Church Adds Staff to Address Declining Numbers

January 15, 2009

Facing declining membership, the Episcopal Church plans to look at emergent church models in efforts to reach “new generations,” Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said.

Reflecting on the state of the church in a wide-ranging interview with Episcopal Life Media, Bishop Jefferts Schori said there are “many plans to address the trend” of decreasing attendance.

“Among the new staff at church center [in New York] are ones dedicated to church planting work, one dedicated to work in evangelism, and one for work with small congregations,” Bishop Jefferts Schori said. “We're going to bring aboard another person who will help to teach the rest of us and challenge the rest of us to think about emergent church models—how the church can as a whole be more effective in presenting the gospel in language and images and idioms that can be more readily understood by new generations.” the rest