Church congregations are shrinking in the United States, and it may be felt most in rural areas. The latest Faith Communities Today survey also found a median attendance decline of 7 percent.
According to new data, half of the nation’s congregations are in the South, even though only 38 percent of the U.S. population lives there. It also suggested that small congregations in rural areas and small towns may be unsustainable. Nearly half of the country’s congregations are in rural areas (25 percent) or small towns (22 percent), while the 2020 census found that only 6 percent of Americans live in rural areas and 8 percent in small towns.
The country’s changing demographics may be key to rural and small-town decline. Young people have been moving to urban areas; businesses and industries have also left these communities bereft of resources and talent.
The survey found that half of the country’s estimated 350,000 religious congregations had 65 or fewer people in attendance on any given weekend. That’s a drop of more than half from a median attendance level of 137 people in 2000, the first year the FACT survey gathered data.
As Scott Thumma, director of the Hartford Institute for Religion Research and the survey’s author, put it: “The dramatically increasing number of congregations below 65 attendees with a continued rate of decline should be cause for concern among religious communities.”
Mainline Protestants suffered the greatest decline over the past five years (12.5 percent), with a median of 50 people attending worship in 2020. Evangelical congregations declined at a slower rate (5.4 percent) over the same five-year period and had a median attendance of 65 people at worship. Catholic and Orthodox Christian churches declined by 9 percent. The only groups to boost attendance over the past five years were non-Christian congregations, Muslim, Baha’i and Jewish.
“One of the meta narratives of the last several decades is mainline decline and evangelical health,” said Mark Chaves, professor of sociology, religious studies and divinity at Duke University, who conducted a similar analysis known as the National Congregations Study. “It’s clear in recent years there’s been a decline in evangelical churches as well. Mainline decline is not unique.”
The survey found that half of the nation’s congregations were in the South, even though only 38 percent of the U.S. population lives there. It also suggested that small congregations in rural areas and small towns may be unsustainable. Nearly half of the country’s congregations are in rural areas (25 percent) or small towns (22 percent), while the 2020 census found that only 6 percent of Americans live in rural areas and 8 percent in small towns.
The country’s changing demographics may be key to rural and small-town decline. Young people have been moving to urban areas; businesses and industries have also left these communities bereft of resources and talent.
Congregations also are becoming more racially diverse. In 2000 only 12 percent of congregations were multiracial. In the latest survey, the figure climbed to 25 percent.
There is a bright spot on the movement of the nation’s young people. The 2020 Census reveals that during Covid, young people and others, fled big cities.
–Alan Goforth | Metro Voice
