© 2006 by David T. Olson What Percentage of Churches are Declining in the United States? Dave Olson

© 2006 by David T. Olson It was trumpeted in the first line of the article in Leadership Journal in August, “85% of American churches are declining or plateaued.” That has been the conventional wisdom, the ecclesiastical myth circulating for over a decade. The Conventional Wisdom

© 2006 by David T. Olson Doesn’t that seem a little high? Where did this confident fact come from? What was the source of the research mentioned? Can that be Right?

© 2006 by David T. Olson Definitions There are a couple of definitions that have to be clarified before the truth can be known. One question is, “What standard is used to determine what plateaued means?” The original definition was ‘attendance changing less than 2% in decline or growth a year.’ Here are two examples of how that would work. A church that grew from 500 – 600 in a decade would be considered plateaued. And one that declined from 500 to 400 would still be plateaued. Neither seem to fit the definition of plateaued. There is a simple way out of the predicament of deciding what qualifies as plateaued - only consider whether a church has grown, declined or stayed exactly the same.

© 2006 by David T. Olson Should We Include New Churches? A second question is whether to include new churches. Since we are talking about ‘American churches’ we really should include them. But they do create a distortion. About 36,000 new churches a year are started each decade in America. That means out of the 300,000 orthodox Christian churches in America, 12% have no option but to grow, since they start with zero in attendance. In some ways that skews the intended information to be gained, because we really are trying to find out the percentage of established churches that are grew or declined.

© 2006 by David T. Olson Who was Studied? For this study, I looked at only established churches that existed both 10 years ago and today. I used the categories declined, same and grew. I looked at 15 denominations, 8 Evangelical and 7 Mainline, totaling almost 120,000 established Protestant churches. 1 1 This presentation looks only at people attending orthodox Christian churches. Approximately 3 million people attend non-orthodox Christian churches, and perhaps 3 million attend a religious service of another religion. Those ‘houses of worship’ would add another 35,000 churches in the United States and increase the 2000 percentage to 20.5%.

© 2006 by David T. Olson Here are the Results of the Study Among 122,190 established churches over a ten year period of time: 55% declined 4% stayed the same 41% grew

© 2006 by David T. Olson

Mainline and Evangelical Churches Differed Significantly A significantly higher percentage of Mainline churches are declining than Evangelical churches.

© 2006 by David T. Olson

Mainline Churches Among 67,893 established Mainline churches over a ten year period of time: 60% declined 3% stayed the same 36% grew

© 2006 by David T. Olson

Evangelical Churches Among 54,297 established Mainline churches over a ten year period of time: 49% declined 4% stayed the same 47% grew

© 2006 by David T. Olson

And the Winner! The denomination that had the highest growth rate was the Evangelical Free Church. The denomination that had the highest decline rate was the Reformed Church of America.

© 2006 by David T. Olson

Denominations BGC=Baptist General Conference C&MA=Christian and Missionary Alliance DC=Disciples of Christ EC=Episcopal Church ECC=Evangelical Covenant Church EFCA=Evangelical Free Church of America ELCA=Evangelical Lutheran Church of America COGCL=Church of God, Cleveland, TN COTB=Church of the Brethren COTN=Church of the Nazarene LCMS=Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod PCUSA=Presbyterian Church - USA RCA=Reformed Church of America SBC=Southern Baptist Convention UMC=United Methodist Church

© 2006 by David T. Olson Information on the Information The spiritual health of churches is multifaceted, and is obviously much more complex than an attendance trend can portray. However, following the example of St. Luke in the Book of Acts, who used the number of people who showed up at various events as a sign documenting the health and growth of the early church, I would suggest that attendance is the single most helpful indicator of health, growth and decline. Information has been compiled only for orthodox Christian groups – Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox. The Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses, Unitarian-Universalists and the International Churches of Christ have not been included. In addition, information about non-Christian groups has not been compiled. African American denominations publish very little that is statistical – often not even a list of current churches. This study used data from the 1990 Glenmary study on Black Baptist estimates and AME Zion churches, the average African American worship attendance (from the Barna Research Group), and a statistical model based on the population of African Americans in each county in 1990 and These were combined to come up with as accurate an estimate as possible. Independent church data is almost impossible to obtain. (There are actually fewer totally independent churches than is assumed. Most are part of some voluntary association, which typically keeps some records.) Data from the 1990 & 2000 Glenmary study on larger Independent churches (limited to over 300 in attendance) was used along with a statistical model to estimate the attendance at smaller independent churches. In Catholic churches, the definition of what constitutes membership varies with diocese and church, making numbers sometimes inconsistent from state to state and county to county. In addition to actual mass counts from 1/3 rd of Catholic parishes, membership information has been merged with attendance patterns from similar dioceses based on the size of the diocese and the region in which it is located. Orthodox Churches are included in Totals, but not included as a separate group because of smallness of size nationwide. Division into Evangelical and Mainline categories is based on the division by the Glenmary Study. This study only looks at how many people attend a Christian church on any given Sunday. The term ‘regular attender’ can be designated to mean someone who attends a Christian church on a consistent basis. Using a simple definition for ‘regular attender’ (attends at least 3 out of every 8 Sundays), between 23% and 25% of Americans would fit this category. Adding ‘regular attenders’ of non-orthodox christian churches and other religions to the totals would increase the percentage to 26% – 28%.

© 2006 by David T. Olson This Presentation is based on a nationwide study of American church attendance, as reported by churches and denominations. The database currently has average worship attendances for each of the last 10 years for over 200,000 individual churches. It also uses supplementary information (actual membership numbers correlated with accurate membership to attendance ratios) to project the attendances of all other denominational and independent churches. All told, accurate information is provided for all 300,000 orthodox Christian churches. 1 1 This presentation looks only at people attending orthodox Christian churches. Approximately 3 million people attend non-orthodox Christian churches, and perhaps 3 million attend a religious service of another religion. Those ‘houses of worship’ would add another 35,000 churches in the United States and increase the 2000 percentage to 20.5%.

© 2006 by David T. Olson For More Information... Presentations such as this are available for the largest 80 metropolitan areas, for each state and for the nation as a whole, as well as other presentations to show what is happening in the American church. Presentations are available either by direct download, CD or print. Please go to for ordering information. To Contact Dave Olson, please him at