UMC Statistical Insights:
US Regional Conferences
From the 2025 Statistical Tables
Worship attendance, membership and baptisms all fell. Community ministries rose, as did professions of faith through confirmation. Congregations reduced debt, mostly due to sale of buildings.
THE YEAR IN SUMMARY (2025 vs. 2024)
FIVE THINGS THE YEAR OVER YEAR TRENDS SHOW
1
Growth Indicators
Ministries offered +4.08%, 4,441 congregations reported an increase in the number of ministries offered, while 2,947 reported a decrease. Those received on profession of faith through confirmation, rose +5.66%.
2
The departures are over
34 congregations departed in 2025 against 303 in 2024 and 5,431 in 2023. Total closures fell from 960 to 540, and 214 active congregations are recorded as new church starts.
3
Congregations reduced debt
Building debt fell −10.13%, property value rose +2.72% and memorials and bequests rose +7.69%. Designated and capital income, rose +20.97%, but that figure is not congregations giving more. Half of it is funds from other sources including sale of buildings, and 96.2 percent of the increase comes from twenty-five congregations. Capital campaigns alone rose +26.53%.
4
Participation fell almost everywhere
In-person worship attendance −3.08%, professing members −4.36%, baptisms of all ages −3.76%, Sunday school attendance −3.80%, Vacation Bible School −2.33%.
5
The decline is congregations that stayed post-disaffiliation
Of the fall in worship attendance, 30,990 comes from congregations that filed in both years (2024 and 2025) and 4,564 from congregations that left. Departures explain very little of it. This is not a disaffiliation effect.
HOW TO READ THIS REPORT
ONE YEAR, EVERY CONGREGATION
Between 2024 and 2025 the number of congregations filing a report fell from 21,176 to 20,158. 20,089 filed in both years, 1,087 filed in 2024 but not 2025, and 69 were new. All of them are counted in their own year. Every table below also shows how much of each movement came from congregations that stayed, from those that left, and from those that arrived, so the two effects are never confused.
This is a one-year picture and nothing more. Longer windows would reach into 2022 and 2023, when disaffiliation reduced the reporting body by nearly a third and totals measure the shrinking number of congregations rather than what congregations did.
20,158
Congregations reporting in 2025
-3.08%
In-person worship attendance
+4.08%
Community ministries offered
−10.13%
Building debt
WORSHIP AND DISCIPLESHIP
PARTICIPATION FELL ACROSS ALMOST EVERY MEASURE
Nine of the eleven measures below declined. The exceptions are those received on profession of faith through confirmation, up +5.66%. Baptisms of those aged 13 and older were close to flat at −0.78%. Online worship is shown separately from in-person attendance and the two are never added. Professing membership is the published conference total for each year. The 2025 published total includes the conference at-large roll of 5,238 and the 2024 published total does not include its own roll of 5,877, which is why membership carries a fourth component of +5,238 alongside its three congregation columns. Received on profession of faith other than confirmation, is not shown here and fell −10.28%, from 17,604 to 15,794.
MINISTRY BEYOND THE DOORS
COMMUNITY MINISTRY HELD UP
The one area where the year is clearly positive. Congregations offered +4.08% more community ministries, and 4,441 of the 20,089 congregations reporting in both years offered more than the year before. Persons served and persons in mission were both essentially flat.
STEWARDSHIP
FLAT INCOME, RISING EXPENSES
Budget income was +0.25% in nominal terms while operating expenses rose +4.85%, so in real purchasing power giving fell. Building debt fell −10.13%. Designated and capital income, rose +20.97%. The amount apportioned to congregations fell −4.10% and the amount paid fell −3.62%.
BY JURISDICTION
THE SAME DIRECTION EVERYWHERE
All five jurisdictions lost worship attendance and all five reduced building debt. All five also offered more community ministries, received more on profession of faith through confirmation, and took in more capital and designated giving. Persons engaged in mission fell in four of the five, with South Central the exception. The picture is consistent across the country rather than concentrated anywhere.
BY CONFERENCE
WHERE THE YEAR WENT BEST
Each conference's summary score is based on nine measures: increases in worship attendance, baptisms aged 13 and older, those received on profession of faith through confirmation, persons served, ministries offered, persons engaged in mission, budget income and capital giving, plus a reduction in building debt. The score counts how many moved in the desirable direction. It is unweighted, so it measures breadth rather than size, and a high score does not mean a conference grew on the measures that matter most to any particular reader. One conference improved on all nine and five improved on eight.
Four further conferences also improved on seven of the nine measures and are not shown for reasons of space: Central Appalachian, Greater New Jersey, Michigan and West Ohio. They are tied with the six listed at seven, not ranked below them.
WHAT THIS YEAR DOES NOT TELL YOU
Five limits that belong with every figure above.
−4.36%
Professing membership. 99 percent of that fall is congregations that filed in both years, not congregations that left.
81.5%
Of apportioned amounts actually paid between churches and conferences. Both the amount apportioned and the amount paid fell, by −4.10% and −3.62%.
Inflation
No dollar figure is adjusted. Budget income rose +0.25% while operating expenses rose +4.85%, so giving fell in real terms.
METHODOLOGY
WHAT IS BEING MEASURED
Scope
Congregations of The United Methodist Church in the United States that filed a local church report in 2024 or in 2025: 21,176 congregations in 2024 and 20,158 in 2025.
Nothing is excluded
No congregation is removed for any reason. Not for closing, not for departing, not for arriving during the period, and not for reporting a figure that looks implausible. Every reported value is in every total.
Church identifier
GCNO, the only identifier fully populated and unique in both years.
Conference and jurisdiction
Each congregation is grouped by its own conference in each year. Central Texas, North Texas and Northwest Texas merged into Horizon Texas for 2025 and are mapped accordingly in both years, without which South Central would appear to gain 18.9 percent in worship attendance.
WHY THE WINDOW IS ONE
The problem with longer windows
Any comparison spanning 2022 or 2023 is dominated by the disaffiliation wave, when the number of reporting congregations fell from 29,746 to 21,176. Across those years a denominational total measures the shrinking number of congregations at least as much as it measures what congregations did.
What one year cannot do
It cannot separate a trend from a single-year movement and it cannot say whether anything is sustained. A measure that fell this year may have risen last year, and this analysis does not say.
HOW THE FIGURES ARE PRODUCED
Totals, not averages
Every figure is a summed total for the year. Averaging congregation-level percentages would weight a twelve-member congregation equally with a three-thousand-member one.
Blank is not zero
A blank means the congregation did not report that item. It is skipped, never counted as zero.
Every change is decomposed
Each measure shows how much of its movement comes from the 20,089 congregations present in both years, how much from the 1,087 in the 2024 file but not the 2025 file, and how much from the 69 new to 2025. The three parts add exactly to the total change.
Counts are counted
Where a figure states how many congregations rose or fell, that is a direct count over congregations present in both years with a value in both. It is never derived from a percentage.
Nothing is estimated
No value is imputed, interpolated, modelled or inflation adjusted, and no external source contributes any figure.
DECISIONS AND KNOWN LIMITS
Online worship is not added to in-person attendance
Line 7 is defined as an average attendance per weekly service. Line 7a is the average number of persons who worship online.
All dollars are nominal
Budget income rose 0.25 percent while operating expenses rose 4.85 percent, so in real terms giving fell.
Congregation counts differ between the years
21,176 against 20,158, a fall of 4.8 percent. Part of every total movement is that difference, which is why the decomposition exists.