I read this on a Classical report from a ROT member: There was an interesting discussion at the last BOT about youth and faith formation. A lot of churches are experiencing a drain of youth from their pews. The BOT will encourage synod to devote time at a future synod to talk about youth ministry and declining membership. There are currently 265,000 members in the denomination. The median age is 52, and that has gone up by about four years, a reflection of the loss of younger members. Over on CRC-Voices, we've been wondering where the statistics come from and whether we could have a deeper analysis. Anyone know an answer to that?
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I checked the 2007 denominational survey and it looks like the stat is from there. It's mentioned on page 1 with more details on page 10. It's noted there that:
These averages are not of the entire CRC population but only of those 18 or older, since respondents were limited to adults.
So the trends are still helpful, but can't be compared to the general US/CDN population, for example. The full survey report is available at www.crcna.org/research
Hope this helps.
One question I have is how members are defined. I attend a church that is geared towards 20 and 30 somethings, and when I was on the vision team we struggled with people who were faithfully attending, giving of their time and talent, yet resisted becoming a "member," often because they had had bad experiences with other churches. I wonder if this is a common trait among that demographic, and whether the age of average attendance differs from the age of average membership.
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