It's Time to Come Back to Church - New Statistics on Attendance at Religious Services after the Pandemic Reveal Church Attendance has Dropped
A new survey report released by the Pew Research Center with findings from 2019-2022 reveal how religious services were affected by the pandemic. The article "How the Pandemic Has Affected Attendance at U.S. Religious Services" was released on March 28th, 2023.
The COVID-19 pandemic caused people to attend churches and religious services differently and sometimes many ceased to go altogether. Some paused traditional in-person worship services and opted for online services. The recently released Pew Research Center study found that there was a stable share of Americans that have been participating in some way – either virtually or in person – during the pandemic, but in-person attendance is slightly lower than it was before COVID-19. The share of all U.S. adults who say they typically attend religious services at least once a month is down modestly but measurably (by 3 percentage points, from 33% to 30%) over that span, and one-in-five Americans say they now attend in person less often than they did before the pandemic.
4 Key takeaways from this report
To assess the impact of the pandemic on worship attendance rates, this report looks at Pew Research Center’s survey data in four different ways:
1. Five surveys conducted since the start of the pandemic (beginning with a survey in July 2020) show that a remarkably steady share of Americans – about 40% – say they have participated in religious services in the prior month one way or the other (either in person or virtually, i.e., by streaming online or watching on TV).
2. Asked directly whether they now attend religious services more or less often than they did before the pandemic, more Americans indicate that their attendance habits have declined than risen. But it’s a complicated picture: As of November 2022, 20% say they are attending in person less often (while 7% say they are going in person more often). On the other hand, 15% say they are participating in services virtually more often (while 5% say they are watching services online or on TV less often).
3. The share of U.S. adults who say they generally attend religious services once a month or more has dropped slightly, from 33% in 2019 to 30% in 2022.
4. A longitudinal analysis of the survey data – tracking the same individuals’ answers on four annual surveys from 2019 to 2022 – finds that the vast majority (87%) report no change in their rates of worship attendance over that period. But among those who do indicate a change, more report attending services less often (8%) than report attending more often (4%).
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