What's Up?
2007 Membership Statistics

The 2007 membership figures for the denomination showed a modest increase in Active Members and Professions of Faith compared to the previous year. Information gathered from the Annual Statistical Reports submitted by the congregations details membership and related statistical data for the denomination. Active Members rose from 47,082 in 2006 to 48,976 in 2007. The number of Professions of Faith increased from 1,706 in 2006 to 1,726 last year. However, the Total membership category experienced a net loss of  2,583. The number of churches declined by 18 congregations. Though there were 3,295 members gained through profession of faith, transfer of letter or reaffirmation, almost a thousand more were lost through death, transfer of membership, or lapsed participation. Total financial receipts in the churches followed the decade pattern of increasing each year, $57,834,110,  of which $8.46M was given for outreach causes.  Average giving per active member was $1,180.87 – also a slight increase over the previous year. The value of all church property rose to $381,157,000.

The Church’s five-year Evangelism Priority Focus, adopted by last year’s General Assembly, re-commits us to extending the love of Christ to those who, as yet, have no life-transforming relationship with him. These are the folks God “misses the most,” according to author Jim Henderson. Our GA Yearbook statistics cannot reveal the variety of ministries and caring concern that reach out to our communities, but they do serve to ask us if we are doing our best in response to the Lord’s Great Commission to “go and make disciples.”