Skip to main content

Largest Unitarian congregations by membership 2016

Posted without comment to bookmark for future research and reflection.

Membership numbers:

1. London New Unity:  83 (=)
2. London Hampstead: 79 (=)
3. Birmingham Hollywood (Kingswood): 63 (-2)
4. Dean Row: 60 (+8)
4. Edinburgh: 60 (=)
5. Bolton Bank Street: 58 (=)
6. Mansfield: 57 (=)
6. London Kensington: 57 (+7)
7. Kendal: 55 (=)
8. Portsmouth: 53 (=)
9. Norwich: 50 (-5)
9. London Golders Green: 50 (-4)
10. Bury 48 (-6)

Comments

Anonymous said…
This looks ominous sitting here.

1) The recent leading congregations for growth (New Unity (Pakula) and Kingswood (Howe)) are showing as stagnant (= and -2).
2) These "Top 10" congregations account for 25% of the ~3000 total.
3) This list shows an overall loss of 2 members adding up the +s and -s which is trivial.

THEREFORE:
The remainder of the loss of 157 has been sustained in the smaller congregations.

Yikes!
4:12 pm
Anonymous said…
Some more thoughts:

1. There is no congregation with 100 members.
2. Have any groups ceased to function?
3. What does it look like towards the middle and bottom?

4. New Unity is the name given to the merged churches at Islington and Newington Green.

I mention this because I thought NU was Islington. I did not appreciate it was Islington and Newington Green. It had been a joint ministry for some while before becoming an actual joint entity.

From the New Unity website
New Unity has two buildings, each of which was formerly a completely independent congregation: Newington Green Unitarian Chapel and Unity Church Islington. The congregation voted in October 2014 to legally merge these two independent institutions into one Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO).
10:08 am
Anonymous said…
Unitarianism is finished as a denomination.
9:57 am
Kenneth Robertson said…
Having recently become one of 5 new members of a congregation that has gradually grown since I started attending about 6 years ago I view these statistics faairly sceptically

what is tha average attendance at the churches listed seems to me far more to the point ; some churches may have some members who are care home residents but still on the roll, some may have drifted away but still subscribe.

what is the age profile of the congregation ? How many children attend regularly ? Raw data tells little of importance and may depress members of smaller yet vibrant congregations.

An interesting question might be to enquire how many congregations have actively invited new adherents in the past year .
5:02 pm
Stephen Lingwood said…
Kenneth, the Executive put out a survey 18 months (two years?) ago to ask these questions. But the results where never published.
10:50 am
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Radical?

When I started this blog nearly 4 years and nearly 300 posts ago one of the labels I used for it/me was "radical." Perhaps I used it a little unreflectively. Recently I've been pondering what radical means. A couple of things have made me think of this. Firstly this blog series from my friend Jeremy, which explores a distinction between "radical progressives" and "rational progressives." There is also this definition of radical, liberal and conservative from Terry Eagleton quoted at Young Anabaptist Radicals : “Radicals are those who believe that things are extremely bad with us, but they could feasibly be much improved. Conservatives believe that things are pretty bad, but that’s just the way the human animal is. And liberals believe that there’s a little bit of good and bad in all of us.” What interests me is finding a way to express the tension I feel sometimes between myself and the wider Unitarian movement. One way to express this is to say I tend
3 comments
Read more

What does it mean to be non-creedal?

Steve Caldwell says "The problem here isn't humanism vs. theism for theist Unitarian Universalists -- it's the non-creedal nature of Unitarian Universalism" This is a good point. We need to think much more deeply about what it means to be a non-creedal religion. The first thing I want to say is that there is more than one possible understanding of non-creedalism. The Disciples of Christ are a non-creedal church, they say here : " Freedom of belief. Disciples are called together around one essential of faith: belief in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Persons are free to follow their consciences guided by the Bible, the Holy Spirit study and prayer, and are expected to extend that freedom to others." Quakers are also non-creedal and say here : Quakers have no set creed or dogma - that means we do not have any declared statements which you have to believe to be a Quaker. There are, however, some commonly held views which unite us. One accepted view is that th
3 comments
Read more

What is Radical Christianity?

Radical Christianity is about encountering the God of love . It is first and foremost rooted in the discovery of a universal and unconditional source of love at the heart of reality and within each person. God is the name we give to this source of love. It is possible to have a direct and real personal encounter with this God through spiritual practice. We encounter God, and are nourished by God, through the regular practice of prayer, or contemplation.  Radical Christianity is about following a man called Jesus . It is rooted in the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth, a Jewish prophet living under occupation of the Roman Empire two thousand years ago. It understands that's Jesus' message was the message of liberation. His message was that when we truly encounter God, and let God's love flow through us, we begin to be liberated from the powers of empire and violence and encounter the  "realm of God" - an alternative spiritual and social reality rooted in love rather th
Post a Comment
Read more