The State of Southeastern Conference and Seventh-day Adventist within the Church and Religious Group Industry
Industry Identification
“About 270,000 religious congregations in the US have combined annual revenue of $80 billion. Slightly more than 50 percent of Americans belong to a religious congregation. In terms of membership, the largest faiths in the US are Catholic (about 25 percent of the population); Baptist (16 percent); Methodist (7 percent); Lutheran (5 percent); Presbyterian (3 percent); Pentecostal (2 percent); and Episcopalian (2 percent). Church membership statistics are notoriously unreliable.”(Hoover’s 2008)
“The size of individual congregations varies. Catholic congregations, on average, have 2,400 members; Jewish congregations, 1,500; Baptist congregations, 580; Methodist congregations, 300; and fundamentalist Christian congregations, 180. About 50,000 congregations have 1,000 or more members, including about 25,000 Catholic congregations. Congregations are usually limited in size because of the practical necessity of meeting for religious services. Geographical proximity and the physical size of a church building are limiting factors, as is the desire of members to be personally known to clergy. Many congregations can co-exist in the same geographical area because of the diversity of religious beliefs in most US communities.” (Hoover’s 2008)
This is the industry within which I find the organization which I am a part of the Southeastern conference of Seventh-day Adventist. This is an environmental analysis of this organization. The Macroeconomic variables which affect my organization as well as the internal variables which relate to these different macroeconomic variables will be discussed in this environmental analysis.
External Macroeconomic Variables: How they affect the Church
Societal Changes: Changing Member preference.
Governmental Changes: New Legislation: Impacting what can and can’t be preached
Economic Changes Real personal income changes: impacts Tithing
Competitive Changes: New Competition, New products
Supplier Changes: Number of Clergy Ordained & Licensed
Market Changes: Changes affected by technological change
These are some of the Macroeconomic variables which affect the industry which I am a part of. I will be discussing two of the macroeconomic variables which are most relevant to this industry and how they effect the environment of this assignment. The organization I belong to is the Southeastern Conference of Seventh-day Adventist. This is a conference of Seventh-day Adventist Churches located in the region of South Georgia and Florida. The two Macroeconomic factors which I believe affect this industry are the economic Changes. I will chart how the employment market and how that has affected the tithing within the church.
“By comparing each country's Gross Domestic
In the essay, “The Second Great Awakening” by Sean Wilentz explains the simultaneous events at the Cane Ridge and Yale which their inequality was one-sided origins, worship, and social surroundings exceeded more through their connections that was called The Second Great Awakening also these revivals were omen that lasted in the 1840s a movement that influences the impulsive and doctrines to hold any management. Wilentz wraps up of the politics and the evangelizing that come from proceeding from the start, but had astounding momentum during 1825.The advantage of the Americans was churched as the evangelizing Methodists or Baptists from the South called the New School revivalist and the Presbyterians or Congregationalists from the North that had a nation of theoretical Christians in a mutual culture created more of the Enlightenment rationalism than the Protestant nation on the world. The northerners focused more on the Second Great Awakening than the South on the main plan of the organization.
By 1763, although some colonies still maintained established churches, other colonies had accomplished a virtual revolution for religious toleration and separation of church and state. The Anglican Church was the only established denomination in England. In contrast, the colonies supported a great variety of churches. The largest were the Congregationalist, Anglican, and German churches, but many smaller denominations could be found through the colonies. In addition to this, a high percentage of Americans didn’t belong to any church. These differences could be attributed to the fact that many of the Europeans who immigrated to America didn’t fit in to or agree with the churches in their homelands.
Parishioners often ask me if there is really any difference between United Methodist and the Baptists down the road. The answer, “quite a lot,” generally surprises them. When they ask me to explain, I often point them in the direction of our polity and the theology it reflects.
In the 2011 Religious Affiliation in Australia census data, ‘Catholic’ recorded the highest percentage of adherents, at 25.3%.
On May 8, 1845 in Augusta, Georgia, the Southern Baptist Convention separated from the Triennial Convention. However, this separation involved only the home and foreign mission societies. Many churches in the South continued to buy Sunday school materials from the American Baptist Publication Society in Philadelphia.
