Our death rate is lower than the national average. So what?
7/1/2009
A recent study by the Lewis Center for Church Leadership attempts to track the aging of the membership of the United Methodist Church in the United States. By comparing the death rates between the membership of the church and the larger U.S. population they concluded that the North Georgia Conference is one of the "areas of relative youthfulness."
The North Georgia Conference has a death rate 40 percent lower than the U.S. population, suggesting a fairly young membership. The California-Pacific Conference, on the other hand, has a death rate 50 percent higher.
Andrew Thomson, columnist for the United Methodist Reporter, asks “So what is going on in North Georgia that isn’t happening in Cal-Pac? Are there theological differences at work? A different approach to mission and evangelism? Do the churches in Georgia offer a way of discipleship that is lacking in other places?
You can read the entire article, GEN-X RISING: Trying to add color to a graying church in the June 17 edition of the United Methodist Reporter.