses, it is fairly impressive how steady each of those categories is on a percentage basis over the last eight years – by certificate 17-18% of the loss, transfer to the Church Triumphant (death) 20-21% of the loss, and the remainder, about 62%, in the “other” category which means they resigned their membership without transfer or stopped coming and were dropped from the rolls.

Considering the congregations, on a percentage basis the decline this past year marks a new high with the net loss of 94 churches translating into a 0.87% decline.  However, as you would expect, with the rate of decline of churches being less than one third the rate of decline of membership, the ratio of members per church has steadily dropped from 224/church in 2001 to 195 in 2009.  Another new high was the number of churches dissolved at 88, the previous high being 71 in 2007.

One of the numbers to keep in mind is the number of churches dismissed, 15 this year down from last year’s high of 25.  The conventional wisdom is that these churches are going to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church and in fact their Stated Clerk’s report lists 22 churches received from the PC(USA).  This is not an exact comparison since the clerk’s report is for the year since the last GA and the statistical report is for calendar year 2009.  Of those 22 congregations, the EPC report lists two new mission churches, or church plants, that were “constituted” in 2009 and “came from the PCUSA [sic]” not being “received.”  These churches probably fall into the category of dissolved on the PC(USA) books.  It would be nice to know how many of the dissolved churches were due to the presbytery closing down the church for low membership numbers, and how many were churches that ceased to be viable after a group left en mass to realign between branches without being formally dismissed by the presbytery.  I think the churches dissolved category has some more stories to tell.

We now come to one of my favorite, and maybe most enigmatic, categories, the Ministers.  First let me say that I wish we had a breakdown here between active and honorably retired ministers.  I do realize that the some honorably retired ministers are serving churches.  That breakdown will be contained in the full comparative statistics in the Fall.  Overall, the number of ministers continued the downward trend begun last year — in 2008 the church had a net loss of 82 ministers and in 2009 the net loss was 51.  But with 21,235 ministers at the end of 2009 that decline represents a small one-quarter of one percent.  The PC(USA) has just about two ministers for every church.  The numbers have gone from 1.90 ministers/church and 118 members/minister in 2001 to 1.99 ministers/church and 98 members/minister in 2009.  Lest you think this will change any time soon, the number of candidates for ministry has increased substantially from 892 in 2001 to 1182 in 2009.  That is now more than one candidate for every ten churches in the denomination.  For reference, there were only 351 ordinations in 2009, about one-third of the number of candidates.  Is it a paradox that the PC(USA) is good at developing and retaining pastoral leadership but has been loosing members for years?  (For reference, the 2008 full report listed 13,462 activeministers of which 8457 were in parish ministry.  That means that in 2008 there was less than one parish clergy per church, and that includes the associate ministers, and slightly more than one-third of the active ministers were doing something else.)

Finally, the giving.  For the first time both the total contributions and the per member contributions declined in 2009.  Total contributions were down $37 million or 3.4% while on a per member basis giving declined slightly by $4.42 to $1011.35, which is 0.4%.

Having crunched the numbers let me comment briefly on two comments the Rev. Gradye Parsons, Stated Clerk of the PC(USA) General Assembly, is quoted as making in the OGA statement.  The first is his encouragement at the increase in the number of adult baptisms in 2009.  This is clearly a cause for celebration and I in no way want to negate the importance of this number climbing from 6296 in 2008 to 6820 in 2009.  But allow me to put this in perspective over the last eight years.  Back in 2001 and 2002 there were reported 3.9 adult baptisms per 1000 members.  The ratio peaked in 2004 with 4.4 adult baptisms per 1000 members and has generally declined since then.  The ratio of 3.3 adult baptisms per 1000 members for 2009 is an improvement over both 2008 and 2007, but is still below the numbers of 6-8 years ago.

The other point the Rev. Parsons made was “the overall number in membership losses was the lowest it has been inthe last decade.”  Please allow me to go into mathematician mode and point out that this is not necessarily the good news it may appear.  Consider the PC(USA) with a steady decline, let us say 3% annually.  If it begins at some point in time with 2.1 million members this rate of decline means that in the first year it will have a net loss of 63,000 members.  In the next year the starting number is 3% smaller so the net loss is 3% smaller — 61110 members.  Similarly, the next year the net loss is 59,277 members.  In other words, with a constant rate of decline in total membership there will also be a corresponding decrease in the net loss of members when considering the actual numbers.  Even though you are losing less members on a net basis the rate of decrease remains constant.  Hopefully that makes sense.

So statistically the PC(USA) remains where it has been.  Most numbers continue the trends of the past few years and are in the ranges we have seen most of the last decade.  What this means for the future of the denomination is left as an exercise for the reader… And the GA commissioners next week.

