Not all the Annual Conference reports are in yet, but so far only two conferences of significant size are showing an increase in membership over the last year: North Georgia and Central Texas.
Even those increases are rather small on a percentage basis, but it is better than a decline.
So, what are they doing?
EDIT: Jay tells me that Tennessee also had an increase in membership. So, I’ll add them to the list. What are North Georgia, Central Texas, and Tennessee doing that the rest of us are not? How to we clone what they are doing right?
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I am a part-time local pastor serving 
The doctrine of original sin is surely more humbling to man than the opposite: And I know not what honour we can pay to God, if we think man came out of His hands in the condition wherein he is now.
Dude, for some reason they haven’t reported on Tennessee yet, but we also had an increase.
I’ll bet that a large part of it is that charge conferences aren’t striking as many members off the rolls. Some of that has to do with apportionment formulas that aren’t based on membership and another part has to do with the attitude toward lost sheep.
The 2009 congregational numbers are just starting to come into my office, so I don’t have a lot that I can tell you about 2009.
In doing a little look at the 2008 data over lunch, however, there are some things I notice. I’m afraid it doesn’t answer your question about what these conferences are doing, but I do think it might help in understanding the issue:
1) Of the conferences reporting growth in the 2007-2008 period, all of them (excepting Red Bird and Oklahoma Indian Missionary) are in growing populations centers in the South. Various studies and my own exprience tell me that culturally there is a greater expectation of church participation among people down here. Back home in Nebraska, new aquitances never asked me where I attended church; in Nashville I get the question all the time. My guess is that if you’re in a growing area where being asked about your church participation is a commonplace question, you’re conference is more likely to be growing.
2) Transfers make a difference. In the US, about 54% of our membership inflow in 2008 was from Professions of Faith or Faith Restored, and 46% was from transfers from other UM and non-UM churches. In North Georgia and Tennessee, these ratios were reversed, with most of the membership inflow coming from transfers. In Central Texas, nearly 63% of their inflow came from transfers. Interestingly, the conferens with some of the highest ratios of professions of faith/restored to total membership are in our most rapidly declining conferences. I think this adds a challenging element to our discussions of making disciples.
2) In 2008, the United Methodist Church as a whole lost about 60,000 members. If we divide the churches into very basic size groupings of 1-99, 100-499, 500-999, 1000-2999, and 3000+, we see that only the 1000-2999 and 3000+ groupings had growth as a group (nearly 15,000), while the 100-499 group alone lost nearly 48,000. Across the denomination, 28% of our membership is in churches greater than 1000, in North Georgia 1000+ churches account for 54% of membership and in Central Texas they account for 62% of membership.
3) These conferences also see growth across size categories. North Georgia saw growth in every category but the 1-99 group. Central Texas saw growth in every category above 500 members. In Tennessee, where the distribution of membership more closely mirrors the denominational average, they had growth in the 100-499, and 1000+ groupings.
Like I said, none of this really answers your question. There is a great deal we can learn from our growing conferences, but I think we have to consider it within a larger framework of demographics and culture.
It is tougher to have net growth if you are removing more members than you are adding. Obviously, death and withdrawal are causes that we can’t do very much about, but removals by charge conference is one that we can decide to slow up.
Creed, I think your comments on apportionments are on the mark. Conferences that include membership in their formulas are significantly more likely to remove persons by charge conference action. Among the three conferences mentioned above, none use membership in their formula. In fact, none of the conferences reporting membeship growth in 2008 included membership.
Membership is a rather tricky thing. I do think roll cleaning has an important place in the life of the Church and I would really like to see our denomination take the vows of membership more seriously. Many of our fastest-growing and most vital congregations expect a very high level of commitment from members and are very willing to remove persons who can’t live up to those expectations.
Unfortunately, some of our apportionment policies have not only incentivized roll cleaning, they’ve also disincentivized outreach and evangelism.
Scott and Creed, thanks for the discussion.
The data you shared is really interesting, Scott. That point about professions of faith is a stunner. I wonder what’s going on behind that data. Really interesting.