For over a decade GayChurch.org has been a valuable website for people around the globe who are looking for information about Christianity and LGBT issues, including ways to connect with other Christians in local congregations. One of our most popular resources is our Affirming Church Directory™, the largest and most comprehensive such resource in the world today. Using the data contained in our directory we are pleased to present an “annual” summary of the trends and movements within the welcoming and affirming church movement.
- 2013 marked a year of major changes for us here at GayChurch.org. Our website was totally rebuilt with modern technology, and we completed a massive sweep-through all of the church listings to confirm that the churches listed were still active. Because of this massive clean-up, while hundreds of churches were added this year, many others were removed. Thus the net year-to-year net gain of 340 churches was strong but not indicative of the activity that transpired over the course of the year. We ended 2013 with 7,457 churches in the directory covering 47 countries around the world. Details…
2012 Affirming Church Survey
- The directory stood at 7,117 churches by the end of 2012 (a detailed report was not produced).
- 6,826 churches by the end of 2011, an increase of 367 churches from the previous year. This in spite greatly reduced man hours available to do the massive email sweeps through entire denominations required now days to find the affirming churches. The good news is that the movement has clearly ‘main line’ in several denominations (e.g. Episcopal). The ‘bad’ news is that to find the affirming churches now in these groups massive email sweeps are required. This is very time consuming, exactly the time commitment we were in short supply of this year. In spite of our resource limitations, the directory grew at a rate of over one church a day and was on pace at the early part of the year to completely smash the one year new church add record before resource limitations stepped in to slow down the ‘grand search’ for affirming churches throughout the world. Details…
- 6,459 churches by the end of 2010, an increase of 543 churches from the previous year and that after a massive clean up that saw well over a hundred out-dated entries removed from our records. The year was marked by the continued emergence of the Episcopal churches who set a new one year record for church adds by one denomination. We believe, that the Episcopal surge is not an isolated event, but indicative of a wide spread movement that is rapidly opening up church doors throughout the world. Details…
- 5,916 churches by the end of 2009, an increase of 615 churches from the previous year and a new one year record. Our ability to track and log new churches is now constrained only by our own resource limitations. Of the churches we were able to document, growth throughout the world and touched over sixty denominations. 2009 seemed like a carbon copy of 2008 in almost all regards including that five denominations again accounted for almost two thirds of the affirming churches listed. Details…
- 5,301 churches by the end of 2008, an increase of 495 churches from the previous year. The main line denominations again the led the way however the movement has rapidly become a world wide phenomena. Details…
- 4,806 churches by the end of 2007, an increase of 576 churches over the past year alone. Growth took place across almost all of the denominations with many of the early forerunners again stepping to the fore. Details…
- 4,230 churches by the end of 2006, an increase of 484 churches. Phenomenal growth (again!) across all denominations, clearly the Holy Spirit is at work and “Rainbow Revival” is breaking out. For all the details -where the growth took place, which denominations are numerically at the forefront of this movement? The report has it all. Details…
- 3,746 churches by the end of 2005, an increase of 238 churches. A year marked by growth across almost all the denominations with new denominations being added all the time. How many new churches were added this year? How are these churches spread across the various denominations? It’s all here. Details…
2004 Affirming Church Survey: Thirty in Three
- 3,508 churches by the end of 2004, an increase of 483 churches. In three years time, God has opened up almost as many church doors to the gay and lesbian community as had been opened in the previous thirty years combined. This has occurred during some of the worst anti-gay sentiment we have seen since the inception of the gay Christian movement some thirty odd years ago. Details…
2003 Affirming Church Survey