Changes In Theological Perspective Among PC(USA) Members

Leave a reply

Warning: This is another one of my posts where the analysis is going to get really geeky really fast.  So be it — just jump to the end for the bottom line if your eyes start to glaze over.

In working on a couple of other current issues I decided that for my own edification I needed to find a metric for the theological viewpoint of the membership, not the leadership, of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and how that might be changing with time.

One motivation for this is the contention that the PC(USA) is preferentially losing conservative members.  I have previously commented that 1) the total membership loss is much higher than what can be attributed to congregation level realignment out of the PC(USA) and that 2) change in presbytery level membership can not be correlated to leadership theological views.  I had been holding the position that membership loss in the PC(USA) is broadly across the theological perspectives.  I may be wrong about that.  Here is an analysis of a different data set…

I looked at the last five Presbyterian Panel surveys: 1996, 1999, 2002, 2005, 2008.  These are the initial surveys of each new panel which serves as the “sample population” for the PC(USA) for the next three years.  That is, the 1996 survey was for the 1997-1999 panel.

In those surveys I found five questions that were asked the same way in all five surveys that pertain directly to doctrinal issues giving a direct measure of an individual’s theological viewpoint.  The five questions are:

  1. Which one of the following terms best describes your current stand on theological issues?
  2. All the world’s different religions are equally good ways of helping a person find ultimate truth
  3. The only absolute truth for humankind is in Jesus Christ
  4. Only followers of Jesus Christ can be saved
  5. There is a life beyond death

I really wish the question about the respondent’s view of the Bible had been asked the same way every time because that would also have given a good perspective on the individual’s viewpoint.  And there are a couple other questions that appear in every survey that could be considered theological indicators as well, such as “Have you ever tried to encourage someone to believe in Jesus Christ or to accept Him as a personal savior?” but these are more about spiritual practices and I thought the questions could be answered either way across the theological spectrum so were not as good of indicators..  (For the record, on this question of accepting Jesus Christ as personal savior it is very close to 60% “yes” and 40% “no” in all five surveys with no trend or statistical variation.)

Other technical details I need to mention:  The margin of error is reported as +4%.  I will only be looking at the “members” category but as I opined before 57% of “members” are ordained officers of the church and for elders they are those not currently serving on session.

Now, the first shall be last and the last shall be first so let me deal with the fifth one at the beginning.  This is easy – over the five surveys there is virtually no change with always 84-86% who agree or strongly agree, 12-14% who are not sure, and 1-3% who disagree or strongly disagree.  I would also note that there was a statement on four of the five surveys (missing in 1999) that “Jesus will return to earth some day.” The last three surveys are indistinguishable at 66-69% agree or strongly agree, 24-27% not sure, and 6-7% disagree or strongly disagree.  The first survey was a bit higher for the two agree categories (75%) with equal drops (3-4% each) in the not sure and combined disagree.  For these statements there is no indicator of change with time.

For the statement “all the world’s different religions are equally good ways of helping a person find ultimate truth” there is an interesting statistically significant variation, but not a trend.  (Note that on all these tables I have added the “combined agrees” and “combined disagrees” categories to simplify graphing and they show up as “all agrees” and “all disagrees” on the chart.)
 

 All the world’s different religions are
equally good ways of helping a person
find ultimate truth.		 1996 1999  2002 2005 2008
Strongly Agree  9  7  8  9  11
 Agree  31  28  27  23  26
 Combined Agrees  40  35  35  32  37
 Not Sure  18  18  19  25  19
 Disagree  25  29  28  24  24
 Strongly Disagree  18  18  18  20  19
 Combined Disagree
  43  47  46  44  43


It is not clear what happened here in the 2005 survey where the “agree” dropped and the “not sure” jumped up. Except for that point the responses to this question in the other surverys are all statistically indistinguishable with no clear suggestion of a trend.

When it comes to the statements about the significance of Jesus Christ, and that is not the significance in the statistical sense, there are clear trends of the sample populations moving away from the orthodox or conservative position.  The two statements are 1) “The only absolute truth for humankind is in Jesus Christ” and 2) “Only followers of Jesus Christ can be saved.”  And yes, I am taking the two agree categories as reflecting the conservative position.  Here are the numbers…

 The only absolute truth for humankind
is in Jesus Christ.		 1996 1999  2002 2005 2008
Strongly Agree  43  46  41  39  38
 Agree  29  27  28  24  21
 Combined Agrees  72  73  69  63  59
 Not Sure  1
7		  15  17  20  20
 Disagree  8  9  10  12  13
 Strongly Disagree  3  2  3  5  7
 Combined Disagree
  11  11  13  17  20


 Only followers of Jesus Christ
can be saved.		 1996 1999  2002 2005 2008
Strongly Agree  27  26  23  26  25
 Agree  19  20  20  15  14
 Combined Agrees  46  46  43  41  39
 Not Sure  25  25  23  25  25
 Disagree  20  20  23  21  19
 Strongly Disagree  8  10  11  14  17
 Combined Disagree
  28  30  34  35  36


In graphical form (and yes, the first graph is the “absolute truth” question not the “ultimate truth” question above)

In each of these there is an apparent trend with the number of those in some agreement with the statement decreasing with time, the number disagreeing increasing, and those not sure mostly to very constant.

Finally, we have the survey question asking each respondent to self-identify their theological viewpoint.  I am not a big fan of the “conservative” and “liberal” labels but I have used it throughout this post because those were the options given in the survey for this question:

 Which term best describes your
current stand on theological issues?		 1996 1999  2002 2005 2008
 Very Conservative  8  5  5  6  6
 Conservative  31  33  33  35  28
 Combined Conservatives  39  38  38  41  34
 Moderate  48  47  43  40  41
 Liberal  11  12  14  14  18
 Very Liberal  3  3  4  5  7
 Combined Liberals
  14  15  18  19  25

And graphically

It is interesting that in the first four surveys the shift seems to be from the moderates to the liberals with the conservatives fairly constant and then in the last survey group the liberals increase and the conservatives drop.  While interesting, I am hesitant to put too much weight on that last point because we saw the 2005 “bump” on the different religions question was a one-survey event.  In three years we will see if it is a new trend.

Now having laid the data out there, what does all this mean?  First, and to my surprise, there was more of a shift than I expected in these indicators from conservative to liberal.  The view of the denomination that it is growing more liberal may hold up. But what is actually changing?

One interpretation is to say that the changes in the panels represents the changes in the members of the denomination as a whole and the changes in attitudes in the survey group is explained by those joining and leaving the PC(USA).  This is still a wildly under-determined problem (that is mathematical jargon) so many different distributions of those joining and those leaving would produce this result.  For instance, you could say that those leaving broadly represent the membership but those joining are more liberal.  Or you could explain it the other way, that those joining are broadly representative and those leaving are more conservative.  And of course many different combinations in between.

The other explanation of course is that people’s minds are changing about these statements.  Rather than members with fixed opinions moving in and out of the denomination we could say that there are people remaining in the denomination that are changing their viewpoint over time.

And these are two possible end-members and the best interpretation is probably some combination of the two and the precise balance between them would require tracking over time or questions specifically designed to test for time-variability of viewpoint.

We can narrow the possible range a little bit by looking at how this breaks down for the self-identified categories for each panel year.  I do realize that the total membership number includes Ministers of Word and Sacrament as well but they represent about 1% of the total membership and so I am going to consider the effect too minor to worry about correcting for this back of the envelope calculation.  Here is how the membership numbers would be split out based on the declared theological viewpoint of the sample population:

 Year Total
Membership 		 Conservative
Members		  Moderate
Members		 Liberal
Members
 1996  2,631,466  1,026,272  1,263,104  368,405
 1999  2,560,201  972,876  1,203,294  384,030
 2002  2,451,969  931,748  1,054,347  441,354
 2005  2,313,662  948,601  925,465  439,596
 2008  2,140,165  727,656  877,468  535,041

Looking at the numbers we can see that the conservative and moderate declines can, with one exception (con
servative 2005), be explained within the denominational membership loss.  The reverse is true for the liberal component — with the exception of 2005 all the other changes show an increase in the absolute, not just the relative, numbers.   But none of these changes can be attributed to just those leaving or joining the church.  The volume of the turnover is significantly larger than the actual net loss so each group must have members added and members lost and what is listed here is the net.  (For specifics consider the 2008 membership numbers – the church had 103,488 members join, and 138,768 leave (not counting deaths).  That represents a 5% annual turnover, or to put it another way, every 20 years the PC(USA) is a whole new church.  More on that another time.)

Finally, you could speculate that the results reflect the way the respondents thought they should answer, either because of what they think the research group wants or because of how they see themselves even if their basic theological perspective has not changed.

So whether by membership turnover or change in opinion there is evidence that over the last 14 years the PC(USA) is indeed becoming a more liberal denomination at the level of the total membership. 

Finally, a note about a paradox in this data:  “Conventional wisdom” says that younger generations are more liberal, more questioning, more tolerant of other viewpoints like those the “truth” and “only way to salvation” questions ask.  Does that mean that the changing viewpoints seen in the survey questions is due to an influx of younger members?  Unfortunately not — In the 12 years between the 1996 panel to the 2008 panel the median age of the panel members has crept up from 55 to 60 years old.  The interpretation is left as an exercise for the reader.

