The Small Church in America

While megachurches seem to get the lion’s share of attention today, this has been the case for several decades. Management consultant Peter Drucker told Forbes magazine in 1998 that the rise of the megachurch was “the most important social phenomenon in American society in the last 30 years.”

Defined as having 2,000 or more people in weekly worship, these Protestant churches comprise about 1,500 of the 320,000 Christian congregations in the U.S. According to the National Congregations Study, while the smallest 50 percent of congregations contain about 11 percent of worshipers, the largest one percent contains at least 15 percent of worshipers.

With such an altered landscape on the American religious scene, is there a future for smaller congregations? Keep reading