Extended Cabinet reviews our context
May 30, 2017
The Extended Cabinet met with Craig Robertson and Iosmar Alvarez of Spiritual Leadership Inc. (SLI) on Monday, May 22nd at Lake Junaluska to develop disciple making strategies.
A key discussion for the day included reviewing the context of the Western North Carolina Conference, its churches and its statistics over the past five years.
Below are some key statistics of our conference.
- There are 1115 churches in the database, 1066 with five years of history. (Some churches were closed or merged over the five year period which explains the variance)
- There are 27 churches with over 500 in average worship attendance; 52 churches ranging from 250-499 average worship attendance; 190 churches averaging 100-249; 269 churches averaging 50-99, and 528 averaging under 50 in worship.
- 44% of our smallest attendance churches are growing while only 4% of our very large churches are. Also, 44% of our churches between 50 and 249 are growing. Yet, 32% of our professions of faith come from the very large attendance churches.
- The highest percentage of our growing churches (70%) are among our smaller churches.
- There were 18 churches showing high growth (= 13% over the 5 year period) and 90 showing medium growth (= 4% over the 5 year period). 78 of those churches average less than 100 in worship, and 12 churches averaged over 250 in worship.
- Overall, our worship attendance declined 2.9% per year over the past 5 years, and that is mild compared to the majority of other annual conferences, yet that decline could be reversed with an average increase of 3 new attendees per church per year.
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