A few items that caught my attention this week
Church of Scotland hit by staff bullying claims
Herald Scotland, 19 May 2012
As the 2012 General Assembly gets underway there are reports that a secret survey of the Kirk’s central office staff alleges “disturbing levels of bullying.”
Congregations leave local Presbyterian district
Sun Sentinel, 16 May 2012
At its regular stated presbytery meeting the Presbytery of Tropical Florida dismissed nine churches from the PC(USA), most to ECO.
Vicksburg churches switch affiliation
My San Antonio, 19 May 2012 [Originally from the Vicksburg Post post which requires registration – link within this article.]
The Presbytery of Mississippi dismissed three churches from the PC(USA) to the EPC.
France will have new denomination with Protestant merger
ENI News, 16 May 2012
The Reformed Church of France – the largest Protestant body in France and tracing its origin back to the Huguenots – merged with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of France to form the United Protestant Church of France.
Finally, if any news item went viral this week it was the resolution of the Presbytery of the Redwoods objecting to the rebuke of Teaching Elder Jane Spahr by their PJC that was upheld on appeal to the SPJC and the GAPJC. I commented on that and there are numerous article about it including ones from the San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Post and the Associated Press.
We now have two General Assemblies underway so there will be lots to talk about next week.
Is there an accurate up to date easy to understand list of what churches have left the PCUSA over the last few years? the list on the Layman seems kind on confusing.
I keep hearing people say, “well it’s only a few churches that are leaving” as if that makes it less of a big deal. But with the average congregation at less than 200 (or whatever) a church of 2500+ bailing is a bigger deal than folks would like to admit.
Short answer – not that I am aware of.
It is interesting that you bring this up because with the recent pulse of churches leaving — has a presbytery ever dismissed nine churches in one group before? — I was thinking about looking at some of these statistics. I have not checked the lists recently, but a few years back when there was a surge leaving for the New Wineskins Association I was looking at the flux using four sources
Layman’s list http://www.layman.org/Files/churches%20leaving%20chart-l.pdf
PresbyLaw (not being maintained) http://churchlist.blogspot.com/
The PC(USA) statistics (no church names but annual numbers leaving) http://www.pcusa.org/media/uploads/research/pdfs/2010_table_4.pdf
And the similar EPC presbytery reports which I have not seen online in a while
I would love to find another list but at the moment I think the Layman list is the best available
As for the numbers – I think you are right that it is a big deal. The last I checked the average size of the churches leaving was well above the average size of all PC(USA) churches. As you are probably aware, for the 2010 statistics the average congregation had 191 members. If you consider that First Colorado Springs, First Greenville and First Orlando are all leaving that is a pretty healthy loss. I am awaiting fresh numbers released at GA and then I might find time later in the summer to crunch some comparisons.