Membership level at which a church/Church closes

[jblake]

Oldtimer_7;:

What this pastor noted was that there were many, many books telling how to grow a congregation, but none on how to shut one down.

I’ve read half a dozen or so books on how to shut a church down. I don’t remember titles though. How to shut a church down, literally depends upon why it is closing.

could you give the source for your statistics? I would like to share them with our church council.

adherents.com/ is probably the single most comprehensive source of statistical data about religions.

Congregation size and average Sunday worship data for the US is from the National Congregations Study, Barna Group reports, and US Congregations/PCUSA.

I’ve forgotten where I obtained UK data from.
I thought the Australian data was from NCLS, but looking at their report for 2001, it claims that the average size of a congregation in Australia in between 60 and 70 people.

Conversion rates are from various sources.

• How to Win Souls by Eugene Myers Morrison (1952)
• The Emerging House Church Networks by Larry Kreider (2009)
  There were a couple of other books as well, but I didn’t write down the bibliographic data.
  I was more interested about the increase in the apparent number of people needed to convert one person to Christianity, over the last century, than who was providing the data.

The “trouble numbers”/group theory data is from a slew of books on group dynamics, and organisation patterns. Church size and management is a specialised topic within group dynamics.

jonathon

 

[PeaceSerenity]

My priest always says that a church only needs ten households in order to survive. If ten families tithe (donate 10% of their income) then they will have at least enough to pay for a priest’s salary. Services can be done in people’s homes like in the early church and the bread and wine for the Sacraments would be donated. It sounds a little Romantic, but it makes sense

 

[Sam_777]

If ten families tithe (donate 10% of their income) then they will have at least enough to pay for a priest’s salary.

Do priests in Catholicism and other Christian denominations have fixed salary?
I thought they take (for living only) whatever comes from the donations!

 

[maryj]

for the Catholic Church, the bishop of the local diocese takes into account not only the number of registered, contributing, active parishioners, but the needs of the surrounding area, the number of Catholics still residing within the boundaries, relative health of neighoring parishes, and the needs of the entire diocese before he decides to close a parish, or to merge it with another parish. Age and condition of the physical plant, and cost to restore and maintain is also of course a huge factor. Bishop Lennon first in Boston, now in Cleveland had professionals study all the parishes of the diocese first, published the findings, came up with a list of potential closures or mergers, and gave each parish an extensive time span to show cause why they should remain open. Many parishes declined to participate and then protested when the closing date came.

I would assume for any other congregation, particularly a “stand alone” local church that is not governed by some hierarchical structure, simply votes and when they see they cannot support the buildings and the ministries they are forced to close or join other congregations.

the Pew studies do such research on all churches, and Georgetown university does such research on Catholic church membership. that would be a place to look for statistical information.

This is exactly how it is done. We are in the process of this discernment in my diocese right now. We have a shortage of priest at this moment but also have lots of seminarians to be ordained in the next three years, we will have an abundance of priests within five years (praise the Lord). I belong to a parish that was consolidated in the last ten years. Three parishes consolidated into one, we have built a brand new catholic school and done major remodels on the rest of our parish faility, we are growing in numbers and have a vibrant, faith filled parish. (Praise the Lord)

 

[4Squarebaby]

Do priests in Catholicism and other Christian denominations have fixed salary?
I thought they take (for living only) whatever comes from the donations!

Since most Protestant pastors have families and only a few like the Salvation Army have an effective vow of poverty the ten families tithing model only works in the richest communities with a paid off church campus.

Normally the local church council will determine compensation. In Foursquare pastors are paid last after all other bills have been paid. My pastor has rarely received pay over the last 20 years beyond a house to live in and his retirement account being funded. And he has had many outside jobs.

The megachurch with the private jet flying charismatic leader is the exception not the rule. Where churches get in trouble is taking expansion loans bidding up the price of pastors and musicians to reach that next level of attendance.

 

[PeaceSerenity]

Do priests in Catholicism and other Christian denominations have fixed salary?
I thought they take (for living only) whatever comes from the donations!

All the Orthodox Churches I have attended gave priests fixed annual salaries unless the priests were monks (in which case all thet got was money for food and clothing). Catholic priests are all unmarried, though, so imagine they would have their own system.

 

[Hesychios]

All the Orthodox Churches I have attended gave priests fixed annual salaries unless the priests were monks (in which case all thet got was money for food and clothing). Catholic priests are all unmarried, though, so imagine they would have their own system.

Diocesan priests in the RC are not required to take a vow of poverty and most will not. They are entitled to a wage, and they get it. I suppose the amount varies from diocese to diocese, I haven’t heard of the bishop’s conferences setting any standards.

 

[Phemie]

Diocesan priests in the RC are not required to take a vow of poverty and most will not. They are entitled to a wage, and they get it. I suppose the amount varies from diocese to diocese, I haven’t heard of the bishop’s conferences setting any standards.

I know that in our diocese all the secular priests get the same salary, paid by the parishes. There’s a base salary + a car allowance.

The religious priests who are here get the amount agreed upon in the contract that the diocese signed with their congregation. Although they get less than the diocesan priests, in reality, since they don’t pay taxes and the diocese provides them with a car (for which the parish pays all the expenses) they actually get to keep more of their paycheque than the diocesans. Of course then they are supposed to give most of their paycheque to their religious congregation.