Episcopal Church reluctant to release Sunday attendance figures

Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori stated she was “not able to comment” on what the numbers were, as “I don’t have it in my head.”
Monday, 19th October 2009
By George Conger

The Episcopal Church’s membership and Sunday attendance statistics for 2008 have been distributed to members of its national Executive Council, but the church has declined to release the numbers to the public.

Average Sunday attendance grew slowly from 1997 to 2002 in the American Episcopal Church, rising from 841,445 to 846,640.

However in the five years following the consecration of Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire and an intensification of the church’s internal divisions, attendance has declined by 14 per cent to 727,822. However, some liberal leaders have claimed the decline has been stemmed. Speaking to the New York Times at the July 2009 General Convention, Bishop Robinson said his diocese was bucking national trends and had grown, and numbered “15,000 people.” the rest