From: Darrell128 Date: Mon, 2 Mar 1998 17:25:16 EST Mime-Version: 1.0 Subject: NR 98013: CRC Records Second-Worst Membership Drop in History NR #1998-013: Christian Reformed Denomination Records Second-Worst Membership Drop in History The Christian Reformed denomination took another hit in its membership this year. In the statistical reports of the 1998 denominational yearbook, the CRC reports 279,029 members, a loss of 6835 from last year's report of 285,864. Much of the decline can be attributed to conservatives leaving to join the rapidly-growing secession movement opposed to the ordination of women and other issues. CRC General Secretary Dr. David Engelhard responded to the decline with severe words. "More and more congregations are finding out that a lot of the rhetoric of the churches that have seceded has been gross misrepresentations for their own purposes and not the truth," said Engelhard. "Misrepresentation has happened elsewhere, the Escondido lies, the First Chino, Placentia, they all repeat the same thing." NR 1998-013: For Immediate Release Christian Reformed Denomination Records Second-Worst Membership Drop in History * Drop from 316,415 peak to 279,029 means 37,386 or 11.82% loss since 1992 * Yearbook drop from 285,864 to 279,029 leads to 6835-member loss this year by Darrell Todd Maurina, Press Officer United Reformed News Service GRAND RAPIDS, MICH. (February 25, 1998) URNS - The Christian Reformed denomination took another hit in its membership this year. In the statistical reports of the 1998 denominational yearbook, the CRC reports 279,029 members, a loss of 6835 from last year's report of 285,864. Much of the decline can be attributed to conservatives leaving to join the rapidly-growing secession movement opposed to the ordination of women and other issues. CRC General Secretary Dr. David Engelhard responded to the decline with severe words. "More and more congregations are finding out that a lot of the rhetoric of the churches that have seceded has been gross misrepresentations for their own purposes and not the truth," said Engelhard. "Misrepresentation has happened elsewhere, the Escondido lies, the First Chino, Placentia, they all repeat the same thing." The churches cited by Engelhard, Escondido CRC, First CRC of Chino, and Christ Reformed Church of Placentia, are all California congregations which left the denomination late last year to join the United Reformed Churches in North America. "The positions of the Christian Reformed Church are misrepresented so that people will feel more comfortable pulling out; it's disheartening that in these congregations so few of the church members know what the position of the Christian Reformed Church is," said Engelhard. "I definitely think the leaders of those churches will have a lot to answer for in the final analysis." "About the only issue where the Christian Reformed Church is not mispresented is in terms of our position on women in office, but when it comes to homosexuality, abortion, a number of other issues such as creation-science, regularly our positions are represented in the most negative light, and often not the position of the CRC but where some person has not lived up to the position of the church," said Engelhard. Recent Declines a Sharp Reversal of Previous Long-Term Growth Regardless of the cause, the loss represents an unprecedented sixth annual decline, with a cumulative total of 37,386 since 1992. The actual total may be significantly higher. According to a study of denominational trends recently released by the CRC's Calvin College Social Research Center, the decline is estimated at between 41,100 and 53,700 members based on the percentage of people whose names were in the database but said they were no longer in the Christian Reformed Church when contacted to participate in a denominational survey on membership trends. The lower number reported by the CRC Yearbook would indicate that the CRC has partially compensated for the decline by receiving new members by transfer from other denominations, by birth, or by evangelism. While many mainline denominations are used to reporting annual declines, until a few years ago the CRC had been quite different. Prior to the beginning of the secession, the CRC had only experienced two years of decline in its 140-year history, the largest of which was prompted by the 1925 secession which began the Protestant Reformed denomination. In 1925, the CRC lost 1288 members, about 1.2% of the total denominational membership at that time, according to official denominational statistics reported in the Christian Reformed yearbook. By contrast, the current secession prompted a much larger decline of nearly twelve percent of the total denominational membership, which peaked at 316,415 members in 1992. The 1998 annual decline of 2.39% is the second-worst percentage decline in CRC history, exceeded only by the 3.5% decline in 1994 when the CRC lost nearly 11,000 members. At least sixty percent of the loss can be traced to churches which are largely composed of seceders from the Christian Reformed denomination. Of the four major groups of seceding churches, the largest is the United Reformed