Church membership for more than a third of the nation's largest churches took a hit last year while non-Orthodox Christian churches are on the rise, a new report on denominations finds.
The Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's second largest denomination, reported a .42 percent decline in membership to 16,160,088 members, according to National Council of Churches' 2011 Yearbook of American & Canadian Churches, released Monday.
Still dominating the list of the nation's top 25 mainline churches is the Catholic Church, which posted a .57 growth at 68.5 million members.
But a few church bodies, regarded as cults by some Christians, continue to increase in size.
Ranked 20th in size, the Jehovah’s Witnesses denomination reported a 4.37 percent gain in membership, with 1,162,686 members total. Seventh-Day Adventist Church, which didn't make the Top 25 list for at least the past two years, squeezed in the list this year in the 24th spot. The denomination – which observes the Sabbath on Saturdays instead of Sundays – now has 1,043,606 members, up 4.31 percent.
Also, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – also known as the Mormon Church – grew 1.42 percent to 6,058,907 members. Mormons are about 1.7 million members behind the 3rd largest denomination in the U.S. and Canada, the United Methodist Church, down 1.01 percent.
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