NASHVILLE — Methodist church membership and attendance are slightly down again in 2004, according to a new report. The United Methodist Church (UMC) said that membership dropped .81 percent, to a little more than 8 million, and attendance fell .96 percent. It marked the 36th consecutive decline since the denomination was formed in 1968.
Church membership and attendance are up in some regions, including Texas, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Georgia. The same goes for Hispanic attendance, which rose 6.18 percent, the eighth consecutive year of growth. But a large majority of UMC conferences have lost members. The Troy Conference, covering Vermont and northeastern New York, and the Yellowstone Conference, which includes Montana, northern Wyoming and two towns in Idaho, had the steepest drops. Troy’s attendance declined by 17.39 percent, and Yellowstone’s membership dropped 4.33 percent.
The UMC is still the third largest church in the United States, behind the Catholic and Southern Baptist denominations, according to the National Council of Churches’ 2006 Yearbook. And the UMC said its membership is rising dramatically abroad — 68 percent since 1995 — in Africa, Asia and Europe.
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