Churches, whose 65 member congregations total about 14,600 members. The second group, the Christian Presbyterian Church, is entirely composed of Korean congregations, most of which left the CRC under the leadership of Dr. John E. Kim, formerly pastor of the CRC's second-largest church. At their initial organization in 1993, the Christian Presbyterians counted over 6000 members and have continued rapid growth, but part of the initial membership and most recent growth has been from the receipt of members and congregations which never were Christian Reformed; 2934 of the initial members came from CRC sources and some additional Korean CRC members have left since that time. The oldest and smallest of the secession groups is the federation of Orthodox Christian Reformed Churches, a small 1399-member denomination with 14 churches. So far, about two dozen secession churches with approximately 3500 members have chosen not to affiliate with any of the organized denominations and most are loosely associated under the rubric of the Alliance of Reformed Churches. In addition, individual churches and groups have left the CRC to affiliate with other denominations such as the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, Presbyterian Church in America, Protestant Reformed Churches, and Canadian Reformed Churches. Causes and Effects of the Christian Reformed Membership Loss How should the CRC respond to the loss? "It's sad because it has diminished the strength of the CRC in terms of numbers, ministry, and persons who were committed to the faith and confessions of the Christian Reformed Church," said CRC General Secretary Dr. David Engelhard. "It also has had an effect financially on the ministry that can go on, but because some of those who had withdrawn had earlier stopped paying ministry shares, the effect is less than it could have been." However, Engelhard said part of the percentage decline is due to reporting problems rather than secessions or recent membership declines. "Before, [calculating denominational payments] was on the basis of family membership, so if you had single individual members of congregations, whether single, widows, children in college, or wayward children of church members, it didn't affect the total ministry shares because they weren't paying ministry share on all professing members," said Engelhard. "Now that the ministry share for classical budgets as well as denominational budgets is judged on the base of professing members rather than families, churches don't want to pay for members who aren't participating in the life of the church." United Reformed Churches stated clerk Rev. Jerome Julien said he couldn't respond on behalf of the URC to Engelhard's accusations of lying, and questioned whether Engelhard had the authority to make such claims either without a mandate from the Christian Reformed synod. "I think it has to be made very clear I am not speaking as the clerk because I don't have that authority," emphasized Julien. "In our situation I am responsible to the consistory of a calling church for synod, so my comments do not reflect the mind of the federation." Nevertheless, Julien said he was personally unhappy with Engelhard's characterization of the seceding churches as guilty of circulating lies. "I don't want to call anyone a liar, I don't have the source material to do that kind of thing, and I don't know his heart," said Julien. "I have not seen all the documents, I have seen some, perhaps more than half of the documents that have been circulated, and I have not seen anything that I felt was not quite correct." "I can't respond to what is said by people within churches, or concerning what consistories have said, that's their response, but I know these consistories have tried to do the best job they could," said Julien. "It's not their intent to say wrong things or incorrect things about the Christian Reformed Church, their intent is simply to make clear to the congregation what they see taking place." While the URC has grown from 9299 members last year to around 14,600 this year - a 57% increase - Julien said he didn't want to focus on the membership numbers. "We're no longer one of the smaller Reformed denominations, but that isn't that important; it isn't that we have arrived, it's just that we know how many people there are," said Julien. "All I can say is that's the Lord's way of working." Why are people joining the United Reformed? According to Julien, the main reason is confessional integrity. "I think they feel more comfortable with our way of dealing with the confessions," said Julien. "They feel more comfortable with the way we are trying to conduct worship; I think they realize that we're trying to maintain a historic Reformed position. We're just trying to take a firm position on these issues, and they sense a unity with the people." "I've had different churches say to me we really will feel most comfortable with you because you maintain the same heritage that we have, and I think that's a very important thing that we have," said Julien. Elder Peter Yonker, stated clerk of the second-largest body of churches seceding from the CRC, responded more