Study: Attendance Hemorrhaging at Small and Midsize US Congregations

The Faith Communities Today survey finds that half of the country’s congregations had 65 or fewer people in attendance on any given weekend, a drop from a median attendance level of 137 people in 2000.

A new survey of 15,278 religious congregations across the United States confirms trends sociologists have documented for several decades: Congregational life across the country is shrinking.

The most recent round of the Faith Communities Today survey, or FACT, found a median decline in attendance of 7% between 2015 and 2020.

The survey, fielded just before the coronavirus lockdown, finds 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. Read More