WASHINGTON: State of Diocese Shows Decline over 40 Years. No Reversal in Sight

[david at virtueonline.org]

WASHINGTON: State of Diocese Shows Decline over 40 Years.
No Reversal in Sight

By Lucy Chumbley
Washington Window 
Diocese of Washington 
October 9, 2008

Membership and money are the biggest challenges the Diocese of Washington is facing today, according to canon to the ordinary Paul Cooney.

For the past six months, Cooney has been gathering data on the diocese's membership, church attendance and pledging trends at the behest of the Diocesan Council. He has made some encouraging - and discouraging - discoveries, which he hopes the diocese's constituent churches will find helpful.

"I'd like to stimulate a conversation where we can feel safe in talking about our challenges," he said. "I think that some of the challenges are serious enough that if we don't talk about them, we'll lose something. Let's share our information, share our predicaments and work on ways to become stronger."

At its February retreat, the council spoke of its "desire to enhance connectivity among our congregations," Cooney said. But before this can happen, "we need to understand who we are in the first place."

Who are we?

The Diocese of Washington was carved out of the Diocese of Maryland in 1895, two years after the U.S. Congress approved the charter for the construction of the National Cathedral.

Its geographic area, about 1,864 square miles, includes the District of Columbia and the Maryland counties of Montgomery, Prince George's, Charles and St. Mary's.

Henry Yates Satterlee was the first Bishop of Washington, and John Bryson Chane is the eighth. John T. Walker, installed as diocesan bishop in 1977, was the second African American to serve in that capacity, and two of the first female bishops –Barbara C. Harris and Jane Holmes Dixon - have served as assistant and suffragan bishops, respectively.

Today, the diocese is made up of the cathedral, 88 parishes, one mission (St. Barnabas Church of the Deaf), three university chaplaincies and six Latino congregations. Twenty Episcopal schools also are affiliated with the diocese.

On a typical Sunday, Cooney said, church attendance at parishes in the diocese ranges from 14 to 1,039. In half of the diocese's parishes, fewer than 115 people attend Sunday services. And in the average parish, Church School draws just 27 children.

Data from parochial reports show that over the last 20 years, the diocese's membership has remained stable in the low 40,000s. But during that same period, the number of pledging households has decreased by about 20 percent.

Over the last 20 years, "we've become modestly smaller," Cooney said.

Despite a lack of consistency in the way membership data has been recorded, the reports indicate a gradual but marked decline in the last 40 years: Since 1967, the number of active communicants in the diocese's parishes has dropped by approximately 26 percent.

"More analysis remains to be done," Cooney wrote in a recent memo to the council. "However, it comes as no surprise from reviewing the data thus far that we face the challenging situation of fragile and in some cases declining membership. Of particular concern is the typically small number of children in our congregations."

What about fiscal health?

Between 2006 and 2007, the aggregate normal operating income (NOI) of the diocese's (then) 89 parishes increased by 3.9 percent, Cooney said.

Between 2002 and 2006, 26 congregations saw an increase of at least 30 percent in their NOI. But in absolute dollars (not adjusting for inflation) 17 parishes had lower NOI in 2006 than in 2002. After adjusting for inflation, 32 parishes had less buying power in 2006 than they did in 2002.

By 2007, 39 parishes were experiencing a reduced NOI. Additionally, the cost of running a parish is higher than it used to be, due to inflation, the upkeep of aging facilities and the rising cost of health care.

"With diminished membership, inflation and deferred property maintenance we have an operation that costs more than it used to, and fewer people to fund it," Cooney said.

Parish giving is one of the diocese's main sources of revenue ($2.8 million in 2007 - which is the base year congregations use to determine their 2009 pledge to the diocese), along with income from the Ruth Gregory Soper Memorial Trust, the Bishop's Appeal and other interest and investment income.

Parishes are asked, but not required, to pledge 10 percent of their NOI to the diocese. If all 88 parishes were able to tithe, Cooney said, this would amount to just over $4 million, and the diocese would not need to use income from the Soper Trust to balance its budget.

The Soper Trust, with a value in excess of $27 million at the end of 2007, is the largest of the diocesan trusts in terms of the value of its investment portfolio. While the council (or diocesan convention) may use the earnings as it sees fit, it had planned to phase out the use of these funds in the operating budget over a 5-year period. However, as parish giving has not risen as anticipated, the diocese has needed to use more than $1 million each year from the available income to balance its budget.

"What we really see here is that the diocese's budget is well sized," Cooney said. ", we could wean ourselves off Soper. It does suggest that our budget is not entirely too big for our britches."

Membership is the message

"I've come to believe that the diocese's biggest challenge is less a stewardship challenge and more a membership challenge," Cooney said. "A congregation that is getting smaller is not going to find the answer in better stewardship."

But small congregations make up about half of the diocese's parishes, he said, and "many are having to struggle just to keep the lights on. We're very sympathetic to their plight."

For parishes experiencing financial difficulties, he said, "quality of life" is often a concern: "congregations that are struggling to pay the basic expenses are often distracted and discouraged from things spiritual."

This can make it harder to attract new members, he said, and can cause the time and talent of the existing congregation to focus inward.

"As a diocese, we exist to oversee, support and nurture our congregations," he said. "We want to be helpful in enabling our congregations to be vital and sustainable."

But that does not mean attracting members merely to fill the church coffers, he said: Growth initiatives must stem from a genuine desire to share the good news of the Gospel.

"We've got a good thing going that we'd like to tell people about," he said. "I think our nature of worship is attractive, and that includes our flexibility of worship styles. I think our openness to exploring religious understanding is also attractive as opposed to other denominations that have a more rigid doctrine."

Grasping the reality and implications of the membership decline is the first step toward addressing the issue of growth, he said: "And I think it will naturally lead us to doing things that are a little bit more helpful. I don't think it's doom and gloom."

Because growth, he said, is what Christianity is all about: "Growth is our primary work as Christians. Bringing people to Christ is part of the Christian life."

---Lucy Chumbley is the editor of Washington Window, the newspaper of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington.