RICHMOND, Va. — In 2003 the Presbyterian Church (USA) experienced its highest percentage loss in nearly a quarter century, the denomination has announced.
At the end of 2003, church membership was 2.4 million, down nearly 50,000 from the previous year. These Presbyterians were associated with 11,604 churches, 33 fewer than the total number of churches in 2002.
Clifton Kirkpatrick, stated clerk of the General Assembly, said in an opinion piece in the Presbyterian Outlook that the decline in active members of the church should “call us to prayer and repentance.”
“We as Presbyterians will only become a growing church if we begin on our knees, praying for forgiveness for our timidity in evangelism and seeking God’s renewal,” Kirkpatrick said.
He called on Presbyterians to “become joyful evangelists, actively sharing the good news and inviting others into the fellowship of our churches.”
“We are losing people to the secular world,” Kirkpatrick said. Presbyterian religious leaders “need to give special attention to nurturing our members” and “reaching out to them when they begin to fall away from active membership,” he said.
However, the report did offer Presbyterians some reason for optimism. Nearly one-third of churches have growing memberships. Also, total contributions and income for all churches increased 2.5 percent.
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