SOME 2012 STATISTICS COMPARED TO 2011 STATISTICS
The Yellowstone conference is holding steady with a weekly average attendance of 6169 in 2011 and 2012. With that in mind we had a 6% decrease in membership in 2012. More members transferred in from other United Methodist churches and non-UM churches than transferred out.
The membership increased 9% in the United Methodist Women to 1709. The membership in the United Methodist Men increased 16% to 243.
With the above increase the United Methodist Outreach gained greatly. The increase in the number of Community Ministries for day care and education went up by 37 to 90. The number of people served by Community ministries went up 395 to a total of 2290. The number of Community Ministries for Outreach/ Justice/and Mercy went up by 50 to 291. The number of people served by Community Ministries went up by 20,508 to a total of 34,215 or 150%The Yellowstone Conference did extremely well in Community Ministries for Outreach.
The number of children in all Christian Formation Groups and Small Group Ministries dropped by 57 children. With that in mind, the number of participants in Vacation Bible School went up by 204 children.
The number of youth, young adults, and other adults involved increased by 230 people.
Some information the statistics makes clear, giving us reasons to pay attention include the fact that the number of people received on Profession of Faith decreased by 14% over the year before. The number of persons baptized dropped 20%. The dollar amount given by churches towards the Special Sundays/General Advance Specials/ World Service Specials/ Conference Advance Special and other forms of benevolent giving saw a 23% decrease.
However, the amount given directly to United Methodist causes increased by 73%.
One way to read these figures is to say that people are starting to find their way back to the United Methodist church, and the people in our churches are becoming much more engaged in ministry in their communities. We will watch closely over the next several years to see if this trend continues.
We wish to thanks those churches that submitted their reports on time. Such efforts are crucial for many important reasons, not the least of which is determining the health and vitality of our conference.