County Membership Report
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Orange County, California

Denominational Groups, 2000

228,801 104,299 10,629 779,647 151,215 1,571,698
Evangelical Protestant Mainline Protestant Orthodox Catholic Other Unclaimed

Congregational "adherents" include all full members, their children, and others who regularly attend services. The historically African American denominations are not included in the 2000 congregation and membership totals. Many are also missing in 1990 and most historically African American denominations are missing in the 1980 reports.
[More information on the data sources]

Reports


Religious Bodies Theology Congregations Adherents % Change
Catholic Church Catholic +10 +428,566 122.0%
American Baptist Association, The Evangelical Protestant -3 -446 -75.0%
Assemblies of God Evangelical Protestant +36 +12,850 154.0%
Baptist General Conference Evangelical Protestant +2 -684 -33.0%
Baptist Missionary Association of America Evangelical Protestant 0 -142 -54.0%
Christian and Missionary Alliance, The Evangelical Protestant +15 +2,071 401.0%
Christian Churches and Churches of Christ Evangelical Protestant +5 +4,036 37.0%
Christian Reformed Church in North America Evangelical Protestant +15 +2,361 303.0%
Church of God (Anderson, Indiana) Evangelical Protestant +3 -329 -30.0%
Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee) Evangelical Protestant +3 +2,263 231.0%
Church of God of Prophecy Evangelical Protestant +5 +283 n.a.
Church of the Brethren Evangelical Protestant 0 -81 -56.0%
Church of the Nazarene Evangelical Protestant +3 +546 8.0%
Churches of Christ Evangelical Protestant +9 -688 -12.0%
Conservative Baptist Association of America Evangelical Protestant +1 +1,904 65.0%
Evangelical Covenant Church, The Evangelical Protestant +2 +1,760 389.0%
Evangelical Free Church of America, The Evangelical Protestant +6 +4,850 114.0%
Free Methodist Church of North America Evangelical Protestant -1 -630 -37.0%
Independent, Charismatic Churches Evangelical Protestant +13 +43,100 n.a.
Independent, Non-Charismatic Churches Evangelical Protestant +12 +22,490 n.a.
International Church of the Foursquare Gospel Evangelical Protestant +17 +1,299 53.0%
International Pentecostal Holiness Church Evangelical Protestant -2 +40 40.0%
Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod Evangelical Protestant +3 -128 -1.0%
National Association of Free Will Baptists Evangelical Protestant +2 +123 n.a.
North American Baptist Conference Evangelical Protestant +7 +94 4.0%
Orthodox Presbyterian Church, The Evangelical Protestant +5 +376 319.0%
Pentecostal Church of God Evangelical Protestant +3 +184 n.a.
Presbyterian Church in America Evangelical Protestant +5 +3,678 n.a.
Salvation Army, The Evangelical Protestant +3 +3,030 163.0%
Seventh-day Adventist Church Evangelical Protestant +3 +1,259 21.0%
Southern Baptist Convention Evangelical Protestant +40 +7,162 28.0%
Wesleyan Church, The Evangelical Protestant +2 +345 n.a.
Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod Evangelical Protestant 0 -22 -3.0%
American Baptist Churches in the USA Mainline Protestant -2 -4,155 -41.0%
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) Mainline Protestant 0 -1,025 -28.0%
Congregational Christian Churches, Additional (not part of any national CCC body) Mainline Protestant +1 +167 n.a.
Episcopal Church Mainline Protestant +22 +12,652 n.a.
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Mainline Protestant -3 -2,725 -11.0%
Friends (Quakers) Mainline Protestant +1 -849 -37.0%
National Association of Congregational Christian Churches Mainline Protestant -5 -1,370 -82.0%
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Mainline Protestant +8 -551 -2.0%
Reformed Church in America Mainline Protestant +1 +190 1.0%
United Church of Christ Mainline Protestant +2 -100 -4.0%
United Methodist Church, The Mainline Protestant +3 -9,381 -37.0%
Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches Mainline Protestant 0 -64 -40.0%
Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East, North American Dioceses Orthodox +1 +392 n.a.
Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America Orthodox +2 +2,253 n.a.
Orthodox Church in America: Romanian Orthodox Episcopate of America Orthodox +1 +1,200 n.a.
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, The Other Theology +38 +7,476 18.0%
Jewish Estimate Other Theology +17 +55,368 1195.0%
Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations Other Theology -1 +70 11.0%
  Totals: +310 +601,068 +97.7%

The population of this county (or equivalent) in 1980 was 1,932,709; in 2000 it was 2,846,289. The total population changed 18.1%. The adherent totals for 1980 (618,881) represent 32.0% of the 1980 population. The adherent totals for 2000 (1,274,591) include 44.8% of the 2000 population. The totals represent the change in groups that reported in both 1980 and 2000 only. There is sufficient data for 51 groups to calculate 1980-2000 change. These 51 groups had 615,183 adherents in 1980 and 1,216,251 adherents in 2000, for a change of 97.7%

Sources

The 2000 data were collected by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies (ASARB) and includes statistics for 149 religious groups, including number of churches and adherents. Dale E. Jones, Sherri Doty, Clifford Grammich, James E. Horsch, Richard Houseal, Mac Lynn, John P. Marcum, Kenneth M. Sanchagrin and Richard H. Taylor supervised the collection. These data originally appeared in Religious Congregations & Membership in the United States, 2000, published by the Glenmary Research Center.

The 1980 data were collected by the Glenmary Research Center and include statistics for 111 Judeo-Christian church bodies, including number of churches and adherents. Bernard Quinn, Herman Anderson, Martin Bradley, Paul Goetting and Peggy Shriver supervised the collection. These data originally appeared in Churches and Church Membership in the United States, 1980, published by the Glenmary Research Center.

[More information on these data sources]