What's going on in the Diocese of East Carolina?

In his address to the 2012 convention of the Diocese of South Carolina, the Rt. Rev. Mark Lawrence, Bishop of South Carolina, observed that South Carolina was one of only two dioceses in the entire denomination to grow its average Sunday attendance between 2005 and 2009, but then went on to say, "But before we raise a toast to ourselves or to our God for his blessing, I need to tell you this was in 2009. In 2010 we lost the largest parish in this Diocese."

Between 2000 and 2010, average Sunday attendance in the Diocese of South Carolina fell by about 5%. Who did better? Within the United States, only three dioceses - the Navajo missions, where attendance fell by 2.5%, the Diocese of Tennessee, where attendance fell by 3.9%, and the Diocese of East Carolina, where attendance fell by 1.3%. Check out your own diocese here (and weep).

In the world of double-digit attendance declines that characterizes most of mainline Protestantism, it looks like East Carolina is holding its ground. What's up?

The Diocese of East Carolina covers all of coastal North Carolina and portions of the center of the state. It contains no major metropolitan areas, but contains a few mid-size cities like Wilmington and Fayetteville. I contains a lot of military installations, most notably Fort Bragg and Camp Lejeune. It contains the home of the Lumbee tribe of Native Americans, Robeson County, one of the most racially troubled places in the state. And it includes North Carolina's tourist coast.

I think I'm going to spend quite a bit of time on this topic, but I just want to bite off a few things today:

1. The Diocese of East Carolina faces the same challenges the rest of the church does. A perusal of the stats of the dioceses parishes show that the stability in attendance in the diocese is not uniform. Many parishes are holding steady; more are in decline. At the 2012 diocesan convention, the diocese voted to close eight parishes and put another four on notice.
2. In the great battles over sexuality, East Carolina is in the middle of the road. It is a truism that only the "conservative evangelical" churches are growing (see my friend John's blog for why I put that in scare quotes), but East Carolina is not noted for particular liberalism or conservatism. I'm not clear on how the Bishops of East Carolina voted on the rite to permit same sex blessings, but official statements on the diocesan web site are quite measured.
3. A few churches are seeing massive growth. And their profiles are very different. One is St. Andrew's, Morehead City. In 2000, the vestry of St. Andrew's voted to leave the Episcopal Church, splitting the congregation. Subsequent to the split, average Sunday attendance was about 40. Today it's 120. Another is Holy Cross, Wilmington, a church planted in 2005 that is already up to 120 at an average Sunday. And then, boy howdy, there's Sagrada Familia, Newton Grove, which serves close to 500 migrant farm workers every Sunday in the summer and recently started operating year round.
4. The diocesan organization travels light. The annual budget is around $1.2 million (it's a little more complex that that, but this simplification will do for now). Just for comparison, my home Diocese of Indianapolis has a budget more than double that. Two things to note -- East Carolina only pays about half its commitment to the national church -- about 10% of its budget; Indianapolis pays the full asking, 19% of its budget. Also, Indianapolis pays for all clergy health insurance at the diocesan level; in East Carolina, that's devolved to the parishes. Even accounting for that, Indianapolis spends more, and has only about 1/2 the Sunday attendance that East Carolina does.
5. Parish websites aren't so hot. Of the three growing parishes I noted, none have slick, well-updated web sites. Here's St. Andrew's Morehead City (they've got a pretty good Facebook page, though). Here's Holy Cross Wilmington. And um...Sagrada Familia? Not so much with the web over there. I don't know exactly how these places are doing evangelism, but let's just say I'm guessing they're not waiting for the people to come to them.
6. The Bishop is very direct. I don't know anything about Bishop Clifton Daniel, but I'll tell you this, he doesn't leave a lot to the imagination. Read his addresses to Diocesan Convention for 2011 and 2012. I dare you to tell me you don't get a pretty good idea of what's on his mind, and how he thinks parishes should respond to that.

There's been a lot of talk about pruning in Episcopal church circles these days (check out this great post from  Nurya Love Parish, who turned me on to the glories of the Episcopal Church's Office of Research. Or read almost anything from the Acts 8 Moment blog (and add them to your RSS feed)). But there's not yet a lot out there about how things are  growing. The Diocese of East Carolina is a case where the pruning and growth seem to be happening simultaneously. Let anyone with ears to hear listen (Mark 4:9).