ELCA Membership Numbers Down for 2017

ELCA Membership Numbers Down For 2017

2/14/2019

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has issued a report they call "Summary of Congregational Statistics as of 12/31/2017." The numbers are for the year 2017.

The ELCA report says 2017 ELCA membership totals are down 105,003. Total membership in the ELCA (listed as baptized members) is 3,458,839.

Active Participants is down 184,590 and is listed as 2,077,356.

Total Weekly Worship Attendance is down 36,583 for a total of 899,000. (See here, p.261)

A couple weeks ago, ELCA presiding bishop Elizabeth Eaton wrote an article where she said, "ELCA membership decreases by 70,000 people a year, or roughly the loss of a synod per year." (See here) As you can see in the numbers above, membership decreased 35,000 more than Presiding Bishop Eaton said was typical (70,000).

Today, Lutheran pastor, Tom Brock wrote about Presiding Bishop Eaton's article dealing with ELCA membership losses on his Facebook page. I have embedded it below:

7 Comments

Didaskalos

2/15/2019 04:20:07 pm

The hemorrhage continues apace. Why attend/support a church with a Nadia-clone pastor when you could get the same “counsel” with a much cheaper subscription to Cosmo?

Another stat from the report:

Baptized members removed from the ELCA in 2017:
By transfer: 27,139
Other Reasons: 150,052
= 177,191

". . . That Bolz-Weber was put forward as the definitive voice of the ELCA to thirty thousand teenagers should be positively appalling to members of that church. It indicates shockingly poor judgment by its leaders, including presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton, who shared the program with Bolz-Weber and presumably did not disagree with her claims.

"But even more worrisome than the episode with those teenagers is the distorted theology that is being spread widely through her public preaching and teaching. It rejects God’s law, it offers God’s grace without mention of Christ’s atoning work, it promises grace without repentance and amendment of life, and it exhibits contempt for the Great Tradition."

https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2018/12/celebrity-theologian

John

2/15/2019 11:20:51 pm

With fewer than a million in regular attendance back in 2017, the ELCA has now dropped below the horizon just like the Disciples of Christ, just a bit fringier.

Eaton might stick around for the closeout sale, after all, she may have already pre-written the epitaph: “Do you think there’s an ELCA?”
“There may be,” after pausing for a moment, adding, “but I think it’s empty.”

2/16/2019 06:57:05 am

ELCA news items:

#1 — January 2019: ELCA’s marquee hedonist, Nadia Bolz-Weber, officially becomes heir apparent to Hugh Hefner:

"Read the whole thing [Nadia’s new book, Shameless] — especially if you’re under the illusion that progressive Christianity has a future. You may be drawn to Bolz-Weber’s Didache for decadents. She certainly is making a name for herself as the chaplain to Weimar America.”
'Sex & The Single Pastor' — https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/pastrix-nadia-bolz-weber-sex

#2— February 2019: Bishop Eaton wonders why ELCA membership keeps plummeting (2017 stats -- 177,191 members fled: 485 a day. Net loss for the year: 105,003)

The 2019 post-Nadia-memoir ELCA exodus could be epic . . . when/if what’s left of the ELCA releases the figures in 2021.

Still a ELCA Member?

2/16/2019 03:40:22 pm

Clueless in Chicago & other synod offices?? Apparently our leadership has their mind set to keep on the same path despite the ever shrinking numbers. When sales continue downward, companies either figure out what needs to change or eventually they are out of business and employees lose their jobs. Loosing sports teams change coaches & managers to try to change course but apparently our leadership must still not think that needs to be done. Keep bringing out the "so called rock stars" to conventions & youth gatherings as no sense bringing speakers that might confuse them with old fashioned Biblical thinking. Soon it may be time to start singing "turn out the lights the party's over!"

Paul

2/19/2019 08:28:22 am

Question: Did Bishop Eaton comment on the two recent abortion issues, the new Law cheered in New York and the comments by the Gov. of Virginia a Doctor no less?

Dan

2/19/2019 08:36:07 am

Bishop Eaton has made no public statement about them. I would not expect the ELCA to either based on their lack of support for any pro-life cause, their payment of employee abortions and that their leaders are, as well as I can know, pro-abortion. :(

Anne Duff link

10/15/2019 10:46:35 am

The real fault lies just as much with the passivity and indifference of the people who sat in ELCA pews for years and years, rationalizing and living alongside of the gathering apostasy. Waiting for 2009 to leave the ELCA was waiting far, far too long. These pew sitters are not blameless! They gave their public support via their attendance and tithes to a church which leads people and the world away from Christ. Too much commentary is focused on the heterodoxy of the synod leaders and not nearly enough the passive irresponsibility of ELCA laymen.

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ELCA Membership Numbers Down For 2017

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Dan Skogen

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