strongly to Engelhard's accusations. "It's preposterous," said Yonker. "Everything that has been said has been backed up with facts and has been thoroughly backed up with practice. If the charge of misrepresentation has to be placed, it has to be placed on the leadership of the Christian Reformed Church." As an elder who left his church because of dissatisfaction with his minister and consistory, Yonker took particular offense to the idea that the secessions were due to improper leadership by pastors and consistories. "It's really shortchanging the intelligence of the people who have left to think that they have left because of what an elder or preacher says," said Yonker. "Personally the thought never even crossed my mind of going back, I'm more thankful every day that I'm not in it." Yonker said the reasons people are joining the Alliance of Reformed Churches are similar to but somewhat different from the reasons people join the United Reformed. "We basically are an alliance of churches set out to attract those churches which feel that they need to reach beyond denominational boundaries as a Reformed community," said Yonker. "We've had the interest of several churches from the CRC and outside the standard Dutch Reformed community that are in correspondence with me and have shown interest in our work. We're there for the people who need that type of outreach, we don't purport to be a more structured group." "Just as the United Reformed Churches are in transition, so are we, and it will take some time to sort us out," said Yonker. "We feel we only have the right to exist when churches feel they have a need for us. Beyond what the congregations want us to be we will not go." Despite the growth of the secession movement and distrust for its leadership, Engelhard said he hoped to see more the seceders return to the denomination. "Toward the leadership I feel betrayed, I think they have betrayed the Christian Reformed Church and what the church stands for, and I feel saddened for some of the members because many of them are forced to take a decision because certain ministers and elders seek to do that," said Engelhard. "They have to either divide the local community or be divided from what the Christian Reformed Church has stood for so many years. It's often not their own choice, they get forced or pushed." "Our position toward persons and congregations that have left is to have an open invitation to return to the Christian Reformed Church; I don't want to give the impression that we would not be eager for them to return to the Christian Reformed Church," said Engelhard. "I don't have any figures or firsthand knowledge, but I understand that in some places people are starting to express some regret and are starting to return to the church they left, either because of greater enlightenment or because they saw that the grass wasn't greener on the other side of the fence." Cross-References to Related Articles: #1993-004: Christian Reformed Financial Crunch Prompts Hiring and Salary Freeze, $4.5 Million Denominational Budget Cut #1993-015: Massive Membership Decline Wipes Out Three Years of Christian Reformed Growth; Largest Decline in CRC History Knocks Denomination Back to 1989 Levels; CRC Yearbook Undercounts Loss By 4500 members #1994-006: 1994 CRC Yearbook Reports Loss of 11,000 Members, Ten Years of Growth Wiped Out; 3.5% drop from 311,202 to 300,320 members unprecedented in CRC history; Accelerating denominational loss totals 16,095 or 5.1% since 1992; CRC yearbook claims drop from 311,202 to 300,320 equals decline of 783 #1995-016 Continuing Christian Reformed Hemorrhage Costs CRC 22,000 Members in Three Years; Unprecedented Loss Tops Seven Percent of Pre-1993 Membership, Knocks Denomination Back Fifteen Years to 1980 Membership Levels #1996-019: Christian Reformed Decline Reaches 7.7% of Denomination; Fourth Consecutive Year of Decline Costs CRC Over 24,600 Members, Drops Denomination Back to 1979 Levels #1997-020: Christian Reformed Membership Loss Speeds Up: 30,551 Members Lost in Five Year Slide Contact List: Dr. David Engelhard, General Secretary, Christian Reformed Church in North America 2850 Kalamazoo Ave. SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49560 O: (616) 246-0744 * H: (616) 243-2418 * FAX: (616) 246-0834 * E-Mail: engelhad@crcna.org Rev. Jerome Julien, Stated Clerk, United Reformed Churches in North America 3646 - 193rd Pl., Lansing, IL 60438 H/O: (708) 418-5321 * FAX: (708) 418-5591 Dr. John E. Kim, President, Chongshin Theological Seminary 31-3 Dong-Jak Kuq, Sadang-Dong, Seoul, KOREA * FAX: 011-822-536-2602 Rev. Al Korvemaker, Yearbook Manager, Orthodox Christian Reformed Churches 326-19533 Fraser Hwy., Surrey, BC V3S 7K7 H/O: (604) 574-2240 Rev. Dwight Dong-Wan Kim, Recording Clerk, Christian Presbyterian Church 4741 N. Glen Arden Ave., Covina, CA 91724 O: (213) 665-0224 * H: (818) 332-9686 Elder Peter Yonker, Stated Clerk, Alliance of Reformed Churches 3984 North 168th Ave., Holland, MI 49423 O: (616) 396-4618 * H: (616) 396-2532 * F: (616) 396-1092 ---------------------------------------------------------- file: /pub/resources/text/reformed/archive98: nr98-013.txt .