State of the Plate

2010 State of the Plate Survey Overview

That is the name of a nationwide survey of giving to religious institutions now in its third year.  State of the Plate is a collaborative effort by Brian Kluth of Maximum Generosity ministry, Christianity Today International, publisher of Church Finance Today and Leadership journal, and the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA) and there are plenty of corporate sponsors on board as well.

State of the Plate got responses from 1,507 churches of all sizes, theological leanings, and every region of the country.

Headlines from the State of the Plate Survey

• 43% of churches saw increases in giving this past year, up from 36 percent in 2009.
• 39% of churches reporting a decline in giving this past year compared with 38 percent last year.
• Smaller churches (< 250 people ASA) saw more declines in giving than larger churches.
• The West Coast and Southeast lead the nation in declining giving with 46% of churches reporting decrease in donations in 2010.

Remember this State of the Plate survey is focused mostly on evangelical churches while there was some mainline participation.  But if the faster growing evangelical churches have been hit as hard or harder by the recession as the larger mainline denominations—we have even more evidence of how brutal this recession has been on churches.

It was interesting that the commentary on this survey in the media often went beyond the facts of changing giving patterns to discuss the potential long term impact on churches from changes in US tax policy concerning tax deductions for charitable giving as recommended by the US Deficit Commission.  It is obvious that the evangelicals fear a permanent drop in charitable giving if here is such as change and, I supposed, the Episcopal Church might also add that to our worry list.

The Episcopal Church Stewardship Experience

Until the recession hit hard, giving increased in the Episcopal Church faster than the rate of inflation. While membership in the Episcopal Church and Average Sunday Attendance (ASA) decreased each year since 2002, stewardship giving trends were positive.

Kirk Hadaway, director of research for the Episcopal Church, said last Fall that plate and pledge giving increased steadily from 1991 to 2008, when it dropped for the first time since good records were available because of the depths of the recession. The average pledge among US parishes increased from $1,791 in 2003 to $2,302 in 2008, and plate and pledge giving per attendee increased from $1,496 to $1,883 during the same period.

What Does This Mean to Our Parish?

The Episcopal Church website offers a free online database research tool which charts 11-year trends called Studying Your Congregation and Community to assist Episcopal congregations and dioceses with stewardship, short- and long-term planning, and strategic development.

Any congregation can access this research data at http://www.episcopalchurch.org/research.htm and by clicking Studying Your Congregation and Community, the data are easily accessed with pull-down menus for selecting dioceses and congregations.  All of this information is from the parochial reports–the official annual ‘census data’ collected from every congregation each year.

Self Study Resources for the Rector Search Process

This national church research service is also a VERY USEFUL tool for any search committee and you can bet the candidates will check out any parish they feel called to in order to get the facts on membership, average Sunday attendance, and plate & pledge giving by diocese and congregation from 1999 to 2009 including community profile, which updates the former zip code report.

So if you are preparing a parish profile you better check this out and make sure what you are saying about your congregation is consistent with what the national church is reporting.  But you still need to answer the basic question of what happened to giving in 2010 and what trends or expectations does the congregation have for the future.

I’m tempted to say that if the Evangelicals are worried about future giving then we should be too—and we are.  But growing average Sunday attendance and broadening the pledge base is part of a much broader strategy every congregation needs.

The lessons:

Changing demographics will profoundly impact every denomination. Our strategies for parish life and stewardship need to reflect these demographic realities. It also means we cannot build a parish strategic vision, capital plan or search process by just focusing on our history—we must learn to live into our vision of the future and test that vision against these demographic trends.

The recession was as bad as we felt, but the economy is recovering slowly. Expecting a miraculous turnaround in pledge levels is unrealistic given the slow pace of recovery.  But the State of the Plate survey told us that more congregations are seeing giving grow again that before.  that is good news but not sufficient to turn the corner.  The lesson in this for the Diocese of California, St. Timothy’s Danville and other congregations is that we cannot coast or wimp out in addressing our structural problems in congregational vitality, the assessment formula, and the budget levels at both the Diocese and parish level.

Both the ‘best of times’ and ‘worst of times’ are still ahead of us. Change is always difficult even when the change is good–or good for us.  God is revealing to us a glimpse of our faith future by opening our eyes to the need to welcome, incorporate and serve our richly diverse communities.  He is not promising us that the changes needed to reach out to the unchurched, underserved and multicultural diversity we see ahead will be easy—-only that He is with us every step of the way.  The question is ‘what is our response?’

There is something Darwinian to all of this change process underway in the church, in our nation and the world.  It is forcing all of us to open our eyes, to pray more, to see more of the world beyond our small corner, and to both give thanks for the blessings in our lives and reach out to serve those less fortunate to live into the mission work of the church.

