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Interesting Info: Church statistics in America


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I'm not sure it's realistic to say this or that church "grew" by 1% or thereabouts, since that doesn't keep up with the population growth.

 

Yeah, I know. Who knows how each church counts growth or decline. It doesn't sound like they all use one form of counting, they just submit their numbers... I guess. Still, I thought it was interesting. :D

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My understanding is that the Roman Catholic church claims as a "member" anyone who's been baptized Catholic (and hasn't been excommunicated). If this is true then I'm Catholic, even though I haven't been to a mass since I was in high school and I'm a member of another denomination.

 

Along the same lines, I remember a debate at another (protestant) church we used to attend about how they should figure membership; should they keep on the rolls anyone who had become a member once and hadn't officially transferred elsewhere, even if they hadn't attended in years?

 

What I'm getting at is that these figures appear to be self-reported by the churches, and each denomination (and even individual churches within denominations) has its own way of determining what constitutes a "member."

Edited by kokotg
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My understanding is that the Roman Catholic church claims as a "member" anyone who's been baptized Catholic (and hasn't been excommunicated)."

 

The RC church takes a 'head count' each year, at least in the US and they also have the number of registered parish familys both of which are reported to the bishops annually.

 

 

Interesting statistics though!

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