12 Surprising Facts PowerPoint Presenta

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12 Surprising Facts about the American Church :

What is Happening to the American Church? :

© 2008 by David T. Olson www.TheAmericanChurch.org 2 What is Happening to the American Church? Nobody seems to know an authoritative answer. We hear snippets: Mainline churches have been declining in membership across the country for 40 consecutive years. Evangelical churches seem to be holding their own. Classic fundamentalist churches have lost their voice, as have Pentecostals. The Catholic Church reports increased membership nationally, but how has the acute priest shortage and the abuse scandal affected Mass attendance? Many observers sense that large churches are getting larger and small churches are getting smaller. These 12 surprising facts present a snapshot of what is really happening in the American Church.

The Percentage of People that Attend a Christian Church each Weekend is Far Below what Pollsters Report. :

© 2008 by David T. Olson www.TheAmericanChurch.org 3 The Percentage of People that Attend a Christian Church each Weekend is Far Below what Pollsters Report. According to pollster George Barna, 47% of American adults attended church on a typical weekend in 2005. Might people exaggerate about their church-attending behavior? Do people overestimate their church attendance when polled?Yes! The actual rate of attendance from ‘head counts’ is less than half of what the pollsters report. Numbers from actual counts of people in orthodox Christian churches* show that 17.0% of the population attended a Christian church on any given weekend in 2007. * This presentation looks only at people attending orthodox Christian churches (Catholic, Evangelical, Mainline or Orthodox churches). Approximately 3 million people a weekend attend non-orthodox Christian churches, and perhaps 3 million attend a religious service of another religion. This would add another 35,000 ‘houses of worship’ to the 305,000 Christian churches and would increase the 2007 percentage of attendance to 19.0%.

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The Percentage of People Attending a Christian Church each Weekend Decreased Significantly from 1990 - 2007. :

© 2008 by David T. Olson www.TheAmericanChurch.org 5 Numbers from actual counts of people in orthodox Christian churches show that 20.4% of the population attended church on any given weekend in 1990. That percentage dropped to 18.7% in 2000, and to 17.0% in 2007. The percentage attending Mainline and Catholic churches declined more quickly from 2000 – 2007 than it did in the 1990’s, while the Evangelical percentage declined only slightly. The Catholic church’s decline in percentage attendance occurred even though its membership numbers are keeping up with population growth. The Percentage of People Attending a Christian Church each Weekend Decreased Significantly from 1990 - 2007.

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Church attendance has been slowing down in this decade. :

© 2008 by David T. Olson www.TheAmericanChurch.org 7 The three slides shows the yearly numeric gain of Evangelical, Mainline and Catholic churches on any given weekend. It shows the yearly gain or decline in attendance in the 1990’s, 2000 – 2005, 2005 - 2006 and 2006 - 2007. (Note - these numbers do not factor in population growth.) Evangelical church growth slowed down significantly in the last year – from an average growth throughout this decade of 0.8%, to a gain of only 0.3% in the last year. Mainline churches declined faster than before, while Catholic churches saw the steep decline in the early part of this decade slow down over the past few years. Church attendance has been slowing down in this decade.

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Christian church attendance is between 1 ½ and 2 times higher in the South and Midwest than it is in the West and Northeast. :

© 2008 by David T. Olson www.TheAmericanChurch.org 11 Christian church attendance is between 1 ½ and 2 times higher in the South and Midwest than it is in the West and Northeast. The next slide shows the percentage of the population attending a Christian church on any given weekend in every state in 2007. The light brown states have the highest percentage of attendance, while white states have the lowest rate of attendance. The map graphically shows that the Southern and Midwest regions have the highest percentage of people in a Christian church on any given weekend, while the Northeast and West lag behind.

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Only One State Saw an Increase in the Percentage Church Attendance from 2000 - 2007. :

© 2008 by David T. Olson www.TheAmericanChurch.org 13 The next slide highlights those states that grew in percentage of the population attending church (pink states) and those that declined (blue states). Only in Hawaii did church attendance grow faster than population growth. Arkansas, Alabama an Nevada were close to keeping up with population growth. Only One State Saw an Increase in the Percentage Church Attendance from 2000 - 2007.

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6. The Next Three Maps Show the Percentage of the Population Attending Evangelical, Mainline and Catholic churches in 2007. :

© 2008 by David T. Olson www.TheAmericanChurch.org 15 Evangelical churches are most populous in the South. Mainline churches are strongest in the Upper Midwest. Catholic churches are strongest in the northern tier of states, Louisiana, California and New Mexico. 6. The Next Three Maps Show the Percentage of the Population Attending Evangelical, Mainline and Catholic churches in 2007.

