More than thirty-three thousand people joined the Church of the Nazarene in membership in the United States and Canada last year. This is one new Nazarene for each nineteen members at the beginning of the year.

As the graph at the right shows, churches of all sizes made significant contributions to the 33,157 new members last year. Those with 250 or more members added 11,750 and those smaller than 100 gained 11,293. Churches from 100 to 249 added 10,114.

Individual members in smaller churches appear to have been more likely to reproduce themselves in new members. In churches under 100 the ratio of members to each new member is 13 to 1. In the largest churches that ratio is 31 to 1.

Many new Nazarenes came in through dynamic new congregations. However, as the graph at the left shows, the many churches organized before 1940 and during the 1940s through the 1960s added more new members than any other age group. We have organized far fewer churches since the 1960s than we did in those earlier years, so there are fewer young churches that new members could join. The ratio of members to new members is lowest in the newest churches, but there are fewer of them.

In the past 10 years over 325,000 have joined our church. This total is around half our current membership total, but that does not mean half our membership has joined in the last 10 years. In the church, as in most voluntary groups, the newest members are more likely to drop out than those who have already developed relationships and invested more of themselves in the group. For example, freshmen are more likely to drop out of college than are seniors.

In fact, membership losses in Churches of the Nazarene in the USA and Canada totaled 31,109 last year, cancelling out most of the new member gain. If the denomination is to improve its net membership gain it must either decrease membership losses or increase membership gains. Of course, achieving both would be ideal.

Number of Converts

For the past two years the Annual Report of the Pastor has asked, “How many people were converted this year?” In 2006 a total of 56,542 converts were reported in USA and Canada Churches of the Nazarene. That number increased to 59,952 in 2007.

As seen in the table below, most churches (80%) reported at least one new convert in 2007. Even the large number of churches that average less than 100 in worship attendance had 74% report at least one new convert. The total of 19,489 conversions taking place in this typical church size averages out to 7.6 converts for those churches reporting at least one convert.

Once a church averages more than 100 in worship attendance, the percentage reporting at least 1 convert doesn’t really change— almost all these churches report a conversion. However, as church size increases so does the average number of converts.

The Church of the Nazarene has a number of ways to measure how we are doing at making Christ-like disciples in the nations. Including the number of conversions in the Annual Report of the Pastor provides another tangible way of seeing God at work within the church.

2007 Number of Converts by Church Size

2007 Membership Gains and Losses by Church Size

2007 Membership Gains and Losses by Church Age