About one-fourth of the churches in the Front Range megaregion are designated as ethnic.

Only 15 have assigned pastors; one is in a dual charge assignment. 

Two of the 15 assigned pastors are women. 

Twelve percent have more than 75 in average worship attendance.

One out of every ten Nazarene members on this megaregion belongs to an ethnic church.

The predominant ethnicity is Hispanic. 

There are six female Nazarene senior assigned pastors in the Front Range megaregion.
​That's 8% of the senior assigned pastors here.

The largest church attendance with a female pastor is 92; however, the median attendance is 25.

Two-thirds of the women have served in their current assignment for less than eight years. 

It seems as if there is going to be enough churches to reach the coming population expansion in this megaregion, women seeking ministry will have to be sought, encouraged, and nurtured into ministry just as much as men. There is a clear emphasis on male leadership when there honestly may not be enough men available or responding to the call to preach.

Whatever may be the case, where are the women and who will open doors, clear the pathway, and become mentors for them? 

What would it take for a current pastor to mentor more women into ministry? 

Fifty-seven percent (57%) of the active churches in the Church of the Nazarene on this megaregion are designated as ethnic. That's 113 out of 217.

By comparison, the next three in the list below--Florida, Northeast and SoCal megaregions--have more active ethnic churches--125, 230, 157, respectively--but with smaller percentages of ethnic churches (52% in Florida, 38% in Northeast, 37% in So Cal). 

One-third of total membership is also within ethnic churches. 

About 12% of the ethnic churches have a female pastor. 

One-fifth of the ethnic churches have more than 75 in worship attendance. 

More than half of the ethnic churches (56%, 64) are Hispanic.  

By far, the majority of ethnic churches are in northern California. 

• Starting and Closing Churches | NorCal
• Large Churches and Missional Centers | NorCal
• ​Pastors | NorCal
• Women in Ministry | NorCal​​
• Other Megaregions

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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.

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? 

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.

More 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).

About 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. 

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.

Nine women serve as senior assigned Nazarene pastors in the Gulf Coast megaregion.
Or, ten percent (10%) of the total (86). 

The largest church with a female senior pastor has an average worship attendance of 72; the smallest is 4. The median is 25.

Only one has been in their assignment prior to 2006.