Membership in the Methodist Church in Ireland fell by 357 to 16,599 last year, which caused anxiety to some speakers at the conference.
The "total Methodist community" in Ireland is considerably larger at 55,839, but numbers in this group fell too last year by 1,620.
Rev Charlie Eyre, a former Methodist president, said he was "very worried about these figures". Methodist Church membership in Ireland had peaked in 1958 but now little more than half that membership remained.
The figure of 357 fewer didn't seem very large, but it represented 2 per cent of membership, and "at 2 per cent a year, in 50 years we will be all gone," he said. There was also the question of the numbers necessary to maintain the life of the church. It was going to be very difficult to maintain "the line of viability".
Rev Roy Cooper said the churches must escape from religious columns in newspapers. They should be out there in the mainstream talking about morality in high places, "the theology of the brown envelope" and house prices for young couples.