CRC Denominational Membership Overview
The first chart shows the growth pattern of the Christian Reformed denomination from 1880 to the present. Membership peaked at 316,415 total members (red) and 199,472 professing members (blue) in 1991. The peak in non-professing baptized members (magenta) was 130,729 in 1968.
The first two secessions from the CRC, Classis Hackensack in 1908 and the Protestant Reformed in 1924-26, had minimal impact on denominational growth.
Note the rapid denominational membership growth following World War II. This was caused by two factors: the baby boom (see next chart) and Dutch immigration to Canada and the United States. I would conservatively guess that the CRC owes at least one-third of its current membership to this immigration.
The current membership decline in the CRC can be attributed not only to losses to other denominations, but also partially to declining fertility and an aging constituency. The net biological gain (births minus deaths) is only 0.9% per year - compared with a high of 2.9% in 1954.
- Green (lower) line shows membership in families; blue (middle), professing members; red (top), total members; and magenta (thin), non-professing members.
Dividing total membership by the number of congregations produces the following chart. The average number of members per church (red) peaked at 444 in 1948. The same year, the average number of professing members per congregation (blue) reached a high of 252. The level on non-professing members (magenta) hit a high of 300 in 1889. This took a downward turn in 1890 when union with the True Dutch Reformed Church was achieved, since these congregations were far smaller than the average CRC. Again, the average jumped in 1908 when many of these same congregations withdrew from the CRC.
As in the above chart, the professing and non-professing lines crossed near 1930. Note the relatively steady decrease in family size and of non-professing members through this period.
Data from 1958 to present includes unorganized congregations.
- Green (lower) line shows membership in families; blue (middle), professing members; red (top), total members; and magenta (thin), non-professing members.
The third chart shows the average number of members per family. (A family is currently defined as two or more baptized members of the church living in a single household where at least one person is a professing member.)
While the average family grew in the 1950s, this was due to the baby boom - note how the number of professing members per family (blue) dipped in this period, slowly turning upward as the earliest boomers began to make profession of faith in the early 1960s.
- Blue (lower) line shows professing members per family; red (top), total members per family; and magenta (thin), non-professing members members per family.
The following chart shows birth, evangelism, death, and transfer rates in the CRC from 1932 to present. (Data was not tracked in earlier yearbooks.) Because the Yearbook doesn't include data for seceded congregations, the transfer rate shown since 1989 is well below actual levels.
As in the above charts, the baby boom and boomlet are quite evident in the birth rate (green line).
The turnover rate, which includes reversions (erased membership, discipline, etc.) and transfers out of the denomination, has been increasing regularly since 1969. Around 1987 the transfer rate began to excede the birth rate.
The one encouraging sign in this chart is the increased evangelism rate, from practically nonexistent in the 1930s to just over 1% in 1995. For the most part, the evangelism rate has exceded the death rate since 1973.
- Green (upper) line shows birth rate as a percentage of total membership; red (lower), evangelism rate. The thinner lines indicate rates of decline: black (lower) for the death rate and magenta (higher) for the turnover rate, defined as the total of transfers to other denominations and reversions.
- Source: Yearbooks of the Christian Reformed Church. Dates are year prior to publication date since data is gathered at the end of one year and published in the next.
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