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Every year, slotted between a focus on Race/Civil Rights issues prompted by Martin Luther King Day and early March, when I believe and expect we will focus on our pledge drive, falls a period I tend to think and preach about Unitarian Universalism. In early February all churches are called to certify our present numbers to the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), prompting me to pause and think about UU history and our present state of affairs.
So, in that spirit, with a pace I like to think of as the speed at which one explains something
when they have to use the bathroom, is a very concise summary of statistics that might help you understand a little bit of who we are as a movement nationwide. Note- All this will be expanded in a sermon on Feb 2nd called “UU Round up.” I draw most of these stats from the recently released document called “UUA Certification Report 2024.” And should you really want to geek out on Unitarian Universalism, the report is available here: https://secure.uua.org/certification-report/2024/#summary
Ok, here goes….the present UUA or Unitarian Universalist Association or Association of
Congregations serve or is made up of exactly one thousand Unitarian Universalist congregations here in the US. A spookily, but completely accurate number. There are in addition to our thousand churches and/or established fellowships also 81 affiliated UU communities that fall under the blurry categories of “Emerging,” “Covenanting,” or “Affiliated” congregations outside the US. These one thousand congregations are divided into 5 regions. The Central-East, Mid-American, New England, Pacific Western, and Southern Regions. The borders were drawn so that they have relatively evenly divided numbers.
About 15 years ago the UUA began transitioning from numerous smaller Districts into large regions. You might remember our church was part of the Clara Barton District. Those affiliations are fading over time. Today, we are grouped with 233 other active formal congregations and fellowships in the larger “New England Region.” New England has the largest number of affiliated communities, with roughly 20% more churches than most other regions. This is largely because of our early history in both movements.
Membership: Over the past decade nationwide, membership in our churches has declined 16% from a high of 154,372 UU’s in 2014. A 16% nationwide decline is a hard number to see or hear but is in line with the general decline in church attendance nationwide. Slightly more locally, in 2014 there were 32,000 members enrolled in UU churches in our Northeast District, in 2024 there are now 27,000.
There is good news - about 40% of our congregations nationwide reported a membership increase in the last year. However, that is a trend too soon to measure. Oddly enough, the election of an administration most UUs see as hostile to our values should increase attendance.
Overall, the trend is towards smaller, tightly knit communities. I think we see that here at First Parish.
Diversity: According to reporting, 16% of all UU staff nationwide identify as BIPOC, Black,
Indigenous, and/or People of Color, compared to only 6% of UU standing committee members. Likewise, nationwide-somewhere between 5 to 10% of UUs and Friends identify as BIPOC, with 10-24% identifying as LGBTQ-IA. Why the statistics report such a broad range is unclear to me. In New England and the Midwest, the BIPOC numbers are a little lower, between 1-4%.
Financially: Nationwide two contradictory trends are at work. On one hand, the number of individual and family pledges, or “pledge units,” has dropped 24% over the last decade. In 2014 there were 107,000 pledges to UU churches, in 2024 there were only 81,000. That may sound concerning, and perhaps it is. The good news is that the average pledge made to a UU church rose significantly - from an average pledge of $1,458 in 2014 to $2,082 in 2024. That is a 43% increase. If you, like I, are not good at math, that’s a lot. Overall, the total pledged dollars to UU churches over the last decade nationwide rose 8%. When measured against inflation, one might think that that is probably a wash, but since overall congregational spending nationwide is only up 3%, financially we are, for the moment, technically doing ok.
Nationwide, there is more good financial news. Overall, UU church endowments and reserves in bank accounts also continue to grow. Collectively, our UU churches have 1.1 billion dollars. That is a 43% increase that is equally odd, also exactly parallels the 43% increase in the in average pledge amount from 2016. The UUA report also cites “this trend of rising endowment holdings takes place even as long-term debt for our congregations continues to shrink". As any accountant can tell you, when one’s collective debt drops from 113 million in 2016 to 69 million in 2024 - that’s a lot. I personally have never served a church with any debt, I suspect those debts are mortgages so that number shocked me.
Those numbers and this is me playing armchair economist- are probably explained by the increasing wealth divide in our country, the impact of inflation, and the decline in spending on Religious Education (RE).
RE enrollment went up 16% over just the last year, the first growth within RE in over a decade! That is a thin silver lining in a generally dark cloud. Statistics show a nearly 50% decline in overall UU participation in Religious Education programming since 2014. And, again, if you are not good at math, that too is a lot. Not surprisingly the steepest decline occurred during the covid years. Those numbers are a measurement of both Adult and child participation. So, there you go. Come to church for more about us on Feb 2nd.
Rev. Steve
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