Seminaries Supporting The PC(USA) – How Are They Represented In The Congregations

2 Replies

Yesterday I finished up a look at the numbers of students that attend seminaries associated with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and noted that in the wider universe of seminaries there is one that actually has more Presbyterian students than any of the PC(USA) seminaries.

This is an interesting situation that has sometimes led to questions about a student’s preparation for ministry, perspectives on theology, and in some cases their loyalty to the denomination.  I could tell you stories but that is for another time.  The topic for today is how this statistical profile from the seminaries gets reflected in the congregations.

I now return to the Presbyterian Panel and their 2009-2011 Panel Profile. Actually, I am going to look at the last five panel profiles.

One of the questions the Teaching Elders on the Panel (Research Services calls them clergy) are asked is:

From what school and in what year did you receive your M.Div. or B.D. degree?

Before breaking this down by school consider the groupings of PC(USA) seminaries versus non-PC(USA).

   Panel Profile
1997-1999
 		  Panel Profile
2000-2002
 		  Panel Profile
2003-2005
 		  Panel Profile
2006-2008
 		  Panel Profile
2009-2011
 
 Pastors  Spec.  Pastors  Spec.  Pastors  Spec.  Pastors  Spec.  Pastors  Spec.
 PC(USA) seminary  69%  66%  70%  68%  68%  65%  69%  70%  66%  65%
 non-PC(USA) seminary  31%  34%  30%  32%  32%  35%  31%  30%  34%  35%

Let me also remind you that the margin of error is +4% and “Spec.” is short for “Specialized Clergy” which are active Teaching Elders serving in a ministry other than in a congregation.

Looking at this table we can say (1) that the percentages of specialized clergy and the percentages of pastors from PC(USA) schools are statistically the same for each panel, and (2) that over the five panels there is no statistically significant variation with time although there might be a suggestion in the most recent panel that more pastors are coming from non-PC(USA) schools.

Now, let’s break it down by the individually seminaries:

   Panel Profile
1997-1999
 		  Panel Profile
2000-2002
 		  Panel Profile
2003-2005
 		  Panel Profile
2006-2008
 		  Panel Profile
2009-2011
 
 Pastors  Spec.  Pastors  Spec.  Pastors  Spec.  Pastors  Spec.  Pastors  Spec.
 Austin  4%  3%  5%  4%  4%  4%  5%  4%  6%  3%
 Columbia  8%  8%  10%  8%  9%  5%  8%  8%  10%  7%
 Dubuque  4%  3%  3%  2%  4%  3%  3%  3%  2%  2%
 JCS/ITC  1%  1%  1%  0%  NR  NR  *  1%  1%  1%
 Louisville  8%  6%  7%  6%  8%  8%  8%  7%  7%  7%
 McCormick  5%  8%  5%  7%  6%  7%  5%  6%  4%  5%
 Pittsburgh  7%  7%  6%  10%  6%  6%  8%  5%  5%  5%
 Princeton  18%  17%  19%  17%  16%  18%  19%  20%  20%  20%
 San Fran.  6%  6%  5%  6%  6%  9%  5%  10%  4%  9%
 Union (VA)  8%  7%  9%  8%  9%  5%  8%  6%  7%  5%
 Evangelical  NR  NR  NR  NR  NR  NR  *

 *  *  *
 Fuller  7%  5%  9%  4%  7%  6%  10%  6%  9%  5%
 Gordon Conwell  4%  1%  3%  3%  5%  3%  4%  3%  4%  3%
 Union-Auburn  2%  5%  NR  NR  NR  NR  NR  NR  NR  NR
 Yale  1%  4%  NR  NR  NR  NR  NR  NR  NR  NR
 Other  17%  19%  19%  26%  20%  25%  16%  21%  20%  26%

Notes: 1) Evangelical is Evangelical in Puerto Rico, (2) JCS/ITC is Johnson C. Smith at the Interdenominational Theological Center, (3) NR is not reported on that panel so is included in “Other”, (4) * is less than 0.5% and is rounded to zero, (5) the PC(USA) seminaries are the first ten listed.

Looking at this table for trends what we can say is that statistically speaking each of the seminaries shows constant representation in the workforce over these twelve years.  There is the suggestion of a decrease in McCormick and maybe also Dubuque and Pittsburgh, and the slight suggestion of an increase in Princeton, Fuller and Other.  Again, while never present in statistically significant amounts, it is interesting to note that it is more likely for graduates of McCormick, San Francisco and Other  to be in the Specialized Clergy, while grads of Union (VA), Fuller, and maybe Austin, Columbia and Gordon Conwell are more likely to be Pastors.

