The COVID-19 pandemic tore at the fabric of American life in so many ways. We spent months — and in some parts of the country, years — working, shopping, and living differently. Some people inexplicably still live in a world of ‘rona fear.
I was on staff at my church as the communications director when COVID hit. It was a crazy scramble to switch to online-only services and change the way we approached things when the state of Georgia shut everything down. Georgia was the first state to open back up, but we didn’t start services back up for another few weeks due to “an abundance of caution,” a phrase I got tired of typing in social media posts. We had a task force that overthought everything we did for months as the world adjusted to life during and immediately after a pandemic.
Some families left the church during the pandemic. Some of them went to other churches that opened back up before we did. Others got lazy. More simply fell out of the habit of getting up on Sunday mornings and going to worship. In the ensuing six years, some of them eventually came back.
Our church is robust and healthy — I believe it’s because we preach the Word of God without compromise and without the silly gimmicks that some churches get tangled up in — but I do know that the pandemic sent some churches reeling. A couple of churches in my community shuttered completely and never reopened.
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Churches are seeing a bit of a rebound, just over half a decade after the pandemic. A new study from the Exploring the Pandemic Impact on Congregations (EPIC) project at the Hartford Institute for Religion Research showed the first positive gains in church attendance in a quarter century — with a caveat.
Across multiple indicators, the data shows a meaningful, if uneven, rebound. Median weekly attendance rose for the first time in 25 years since the Faith Communities Today project began tracking the figure to 70 and surpassed the pre-pandemic level of 65. Six in ten congregations (58%) report having stronger vitality and strength compared to before the pandemic. Congregational income climbed to a median of $205,000, outpacing inflation. Volunteer engagement has returned to pre-pandemic levels, programming has largely been restored, optimism is up, and clergy are reporting improved well-being across physical, mental, spiritual, relational and financial dimensions.
“What we’re seeing is not a revival — it’s a recalibration,” said Dr. Allison Norton, co-investigator on the EPIC project. “Congregations have been through an extraordinary period of disruption, and though it has taken a while, many have come out of it with greater clarity about who they are and what they’re called to do. That’s showing up in the data in ways that are genuinely encouraging.”
At the same time, the report cautions against overstating the findings. Nearly half of congregations continue to experience attendance decline, and the gap between larger, growing congregations and smaller, struggling ones has widened.
Numbers aren’t going up across the board. Mainline Protestant churches continue to see sharp declines, while smaller churches have struggles of their own. In some ways, it’s a “rich getting richer and poor getting poorer” scenario with church attendance growth.
Possibly the most encouraging finding is that churches are discovering their focus. To use my church as an example again, we’re placing a greater emphasis on discipleship, and other churches are exploring their identities and how the Lord wants to use them uniquely.
This comes amid what some are calling a “quiet revival” in the Western world. While the jury is out on how much of a revival we’re truly experiencing, it’s undeniable that more people are exploring faith. Let’s pray for Bible-believing churches that are faithful to the gospel to step up and help the curious become believers and disciples.
