April 18, 2002 | Read Time: 3 minutes
American church members contributed nearly $30-billion to 65 Protestant denominations in 2000, according to a new report by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.
The 2002 edition of the
Yearbook of American & Canadian Churches
examines membership and financial data from Christian denominations in both countries. Most of the churches provided data for fiscal 2000.
The $30-billion collected that year represents a $2.5-billion increase, a gain of 9 percent, from 1999, when a similar group of 62 denominations reported gifts. The latest report says that the difference in the number of churches reporting financial data accounts for some of the increase, but it gives most credit for the rise to the strength of the U.S. economy in 2000.
Each American church member gave an average of $599 in 2000, up from $549 in 1999. Of the 2000 total, each person gave an average of $110, up from $85, to help the needy, whether in the region where the church is located, around the country, or abroad.
Contributions earmarked for the needy — instead of the bulk of the donations, which are used by local congregations for maintenance and their own programs — continued to rise in 2000, accounting for a growing portion of all gifts for the third straight year. Giving to the needy amounted to nearly $5-billion, or 17 percent of all gifts. That share, while well below last decade’s high point of 21 percent in 1994, was up one percentage point from 1999. And 1999’s share, 16 percent, was a one-percentage-point improvement over 1998.
The yearbook also identifies trends in church membership. The report says that more than 152 million Americans were members of 176 Christian denominations in 2000, up slightly from 1999 but still below the peak of more than 159 million in 1996.
In some denominations, however, growth is fairly robust. A brisk increase in membership in recent years made the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints the fifth-largest American church in 2000.
With 5.2 million members, the church, often referred to as the Mormon Church, nudged slightly higher than the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which reported 5.1 million members. As a result, the United Methodist Church, with 8.3 million members, was the sole remaining traditional “mainline” Protestant denomination in the top five.
Among the other biggest groups in 2000 was the Roman Catholic Church, which, with 64 million members, was still America’s largest denomination by far.
Eileen W. Lindner, the yearbook’s editor, says in the book’s preface that data collected by other groups show an increase in church attendance since September 11. While the rise may be transitory, she says, “it will be some time before the full impact of these tragic events upon religious faith and practice can be measured.”
In Canada, membership in 28 Christian denominations in 2000 totaled nearly 2.7 million. Contributions totaled nearly $627-million, of which about $125-million went to help the needy.
Copies of the 2002 Yearbook of American & Canadian Churches are available for $55 each, including shipping, from the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., 475 Riverside Drive, New York, N.Y. 10115; (212) 870-2031; fax (212) 870-2817; yearbook@ncccusa.org.
Yearbook purchasers will also have access to an online version of the publication, which will be updated quarterly. For more information, see the council’s Web site at http://www.ncccusa.org.
