There are fourteen women serving as senior assigned pastors in the Northern California megaregion, or 8% of the total assigned pastors (174). The largest church attendance with a female pastor is 89. The median church attendance is 31 with a female pastor. Only four women have been in their current assignment for more than eight years. Half have been in their current assignments for only four years. Resources
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There are 174 assigned senior pastors on this megaregion. Six pastors have dual assignments so there really are only 168 individual pastors. Almost one-third have been in their assignments for less than five years, and another 30% over twelve years. Median tenure for all assigned senior pastors is only seven years, assigned since 2011. Half of the female assigned senior pastors have been in their assignments since 2014. There are 41 churches without an assigned senior pastor at the time of this demographic snapshot. That's 19%, almost one-fifth, of the total active churches (217). Median worship attendance for churches with an assigned pastor is 58. Yet, in this megaregion, there is one senior assigned pastor for every 128 people in Sunday worship in a Nazarene church: 168 individual assigned senior pastors and 21,567 in average worship attendance. Concern needs to be raised over the number of vacancies (one out of five churches without a senior pastor) and the short median tenure of seven years. I wonder if there is any thought among district superintendents and pastors about a succession plan: who will follow them and when. I think the ideal of always being in one place, or even job security, challenges the notion that someone will need to follow. These numbers are concerning even before beginning to think about the number of pastors that will be needed to keep up with population growth. Ideally, there should be one pastor/church for every 10,000 people to maintain a recognizable presence in a population. Assuming that the current number of 174 pastors can be maintained (still, one-fifth short of filling all open pulpits), the following ratios can be applied. According census numbers for this megaregion: In 2010, there is one Nazarene pastor for 83,3333 people. In 2025, there will be one Nazarene pastor for 98,809 people. In 2050, there will be one Nazarene pastor for 125,595 people. Can Nazarenes realistically keep up with the population of this megaregion? ResourcesThe Northern California Region comprises the San Francisco as an anchor reaching into the Napa Valley then eastward through Sacramento to Reno. Interstate 5 transverses this population group from Redding in the north to Bakersfield in the south through the Great Valley between the Coastal Ranges and the Sierra Neveda Mountains. NOTE: The churches included in this study stay as close as possible to the shaded around below. A megaregion is a concentrated population of more than 5 million people gathered around common resources for economic trade, financial interests, education, and transportation. There is also a somewhat consistent shared meaning of symbols and values common within the population as a subculture. Think of the megaregion as a very large "city" with the cities, represented by circles in the image below, as its "neighborhoods." There are four districts (see image) including the Western Latin American district. It is notable that two churches in Fresno are 2.6 miles apart but on separate districts (Western Latin American--Puerta al Cielo and Central California--Fresno First). There have been 453 churches started or organized in the geographic area of this megaregion. 217 remain active in ministry. The most churches organized in this area occurred in two years: 1949 and 2014, each with nine churches. Only two are active from 1949, and all are still active from 2014. Hall of all churches occurred in the 1940s, 1950s, 2000s, and 2010s. Notably, a little more than one-fifth of the churches started or organized in the 1940s and 1950s are still active. Sixty-three percent of the churches started or organized in the 2000s and 2010s are still active. Seventy percent (69.5%) of all active churches were started or organized since 1990. Even still, there are nine congregations in active ministry that have been in place for over 100 years. 236 churches have been shutted with the most happening in 1995 with eighteen closings. The only years with more than ten followed in 1996, 1999, 2006 and 2007. These are also years within the expansive multiplication of churches. Just a note that closing churches in a megaregion does not always mean decline but could connote a shifting within the population The trend of churches closing with two years, seven years and twelve years remains consistent. 22% (52) of all churches closed within two years 56% (131) of all churches closed within seven years 69% (161) of all churches closed within twelve years. About one-fourth of all churches that were closed occurred after two decades of active ministry. The spikes in closings in the 1950s and 1990s are less concerning than the trough throughout the 1960s and 1970s. The data suggests a possibility during the 1960s and 1970s that there was more of a concern about counting members and attendees and the development of building programs than evaluating ministry and missional impact. The reaping of the 1990s suggests this lack of evaluation will eventually happen. ResourcesLarge Churches and Missional Centers | Nazarene Presence on the Florida Megaregion (1912-2018)8/18/2018 Only three of the churches on this megaregion run over 1,000 on a given Sunday. These three churches account for one out of five worship attendees. Two are in Lakeland and one is in Miami. There two other churches that run over 500, one in Bradenton on the west coast, and the other in Miami. Two of the top five in worship attendance are designated as ethnic churches. Churches of this size could fill the role of being a missional center, capable of raising up new leaders, preparing them, and sending resources to fund the mission beyond their local context. This is a heavy responsibility for only three congregations. About half of the churches reporting attendance are running over 75 in worship attendance. (96 of 214). One-third of the