Lutheran women in the United States first gained the right to become ordained clergy in 1970 when the conventions of two predecessor denominations to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) voted to approve the ordination of women that year[1]. In 1981, more than 10 years since Lutheran women in the United States gained the…
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has had goals and policies in its churchwide office and synods since the late 1980s to increase racial and ethnic diversity. When the American Lutheran Church and the Lutheran Church of America merged to form the ELCA in 1988, the leaders of the new denomination set a Constitutional goal…
It should come as no surprise that over the past few decades Christian congregations have been shrinking in terms of their average weekly worship attendance. This is certainly true for congregations in the United Methodist Church. The median worship attendance of UMC congregations declined from 53 worshipers in 2000 to just 38 worshipers in 2019.…
Over the past several decades, the average weekly worship attendance of Christian congregations has been decreasing. In 1998, the median number of regular participants of Christian congregations in the United States was 80 people[1], and by 2018-19 this had dropped to 70 participants for the average congregation[2]. Smaller congregations usually have fewer financial resources and…
How are congregations faring two years after the outbreak of the COVID pandemic in the United States? Has the number of worshipers who attend services in their houses of worship reached the level it was before the pandemic started? Is worshiping online still the “new normal”? Starting in July 2020, Pew Research Center carried out…