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7. The Next Three Maps Show the Percentage Growth or Decline of Evangelical, Mainline and Catholic churches from 2000 - 2007. :

© 2008 by David T. Olson www.TheAmericanChurch.org 19 Evangelical churches grew faster than population growth in 24 states and declined faster in 26 states. While Evangelical attendance grew numerically in the 10 Southern states from North Carolina to Texas, the population grew faster, so the attendance percentage declined in each of these southern states. Mainline churches did not grow faster than population growth in any state. Catholic churches grew faster than population growth in 6 states and declined faster in 44 states. 7. The Next Three Maps Show the Percentage Growth or Decline of Evangelical, Mainline and Catholic churches from 2000 - 2007.

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© 2008 by David T. Olson www.TheAmericanChurch.org 23 8. Weekend attendance at Christian churches has stayed virtually the same from 1990 to 2007! But while church attendance has been stagnant, the United States has grown from 1990 – 2007 by a larger number than attends church!

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However, there are 91,384,566 new people in the United States today who were not here in 1990. :

© 2008 by David T. Olson www.TheAmericanChurch.org 25 However, there are 91,384,566 new people in the United States today who were not here in 1990. They are composed of 68,510,978 babies born here and 22,873,578 new immigrants. While the attendance number is stable, the decline in the percentage of the population is because the United States is growing faster than virtually all developed nations.

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The Population Clock :

© 2008 by David T. Olson www.TheAmericanChurch.org 27 The Population Clock One birth every........................ 7 seconds One death every...................... 13 seconds One immigrant (net) every....... 31 seconds Net gain of one person every...11 seconds

9. The next slide shows the growth rate of Protestant churches from 2006 – 2007, sorted by size. :

© 2008 by David T. Olson www.TheAmericanChurch.org 28 9. The next slide shows the growth rate of Protestant churches from 2006 – 2007, sorted by size. The next slide is from a study of 90,000 churches from 2006 – 2007. It tracked their growth rate in the past year by their 2006 attendance size. The startling result is only the smallest and the largest churches are growing. The decline in the midsized churches is deepening each year. (This uses only attendance numbers, and does not even consider the effect of population growth.)

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10. Established Churches that were Over 40 Years Old, On Average Declined In Attendance. :

© 2008 by David T. Olson www.TheAmericanChurch.org 30 10. Established Churches that were Over 40 Years Old, On Average Declined In Attendance. The next slide is from a study of 90,000 churches from 2006 – 2007. It tracked their growth rate in the past year by the decade in which the churches were started. The startling result is that every decade of churches that were started prior to 1990 declined in attendance last year. (This uses only attendance numbers, and does not even consider the effect of population growth.)

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11. The Current Increase In The Number Of Churches Is Only About One Quarter Of What Is Needed To Keep Up With Population Growth. :

© 2008 by David T. Olson www.TheAmericanChurch.org 32 11. The Current Increase In The Number Of Churches Is Only About One Quarter Of What Is Needed To Keep Up With Population Growth. The next slide shows the increase in the number of churches from 2000-2008. The fourth column shows the net gain: 3,937 more churches for these 8 years. The final column shows the number of new churches that would have been needed in that decade to keep up with population growth (2000 – 2008 population growth times the number of churches in 2000 = 24,240). This means that the net gain in churches is about one sixth of what would have been needed to keep up with population growth. Two thousand five hundred additional new churches are needed per year to keep up with population growth.

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The Future of the American Church. :

© 2008 by David T. Olson www.TheAmericanChurch.org 34 The final slide shows the projections for the percentage of the population attending a Christian Church from 1990 – 2050. The number of Americans attending church will decline only slightly, but church will not com close to keeping up with population growth, so will decline in attendance percentage every year. The Future of the American Church.

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Information on the Information :

© 2008 by David T. Olson www.TheAmericanChurch.org 36 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 2000. This was combined with the known attendance at about 10,000 African Americans churches to come up with as accurate an estimate as possible for each county. Independent church data is difficult to obtain. (There are actually many 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 1/3rd 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 21% and 23% 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 24% – 26%.

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© 2008 by David T. Olson www.TheAmericanChurch.org 37 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 15 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 305,000 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 2007 percentage to 19.0%.

For More Information . . . :

© 2008 by David T. Olson www.TheAmericanChurch.org 38 For More Information . . . Presentations such as this are available for the largest 90 Metropolitan Areas in the United States, for each State and for the Nation as a whole. Presentations can be downloaded immediately. A Combo Pack for each state is also available, which includes the National, State and any Metro PowerPoints from that state. For ordering information, please go to www.theamericanchurch.org