What really surprised me about these tables, and the prime motivator for my quest for numbers yesterday, is the paradox that if Fuller has more Presbyterian students than any other school, why does it always have only half as many Teaching Elders in the workforce than Princeton grads?  One possibility is that while Princeton and Fuller consolidate all their Presbyterian students into the general category Presbyterian, there may be signifigantly different representation from the PC(USA).  It may be that Princeton has more PC(USA) students while Fuller’s Presbyterian students include more from Korean churches.  But I also have to wonder if fewer Fuller students from the PC(USA) enter the workforce as Teaching Elders in the PC(USA).  Do they go to other denominations?  Do they go into the workforce in non-ordained congregational or parachurch ministry?  Is the high number of Fuller students, while pretty constant across these reports, still a more recent development and its impact will be seen in the future?  More numbers and analysis are needed.

OK, next question: How does the pastoral workforce from PC(USA) schools correspond to their enrollment size as reported by the PC(USA)?

   Panel Profile
2009-2011
 		  Panel Profile
Normalized to
PC(USA)
schools
 		  PC(USA)
reported
enrollment
(number)
 		  PC(USA)
reported
enrollment
(percent
of total)
 
 Pastors  Spec.  Pastors  Spec.    
 Austin  6%  3%  9%  5%  273  8%
 Columbia  10%  7%  15%  11%  428  13%
 Dubuque  2%  2%  3%  3%  177  5%
 JCS/ITC  1%  1%  2%  2%  21  0.6%
 Louisville  7%  7%  11%  11%  217  6%
 McCormick  4%  5%  6%  8%  340  10%
 Pittsburgh  5%  6%  8%  9%  370  11%
 Princeton  20%  20%  30%  31%  703  21%
 San Fran.  4%  9%  6%  14%  459  14%
 Union (VA)  7%  5%  11%  8%  365  11%


Notes: (1) Due to rounding totals may not add up to exactly 100%.

There is clearly a considerable risk in comparing the numbers from the Panel with the total enrollment in the seminaries.  That is why I went on the unsuccessful quest I wrote about yesterday — to get more specific numbers.  In doing this comparison I assume that each seminary has the same proportions of M.Div. students and the same proportions of PC(USA) students in their total enrollment.  The indication from this table is that this assumption holds pretty well.  Within the confidence limits all that we can conclusively say is that there are more Princeton grads out in congregations than their proportional enrollment would predict.  There is the suggestion that Louisville is also over-represented and that Dubuque, McCormick and Pittsburgh are under-represented.

For comparison purposes, based on these numbers there are 3353 students at PC(USA) seminaries.  The PC(USA) statistical summary for 2008 lists 1164 candidates.  While it is a bit of a rough calculation, candidacy is usually the last of the three years at seminary, suggesting at least 3492 PC(USA) seminary students.  (On the one hand, since the care process is one of exploration of call we would expect candidates, the last stage, to be fewer than the other years so the number may represent a lower limit.  On the other hand, since
an individual would remain a candidate after graduation until they find a call the number might be pulled up by that.  I wonder how much those two effects balance out?)  Anyway, if 2/3 of students are at PC(USA) seminaries, that would give us a rough figure of 2328 PC(USA) students in M.Div. programs at PC(USA) seminaries or 69% of the total enrollment.  Seems a bit high from the numbers I wrote about yesterday so the pool of candidates may include a greater number seeking a call.

Finally, are there any trends seen in the year of graduation?

   Panel Profile
1997-1999
 		  Panel Profile
2000-2002
 		  Panel Profile
2003-2005
 		  Panel Profile
2006-2008
 		  Panel Profile
2009-2011
 
 Pastors  Spec.  Pastors  Spec.  Pastors  Spec.  Pastors  Spec.  Pastors  Spec.
 Prior to 1960  5%  19%  2%  8%  1%  2%  *  2%    
 1960-1969  20%  25%  16%  25%  11%  18%  6%  13%  3% #  10% #
 1970-1970  25%  23%  24%  26%  24%  28%  23%  24%  20%  23%
 1980-1989  31%  24%  32%  27%  32%  33%  32%  34%  30%  30%
 1990-1999  17%  7%  25%  13%  27%  19%  27%  23%  24%  26%
 2000-2009          4%  1%  11%  4%  22%  10%
 do not have degree  2%  2%  1%  1%  NR  NR  NR  NR  NR  NR

Notes: * – less than 0.5% and rounds to zero; # – number is for prior to 1970; survey is taken at the beginning of the panel time span.

The year grouping make these numbers a bit harder to track but accounting for that it is interesting to see the general distribution of graduation dates track across the panel surveys with little variation.  I don’t think that it is unexpected to see more recent grads in the pastor category and more older grads in the specialized ministry category where experience and flexibility are to be found.  It is interesting that this variation is in the tails of the distribution while in the center of the two distributions the shape is very similar.

