State of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington

http://www.edow.org/news/window/2008/oct/diocese.html

[Washington Window] 16 Oct 2008--Membership and money are the biggest challenges the Diocese of Washington is facing today, according to canon to the ordinary Paul Cooney.

For the past six months, Cooney has been gathering data on the diocese’s membership, church attendance and pledging trends at the behest of the Diocesan Council. He has made some encouraging – and discouraging – discoveries, which he hopes the diocese’s constituent churches will find helpful.

“I’d like to stimulate a conversation where we can feel safe in talking about our challenges,” he said. “I think that some of the challenges are serious enough that if we don’t talk about them, we’ll lose something. Let’s share our information, share our predicaments and work on ways to become stronger.”

At its February retreat, the council spoke of its “desire to enhance connectivity among our congregations,” Cooney said. But before this can happen, “we need to understand who we are in the first place.”