It's good that you cautioned folks to be careful about comparing one year to the next when looking at summary numbers. Each year there are different sets of congregations reporting, especially between 2013 and 2014. As such, there will be decreases and even increases created simply due to the fact that some congregations reported in one year but not the other. As example, the decrease in Baptized Membership of 66,000+ would seem to be saying that's an equivalent loss to having lost all of the Baptized Members in the New Jersey District, the Wyoming District, the Montana District, the SELC District, and about half of the New England District combined in one year. I would normally look at Average Attendance for this view, but it's not really clear as to which congregations are included in the overall Average Attendance number listed in the article. Losing the equivalent of the smallest four and a half districts (based upon Baptized Membership numbers) is very concerning.