So, looking at all of these number it raises the question of why we should care about them.  Reason number one is that they show a significant stability in the pastoral training in the PC(USA).  Yes, these are percentages of the number of graduates in the work force so it does not say anything about absolute numbers or changes in the quality or content of the education they are receiving.  In some respects this stability shows up in the PC(USA) annual membership numbers where the total membership is steadily declining but the number of Teaching Elders show little or no decline.

Another reason for having an interest in this is the question of PC(USA) seminaries versus non-PC(USA) seminaries.  This is the question that led me to have a closer look because I was trying to understand why Fuller did not appear stronger in the number of graduates.  I still don’t have a good answer for that but it is important to note that within the time range covered by these surveys there is no statistically discernable trend in graduates from Fuller, Gordon Conwell, or non-PC(USA) seminaries as a group.  These grads have been with us in fairly stable numbers so if you worry about how non-PC(USA) graduates impact the denomination we can’t say from this what the impact is but we can say that based upon the flat trend the effect should be constant with neither an increasing nor decreasing impact.

Well, I’m sure that is plenty of numbers for one day.  And hopefully in entering these tables I did not put in too many typos.  I’ll give the panel data a rest for a little bit as there is a bunch of other General Assembly related news to be found circulating right now.  And as always, if you see something in here that I missed I’m sure you’ll let me know.

Seminaries Supporting The PC(USA) – Gathering Numbers

5 Replies

I spent my lunch hour today surfing seminary web sites.  It was enlightening.  A few of the things I learned were…

  • I don’t have the prerequisite background to pursue a D.Min. (no real surprise there)
  • The quality of seminary web sites varies widely
  • The information available on seminary web sites also varies widely – but it depends on what you are looking for and who they target as their primary audience — and it is probably not me.  (I have a hand in these things in my day job so evaluating that part was a bit of a “busman’s holiday.”)
  • Some detailed facts are easier to find on some sites than on other sites

What I actually started out doing was to gather numbers about various seminaries and their degree programs, specifically the total enrollment in their Masters of Divinity Program.  The ability to find these numbers varied widely between the PC(USA) seminaries.

First, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) lists total enrollment numbers for each of the ten PC(USA) seminaries — You can begin on the list page and navigate through to the specific detail page for each seminary.

To have a look at that size number I started visiting the different web sites and found the availability of that data highly variable — and from my search I can’t tell whether it is not present or just that it can not be reasonably found.  High marks for availability goes to Princeton who has their PTS Statistics clearly linked to the navigation bar on the front page.  For detail, you can not beat Louisville Seminary which under their About Us page you can drill down to a VERY detailed Annual Fact Book – a little harder to find but a statistics freak’s dream.  Austin was a shade harder to find but under their Media Relations they have a nice fact sheet.

On the other end of the spectrum it was difficult to find specific numbers for most of the other seminaries.  For Johnson C. Smith that is very understandable — as a 21 student section of ITC having a robust media unit is probably not a top priority.  But McCormick and Pittsburgh?  In both cases it took some doing to find total number of students and there was no breakdown by program.  And at Pittsburgh I actually found two different numbers — 337 versus “approximately 370.”  (And that is not even counting the fact that McCormick still thinks there are eleven Presbyterian Seminaries.) OK, maybe I’m the only one who really cares about these numbers.

What struck me as I was looking at these was that the PC(USA) web site numbers were consistently higher than the specific numbers reported by the seminary itself:

Seminary Seminary
Reported 		PC(USA)
Reported
 Austin  255  273
 Louisville  210  217
 Pittsburgh  337  370
 Princeton  615  703


So, are they counting different things or are they reporting different years and this is normal fluctuation?

I should say that for Union I could piece together total numbers adding the 300 at the Richmond Campus and the 90 at the Charlotte campus, which is actually higher than the 365 listed by the denomination.

For where I am headed with this what I really wanted was the number of students in the Master of Divinity program.  Searching through the web sites I was able to find the following numbers:

 Seminary Number of
M.Div. Students
 Austin  123
 Columbia  180
 Louisville  103
 McCormick  154 (All masters programs)
 Princeton  411


And as I was looking at these numbers where denominational affiliations were reported PC(USA) students seemed to number about 40-50% of both total students and M.Div. students.

Now looking at all these numbers one fact should stick out — Princeton Theological Seminary is the heavy weight in this system.  Just come to one of our presbytery meetings and that will be apparent.

And now we will let the other shoe drop…

For those who have been involved in preparation for ministry or the call process in the PC(USA) you know that ministers and candidates also come from non-PC(USA) schools, but there is one seminary in particular that trains more Presbyterians than all the other schools… Fuller Seminary.