The languages in the US are English (only) 225.5 million, Spanish, incl. Creole 34.5 million, Chinese 2.5 million, French, incl. Creole 2.0 million, Tagalog 1.5 million, Vietnamese 1.2 million, German 1.1 million, and Korean 1.1 million.(1) The religions that are taught and have belief in the US are 78.4% believe in Christianity, 51.3% Protestant denominations, 23.9% Roman Catholicism, 4.7%non Christian religions.(1) The leading non Christian faith were Judaism 1.7%, Buddhism 0.7%, Islam 0.6%, Hinduism 0.4%, and Unitarian Universalism 0.3%.(1) The survey also reported that 16.1% of Americans described themselves as agnostic...
Protestantism and Pentecostalism has risen to 15% of the population. Their members are mostly poor or part of the working class. Their ministers are from the same social class as its members, unlike catholicism where most priests come from the elites of the neighborhood. The rise of evangelicals has surprised the region and has grown exponentially.
It is apparent that the issues are similar at Willow Creek and New Hope, as both have experienced great growth. They are addressing these issues by adding additional services and by assignment of small groups or small ministries to meet their congregation's needs. They have been successful in addressing the issue based on each church's individual needs. Willow Creek has added services to accommodate the service seekers or the un-churched. New Hope attempts to match congregation member's needs through joining auxiliaries or other ministries of the church.
Christianity’s role in America has rapidly changed over the last decades. Although it is still the most popular religion in the country its power over the people has decreased significantly. However, there are still many misconceptions towards American Christianity and in order to understand the unique nature of this religiously diverse country; one must understand its history and its citizens own views on the matter.
Moving to the post World War II era, the evangelical coalition began to appeal to the older generations, to the Hollywood population, and to leaders in Washington D.C. Soon after the war, the religious conflicts that infected fundamentalism in the 1920’s were no longer relevant. Protestantism, in its mainline form, had become much more evangelical in its’ nature and its’ sects became much more interested in becoming recognized publicly. Many historians agree that, “what has not often been recognized, however, is that one of the most important driving forces behind the postwar resurgence of religion was a cadre o...
Their numbers are relatively small. They constitute less than 1% of those who indicate some religious preference. They rank 24th on the list of the 25 largest denominations in the United States. Despite these low numbers, there is no denomination in this country or in the world, which spends more time proselytizing. They are the Jehovah’s Witnesses. According to the Public Affairs Office of Jehovah’s Witnesses, last year their members spent over one billion hours on public missionary work. Jehovah’s Witnesses are the fastest growing denomination in the United States, with a growth rate of 2.25 percent. Fifty years ago, they numbered fewer than 100,000, now they number over one million. The very reason for their existence is to make converts. If they have not been in your neighborhood, or “come a knocking” at your door, it is just a matter of time. If you invite them in, be prepared for a well-orchestrated and rehearsed plan designed to make the convert feel spiritually astute with answers that correspond to the principles, which coincide with their fundamental beliefs.
In the United States we can find religion all across the country and it’s as diverse as the people following them. I think that it is apparent that here in the US religion does simultaneously both divide people into distinct groups and unite them by giving us some common ground to be able to relate to with one another.
America is a melting pot of culture and race. Thus, bringing many different types of religious faiths to today’s society. Whether the beliefs are ancient, new, reconstructed or if people have no faith at all, it is all in America. It is difficult to scrutinize one religion without it concerning another. All religions have diverse beliefs ranging from; the belief of...
week. They also believe in the second coming of Jesus. Adventist is the 8th largest Christian body which
From the time it was introduced to America in 1766, by Phillip Embury in New York and Robert Strawbridge in Maryland (Methodism 2) until the middle of the 19th century, Methodism enjoyed a meteoric rise. At the time of the American Revolution Methodists comprised a very small percentage of the American religious population, and yet by the mid 1800s Methodism was a dominant religious movement. In fact, historian William Warren Sweet claims that while “of all the religious bodies in America at the close of the American Revolution, the Methodists were the most insignificant,” it can now safely be said that “Methodism was to the West what Puritanism was to New England,” (3) that is, the dominant cultural and religious force. In fact, he claims, “no single force had more to do with bringing order out of frontier chaos than the Methodist circuit-rider,” (3). So, how was it that Methodism, so insignificant at the founding of our country, became, within a generation, a dominant cultural and religious force? Before we can answer this question; before we can speak to this meteoric rise of Methodism in America, we first have to understand the origins of Methodism in England.