Related Articles

• Report on church funding (religion.blogs.cnn.com)
• Is church giving rebounding? (ajc.com)
• Donations rise at U.S. churches in 2010 (reuters.com)
• Mixed picture for church donations in 2010 (reuters.com)
• 20/20 Vision: Facing 40 Years of Mainline Church Decline (discernablefutures.wordpress.com)
• Evangelical Churches Still Growing, Mainline Protestantism In Decline (huffingtonpost.com)
• Evangelical Finance Probe Concluded by Senator (huffingtonpost.com)
• Zynga & the Episcopalians announces Churchyville – Social Networking Initiative (hackingchristianity.net)

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20/20 Vision: Facing 40 Years of Mainline Church Decline

Episcopal Church of the United States

One of the key issues facing the Episcopal Church in the US, the Diocese of California AND St. Timothy’s is the persistent decline in the membership of the mainline Protestant religions.  There are many reasons for this 40 year trend including:

• Aging population and changing demographics as we see anew in the 2010 Census
• Stronger evangelism, marketing and attractiveness of evangelical churches to the unchurched
• Conflicts in the church over social issues
• Changes in family structures and lifestyles that do not reinforce going to church.
• Competing demands on our time pushing church to a lower priority in busy lives.

Writing in WORLD, Timothy Dalrymple distills the headlines from the 2011 edition of the Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches, published by the National Council of Churches to summarize publicly available data on 227 churches across North America.  The Yearbook has been regard as the principal way to track the changing fortunes of organized religion including membership for at least the last forty years.

Here are the Winners and Losers:

Denomination	% Change
Jehovah’s Witnesses	+4.37%
Seventh Day Adventists	+4.31%
The Mormon Church of Ladder Day Saints	+1.42%
Roman Catholic Church	+0.57%
Assemblies of God	+0.52%
Southern Baptist Convention	-0.42%
United Methodist Church	-1.0%
Lutheran Church (ELCA)	-1.96%
Episcopal Church of the US	-2.48%
Presbyterian Church (USA)	-2.61%
United Church of Christ	-2.83%

SOURCE: National Council of Churches

The largest Christian Congregations in the US from 2010 Yearbook are:

1. The Roman Catholic Church: 68.1 million, up 1.5 percent from 2009
2. Southern Baptist Convention: 16.2 million, no significant change
3. The United Methodist Church: 7.8 million, down 1 percent from 2009
4. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: 5.9 million, up 1.7 percent from 2009
5. The Church of God in Christ: 5.5 million, no significant change
6. National Baptist Convention: 5 million, no significant change
7. Evangelical Lutheran Church in America: 4.6 million, down 1.6 percent
8. National Baptist Convention of America: 3.5 million, no significant change
9. Assemblies of God: 2.9 million, up 1.27 percent from 2009
10. The Presbyterian Church; 2.8 million, down 3.28 percent from 2009

15. The Episcopal Church of the US: 2 million members, down 3% or 50,000 members from 2008 to 2009.

Want more information?

• Episcopal Church Research Services provides statistical information and reports on the Episcopal Church.
• Episcopal Congregations Overview is based on responses from 837 Episcopal parishes and missions that completed the 2010 Faith Communities Today Survey (76% response rate). The data were weighted by size and region to be representative of all Episcopal congregations. A more detailed report of findings will be published and posted on the Episcopal Church web site later in 2011.
• Compare Congregations Using Episcopal Research Service Online Data.  For search committees preparing profiles this is a very useful tool for comparing congregations and gathering information easily from the parochial reports filed with the National church.  This is your access point to the official parochial report database.

What about St. Timothy’s?

Below are three standardized reports I was able to pull from the ECRS database using the parochial report information for St. Timothy’s in Danville as examples of what is available:

• Diocese of California Participation and Giving Trends from the Parochial Report
• St. Timothy’s Danville Community Profile taken from the Parochial Report
• St. Timothy’s Participation and Giving Trends from the Parochial Report

For St. Timothy’s to Grow We Must Change the Trend Lines

So the 20/20 Vision strategies and the work of the Search Committee must take into account these changes in demographics and the implications of the trends in church membership and participation.  The long slow decline of mainline Protestant religions is affecting the Episcopal Church materially and substantially.

Our 20/20 Vision goals to be a welcoming parish open to all and to live into the mission work of the church by doubling the parish pledge base and participation by the year 2020 are seriously challenged by these long term membership trends.  To change the course of the church requires that St. Timothy’s and other congregations step up and take concerted action to reach out to the unchurched and underserved, collaborate with the Diocese on area ministry strategies and work with other congregations on mission and ministry programs to attract the faithful.

Unless we do so achieving the 20/20 Vision goals will be unrealistic.

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