(Before I go any further I need to put full disclosure in here:  While I have no association with Fuller, it is in my presbytery and I know a lot of people who were or are students, faculty or staff at Fuller.)

For those of you who are not familiar with seminaries in the PC(USA), Fuller Seminary is a multidenominational seminary which is often only half-jokingly referred to as “the largest Presbyterian seminary.”  This school, headed by a Presbyterian president, has a reported “Presbyterian Faculty” of  15 (and I know one that is no
t listed), a Presbyterian student body of around 300 (compared to Princeton’s 259), and Presbyterians are the largest denominational group on campus.

Is this important?  It is a good natured but running argument in our presbytery about whether you pastors are trained at Princeton or Fuller (or both).  But throughout the church we need to be aware that, for good or ill, there is an alternative to PC(USA) seminaries.  In addition, it is interesting to see how this is reflected in the denomination’s statistics.

So now that we have had a look at the seminaries, next time we move on to look at how they are represented “in the real world.”

Presbyterian Statistics Going Viral

3 Replies

I have found it interesting that more than a month after the release of statistics about the viewpoints of members of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) one particular statistic out of that report has “gone viral” on Twitter and in the blogosphere.

The report is the latest Presbyterian Panel profile that I mentioned last month when I commented not on the numbers themselves but on the use of terminology in the introductory material.

The 54 page report is full of interesting stuff that I am still digesting but the numbers that caught someone’s attention, and has now been retweeted a million times, is this one as listed in the narrative section of the report:

Members are divided about the necessity of belief in Christ for salvation… Two in five members (39%) “agree” or “strongly agree” and 36% “disagree” or “strongly disagree” that “only followers of Jesus Christ can be saved.” More elders “agree” or “strongly agree” (45%) than “disagree” or “strongly disagree” (31%) with the statement. More pastors disagree (45%) than agree (35%). A majority of specialized clergy (60%) disagree.

Let’s take this apart.  First, it is important to know the question that was asked (see page A-14 of the report):

Please indicate the extent to which you agree or disagree with…the following statement: only followers of Jesus Christ can be saved.

Now, in looking at the responses it is important to realize that there is the terminology problem with their categories that I noted in the previous posts: When the survey uses the term “elders” it means those in the church who are ruling elders currently serving on session.  When the report uses the term “member” it means all the rest, that is everyone else who is not a teaching elder or ruling elder serving on session.  In other words, when the term “member” is used it means a mix of ruling elders not currently on session, deacons, and church members not ordained to a church office.  It is interesting to note that according to the report 21% of “members” have been ordained as elders only, 19% as deacons only, and 16% have been ordained as both an elder and deacon.  That means that there is a category for “elder” and then 37% of the “members” category are also ruling elders.  (And while the numbers would probably be fairly small, I would also be curious how many of the “members” have been released from the exercise of ordained office or had given up their ordinations all together.)  It also means that a minority (43%) of the “members” are not officers of the church.  And it is interesting to note that “elders” were the best at returning the survey (79%), “ministers” next at 70%, and “members” only returned 59%.  So within the mixed category of “member” were any of the different components (ruling elders, deacons, non-ordained) more or less likely to return the survey?

(Three quick points of commentary on these numbers:  1) I won’t discuss it further now, but there seem to be some important implications for a church when a majority of the members are ordained officers in the church.  2) Does breaking out the opinions of only the ruling elders currently serving on session reinforce the too common belief that our ordination as an elder only really matters when we are serving on session?  3) What I would really like to see is the panel profile break out the opinions of the non-ordained members, or am I missing that in the report?)

So getting back to the question asked in the survey, here is how respondents agreed with “only followers of Jesus Christ can be saved.”

Response Members  Members
(non-elders)		  Elders Pastors Specialized
Clergy
 strongly agree  25%  24%  27%  21%  12%
 agree  14%  12%  18%  14%  10%
 neutral or not sure  25%  26%  23%  20%  18%
 disagree  19%  19%  19%  24%  24%
 strongly disagree  17%  20%  12%  21%  36%

 
A couple of notes: 1) The “Members (non-elders)” category is my adjustment of the members number based on the (possibly risky) assumption that the ruling elders mixed in with the members have the same opinions as the “elders” category.  While tempting to extrapolate that deacons think like ruling elders, I won’t take the correction that far. 2) In the survey of the 1453 “ministers” that responded there were 982 pastors (67.6%) and 471 in specialized ministry (32.4%). This is a very close match to the 31.9% of “Active Ministers” that are not in parish ministry according to the 2008 Membership Statistics.  3) Finally, the margin of error is reported as +4% so that differences of less than 8% are not statistically significant.

