More and more bishops, fewer and fewer people

Stand Firm picked this up from the Times of London. (You can click on the chart to enlarge it). The graphic reflects Church of England numbers, but the same garbage goes on in The Episcopal Church.

The number of bishops (and their retinue of bureaucrats) swells, while fewer and fewer people come into the church.

The members of the Nominating Committee for the next bishop here in South Dakota almost all expressed a desire to bring more people into the church. What the chart cannot express is how so many of those who become bishops/diocesan bureaucrats have no gift for evangelism and congregational development. Many are "church shrinkers" if you look at the actual statistics from their prior parishes (if they even had parish experience).

This is the fate of a church that does not value the kind of apostolic ministry described in the New Testament.