Survey shows Mennonite Church USA spread

MC USA members were more than 5 percent of population in nine counties.

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A grant from the Lilly Endowment of Indianapolis allowed statisticians to count the number of adherents in U.S. Christian denominations in 2010. Funding for Buddhist and Hindu counts was provided by the John Templeton Foundation, West Conshohocken, Pa. A total of 236 faith groups were counted.

According to the results, released May 1 at the Associated Church Press convention in Chicago, Mennonite Church USA had 127,363 adherents in 2010. This is significantly higher than the 109,000 members listed on the Mennonite Church USA website. However, the 2010 count reports 919 congregations, while the Mennonite Church USA site currently lists 939 congregations.

The website USReligionCensus.org offers maps for all groups. The 726-page paper report has 22 maps, including the one reproduced above. The survey was done by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies.

According to the report, the percentage of Mennonite Church USA adherents was more than 5 percent in nine counties (red counties in the map). These were Harper, Harvey, Marion and McPherson counties in Kansas; Henry and Washington counties in Iowa; Seward County, Neb.; Hutchinson County, S.D.; and Fulton County, Ohio. Harvey County, Kan., had the highest percentage in the country: its 4,339 adherents represented 22.5 percent of all adherents in that county and 12.5 percent of the county population.

Lancaster (Pa.) County had the largest number of Mennonite Church USA adherents with 15,225. This represented 6 percent of all adherents in the county and 2.9 percent of the county’s population.

Elkhart (Ind.) County had the second-largest number of Mennonite Church USA adherents with 8,409. This number represented 10.2 percent of all adherents and 4.3 percent of the county’s population.

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