Metro Area Membership Report

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Norfolk-Virginia Beach-Newport News, VA-NC MSA

Denominational Groups, 2000

243,056 173,226 4,426 94,357 33,342 1,021,134
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
American Baptist Churches in the USA Mainline Protestant +6 +8,032 76.0%
Assemblies of God Evangelical Protestant +11 +4,519 90.0%
Baptist Missionary Association of America Evangelical Protestant 0 -472 -68.0%
Beachy Amish Mennonite Churches Evangelical Protestant 0 +25 46.0%
Catholic Church Catholic +15 +43,027 84.0%
Christian and Missionary Alliance, The Evangelical Protestant +2 -911 -60.0%
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) Mainline Protestant -14 -1,526 -28.0%
Christian Churches and Churches of Christ Evangelical Protestant +4 +694 7.0%
Christian Reformed Church in North America Evangelical Protestant +1 +86 n.a.
Church of God (Anderson, Indiana) Evangelical Protestant +1 -709 -56.0%
Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee) Evangelical Protestant -1 +3,459 137.0%
Church of God of Prophecy Evangelical Protestant +9 +466 n.a.
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, The Other Theology +8 +3,044 64.0%
Church of the Brethren Evangelical Protestant 0 -132 -27.0%
Church of the Nazarene Evangelical Protestant +1 -124 -7.0%
Churches of Christ Evangelical Protestant +7 +1,101 57.0%
Conservative Baptist Association of America Evangelical Protestant +1 +130 n.a.
Episcopal Church Mainline Protestant +1 -4,164 -15.0%
Evangelical Free Church of America, The Evangelical Protestant +2 +316 n.a.
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Mainline Protestant +2 +773 9.0%
Evangelical Presbyterian Church Evangelical Protestant +4 +1,992 n.a.
Friends (Quakers) Mainline Protestant +2 +475 61.0%
Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America Orthodox +3 +2,901 n.a.
Independent, Charismatic Churches Evangelical Protestant +9 +25,400 n.a.
Independent, Non-Charismatic Churches Evangelical Protestant +11 +10,875 n.a.
International Pentecostal Church of Christ Evangelical Protestant +2 +280 n.a.
International Pentecostal Holiness Church Evangelical Protestant +10 +2,002 108.0%
Jewish Estimate Other Theology +4 +17,924 516.0%
Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod Evangelical Protestant +2 +464 15.0%
National Association of Free Will Baptists Evangelical Protestant +11 +1,156 n.a.
Orthodox Church in America: Territorial Dioceses Orthodox +1 +69 n.a.
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Mainline Protestant -1 -625 -3.0%
Presbyterian Church in America Evangelical Protestant +5 +1,545 171.0%
Salvation Army, The Evangelical Protestant +1 +512 30.0%
Seventh-day Adventist Church Evangelical Protestant +10 +1,449 97.0%
Southern Baptist Convention Evangelical Protestant +49 +9,725 7.0%
Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations Other Theology 0 +404 162.0%
United Church of Christ Mainline Protestant -3 -1,948 -14.0%
United Methodist Church, The Mainline Protestant +1 +2,750 4.0%
Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches Mainline Protestant +1 +50 83.0%
Wesleyan Church, The Evangelical Protestant +2 +320 n.a.
Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod Evangelical Protestant +2 +287 194.0%
  Totals: +182 +135,641 +33.8%

The population of these 15 counties (or equivalents) in 1980 was 1,200,998; in 2000 it was 1,569,541. The total population changed 8.8%. The adherent totals for 1980 (419,903) represent 35.0% of the 1980 population. The adherent totals for 2000 (548,407) include 34.9% of the 2000 population. The totals represent the change in groups that reported in both 1980 and 2000 only. There is sufficient data for 42 groups to calculate 1980-2000 change. These 42 groups had 401,488 adherents in 1980 and 537,129 adherents in 2000, for a change of 33.8%

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]