What does all this mean?  First, with one exception, members, members (non-elders), elders and pastors all responded the same within the margin of error.  The one exception is that the 21% of pastors that strongly disagreed was statistically meaningfully above the 12% of elders with that response.  The other important difference is that on the extremes the specialized clergy were statistically different from every other category with less strongly agreeing (9 to 15% less) and more strongly disagreeing (15 to 24% more).

If we now consider the “orthodox” answer to this question to be that there is “salvation in Christ alone” (cf. Westminster Larger Catechism Q. 60) the most interesting thing is that the most orthodox category is the ruling elders with 45% of respondents either agreeing or strongly agreeing.  To be fair, combining boxes like that raises the uncertainty of the combined values to +5.6% so now an 11% spread between results is necessary making the only statistically distinct difference between the specialized ministry category and all the other ones.  On the other end, the first four groups disagree or strongly disagree with the statement from about 31% to 45% so pastors are distinguishable from elders.  Those in specialized ministry expressed 60% disagreement.

Clearly, if subscription to the Westminster Standards were still a requirement for ordination in the mainline American Presbyterian church a sizable group would be declaring a departure.  Here is where I would be interested in what the non-ordained members believe because all that is required for membership is affirmation of Jesus Christ as savior.  It is when we become ordained that we agree to be “instructed and led” by the confessions.

Looking at the preceding question in the survey does raise some questions about how the respondents interpreted the statement “only followers of Jesus can be saved.”  The question before it was “the only absolute truth for humankind is in Jesus Christ.”  For this statement there was significantly more agreement with that statemen
t.

Response Members  Members
(non-elders)		  Elders Pastors Specialized
Clergy
 strongly agree  38%  34%  44%  42%  25%
 agree  21%  19%  24%  24%  19%
 neutral or not sure  20%  22%  17%  12%  15%
 disagree  13%  14%  11%  17%  25%
 strongly disagree  7%  9%  4%  5%  15%


So there is a significant shift to agreement with the statement that Jesus is absolute truth.  In fact, now 20%, 23%, 15%, 22%, and 40% disagree or strongly disagree with the statement.  The drop is 15% to 20% in all categories.  This is more reassuring about the strength of the orthodox viewpoints in the PC(USA) and seems to point to a natural human reaction that it is more comfortable to talk about the relatively impersonal idea of Jesus as absolute truth but being less comfortable when it gets to the personal by saying that my neighbor is not saved if they don’t believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.  Or, I could be over-explaining this because the responses to the statement “all the world’s different religions are equally good ways of helping a person find ultimate truth” look more like the responses, actually the reversed responses, to “only followers of Jesus Christ can be saved.”

Besides the tweets there has been response on blogs as well — I will highlight two of those.  First, the blog that has probably been the most heavily linked to is the comment on all this by the Rev. Albert Mohler, President of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY.  He looks at the results of the survey in the context of the overall decline and his perceived liberalization of the PC(USA).  There is also an interesting article on Stand Firm that takes issue with the design and reporting of the survey which in their opinion was poor on both counts and hides some of the results.

That is enough drilling into these statistics for today, but I want to turn to another set of statistics that was just released, the denominational membership statistics in the National Council of Churches yearbook.  (For one take on the relationship of information in the panel survey to the NCC membership changes see my search for a correlation last year.)

First, a quick review of the source of the NCC data:  The data is self-reported by the denominations.  Some are not as into statistics as the PC(USA) so their data should be viewed as round numbers.  For example, the National Baptist Convention reports an even 5 million members with no update reported.  In fact 12 of the 25 largest churches did not report updates.  Additionally, the number of members reported here is not necessarily the same category of members reported elsewhere.  The PC(USA) reports 2,844,952 in the NCC report but only 2,140,165 in the statistical report.  Clearly the NCC number is a broader measure of membership including baptized children and maybe inactive members while the in-house statistical report is only active communicant members on which per capita is collected.

So what did the NCC say?  Five of the 25 largest denominations reported gains: Jehovah’s Witnesses (+2.00%), Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee), (+1.76%), Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (+1.71%), Roman Catholic (+1.49%), and the Assemblies of God (+1.27%).  As mentioned, twelve did not report and the remaining eight declined: Southern Baptist Convention (-0.24%), United Methodist Church (-0.98%), Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (-1.62), Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod (-1.92%), American Baptist Churches (-2.00%), The Episcopal Church (-2.81%), United Church of Christ (-2.93%), Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) (-3.28%).

While some numbers look close to last year (e.g. SBC, ELCA) some have changed a bit (e.g. AOG from 0.96% to 1.27%, PC(USA) from -2.79% to -3.28%) and the UCC has significantly changed (from -6.01% to -2.93%).  I won’t redo the correlation chart from last year and instead leave any interpretation of the numbers as an exercise for the reader.  Have fun.