An attendee from the Sudan agreed. “The PCUSA makes a big deal bringing us to these events,” he said, referring to Big Tent. “But the reality is not the case,” he added, pointing out the denomination had only made incremental moves in total diversity.

Mainline Presbyterian churches are becoming more racially and ethnically diverse within a denomination that continues to drop in members and dollars, as attendees at the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s Big Tent event learned last week.

In a program titled Changing World, Changing Church: Exploring the Multicultural Landscape, PCUSA research coordinator Jack Marcum explained that as the U.S. is becoming more diverse, the denomination is following the same trend marginally, although the PCUSA is still pretty monolithic in terms of race.

“We’re not that racially and ethnically diverse,” Marcum said. “We’ve got a long way to go.”

In 1999, 6.4 percent of PCUSA members were considered racial-ethnic (or non-white). By 2005 the share grew to 8.1 percent and topped out in 2010 at 9.1 percent. In terms of actual numbers, racial-ethnic membership grew to 183,000, up from a total of 169,000 in 1999.

Although the PCUSA’s membership is becoming ethnically broader, it’s not growing overall.

According to statistics released by the denomination on Friday, PCUSA membership declined by 61,000 members in 2010 with an overall decrease in adult baptisms, child baptisms, transfer membership and number of churches.

“We want to become a more diverse, multicultural denomination. But I don’t think most people want to do it by seeing the white membership disappearing. We’ll get to the same end, but we’ll be a really small group,” Marcum said.

As the U.S. continues to show an increase in the number of racial-ethnic people (27.5 percent of the total national population), the PCUSA expects to reach the 10-percent mark by 2014.

Racial-ethnic membership has stabilized, Marcum said and the growth in percentages can be attributed to the sharp drop in white members.

“The [statistics] reveal that the racial-ethnic percentage of the membership has been growing as the number of racial-ethnic members has remained the same,” he said.