churches are less than 45 in worship attendance. The geographic center of the Florida megaregion is Port St. Lucie on the east coast. This measurement was taken by determining the distance halfway from Lake City to Key West. ResourcesMore than half of the churches in the Florida megaregion are designated as ethnic. Or, 125 of 239 active churches. Membership in these churches represents 47% of the total Nazarene membership in this megaregion (17,371 of 37,240 members). The earliest organized ethnic church is Miami First which is designated as a Black church, using statistical terminology in how Nazarenes gather data. This designation distinguishes Black from Haitian and Multicultural. There are ten Black churches, 40 Haitian, and 10 Multicultural churches on the megaregion. These designations do not account for individual members within a congregation but the congregational membership as a whole designated in the annual church report given by the senior assigned pastor. Ethnic churches are pretty evenly divided between Florida district (mostly in the northern half of the state) and the Southern Florida district (64 to 61). About four out of ten ethnic churches run over 75 in worship attendance. Miami Bethany Church of the Nazarene, designated as Hispanic, has an average worship attendance of 1,053. Forty-three percent (43%) of ethnic churches on this megaregion are Hispanic (54 congregations). ResourcesAbout 10% of the assigned senior pastors are women on the Florida megaregion. (20 out of 195 pastors). Only 3% of ethnic pastors are female, however. The largest church with a female pastor averages 135 in worship attendance. The median worship attendance in churches with a female pastor is about 45. 70% of the women in assigned senior pastoral ministry have in their assignment for less than eight years. ResourcesThere are 195 assigned senior pastors on this megaregion. Or, one pastor for 88,717 people (using 2010 population data). If this number of assigned pastors is maintained, there will be . . . In 2025, a decrease to one pastor for 110,256 people. In 2050, a decrease to one pastor for 160,000 people. Median worship attendance at a church with an assigned pastor is 70, which is higher than other megaregions. For instance, it's 36 in median worship attendance for churches with assigned pastors in the Gulf Coast megaregion. Median tenure is also longer, closer to eight years; and, about 30% of pastors have been in their assignment less than five years. About the same percentage have been in their assignments more than twelve years. Half of the female pastors in this megaregion have been assigned since 2013. There are 44 churches without an assigned senior pastor. It is important to remember that these data represent a snapshot in time. Resources:This megaregion comprises only part of the state of Florida. I took liberties with the boundaries of this megaregion to include Lake City which sits at the crossroads of Interstates 75 and 10 as well as Tallahassee, which is the state capital. Otherwise, the churches included in this research study includes churches from the Florida district and Southern Florida district in the Church of the Nazarene. Notice the image below which shows the largest populated "neighborhood" within this "megacity," Greater Miami, and the smaller "neighborhoods" of Jacksonville, Orlando and Tampa. n the next thirty years, this megaregion will show 80% population growth, adding almost 13.8 million people to the 17.3 million already living here, most of this growth will be along the Atlantic seaboard between Port St. Lucie and Homestead. Of the 564 churches that have been started or organized, about 239 remain active, or 42%. About 27% of the churches were started or organized prior to 1960. More than half (55%) were started or organized after 1980. One out of five active churches were started or organized in the 2010s. The next most proliferate decades in starting or organizing churches that are still active: the 1980s with 33, the 2000s with 31, and the 1950s with 27. Three years showed 15 churches started or organized in a single year: 1958, 1986, 1987: 19 of these 45 churches are still active. There are four churches that have had more than a century of active ministry: Miami First, Princeton, Fort Lauderdale Dayspring International, and Jacksonville First. Of the 564 churches that have been started or organized, 325 have been closed, or 58%. The first year, however, with more than ten churches closed in one year was 1989 . . . with 72 churches closed (that's right, seventy-two!). Followed by twelve more years with ten or more closings. The second most coming in 1992 (23). The infograph shows the steep impact of closings beginning in the 1980s. It should be noted that the closings were offset by rapid starts and organizings since the 1980s as shown in the chart below. The correlation between years active and percentage of churches closing remains consistent with the other megearegions in this study. Most megaregions show one-fourth of churches closing after two years, about half after seven years, and 60% to 70% closing after twelve years. The Florida megaregion shows a slight increase in each category with 29% closing after two years, 67% closing after seven years, and almost 80% after twelve years. Thirteen churches closed after 50 years of ministry. Resources:Large Churches and Missional Centers | Nazarene Presence in the Gulf Coast Megaregion (1907-2018)8/16/2018 The statistics below speak for themselves. Here is some context: There are 108 active congreagtions and only 97 reported attendance. Six churches are 150 or more in worship attendance, or 15% of the total. 59% are fewer than 45 in average worship attendance. The largest congregation by worship attendance is Nacogdoches First Nazarene with 224 in average attendance. The geographic center is Lake Charles, Louisiana, which is about 520 miles from Matamoros, Mexico and Panama City, Florida. ResourcesAbout one-third of the total number of churches are designated as ethnic (29 of 108). Ten percent have a female pastor and 14% have more than 75 in average worship attendance. Most are located in Louisiana (18). And, the large majority, about 80%, are Hispanic. Resources |
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