Experts project an estimated 100,000 churches in the US will close or be repurposed over the next decade.
Many churches will be unable to escape this “tsunami” of closings — a grim trajectory one pastor described as, “Every year the pews are getting emptier and the collection plates getting lighter.”
From the article: “There are recent signs that the gradual decline in church attendance has leveled off. For the first time in 25 years, the number of people attending in-person worship in the US has increased.”
The article also says that about 100 million people (30%) attend a weekly service in the US nowadays. They talk about the heyday of the mid 20th century where 50% of Americans attended a weekly service. The population of the US in 1950 was 150 million. So that’s 25 million more people attending church today.
So why are all the smaller churches closing? The article (and possibly the PBS doc) fails to place some of the blame on the congregation capture of mega churches and how politics has driven people into these behemoths. I know that is what’s happening where I live in the South. They have a large sanctuary and expand that with an enormous online presence. How else can we have more Church goers and less churches?
And those mega churches are the evangelical assholes that don’t even know their religion at all, and get into politics.