Report indicates an uptick in overall church attendance.
QUICK FACTS:
- There are more millennials attending church now than there were before the Chinese coronavirus pandemic.
- As the pandemic comes to an end, the overall opinion of Americans has been more in favor of participating in church services than in the pre-COVID lockdown era.
- However, millennials are particularly more likely to be attending church on a regular basis now, showing more of an increase in interest than other groups.
STUDY RESULTS:
- “More millennials attend church weekly now than before the start of the pandemic. According to a Barna group survey of 13,000 adults, roughly 16 percent of regular churchgoers have not returned to services at all in 2022, but weekly attendance among those born between 1981 and 1996 has risen from 21 percent to 39 percent this year,” the report stated.
- “The trend can be partly explained by life stage,” the report added, saying that attendance is typically “highest when people have young children” and drops off for “empty nesters,” only to increase again “when friends start to pass away.”
BACKGROUND:
- Millennials’ interest in church comes on the heels of a June Gallup poll, which found that overall belief in God is dropping to an all-time low in the United States.
- “According to the survey, most U.S. adults — 81 percent — believe in God. But while that figure seems high, it is actually the lowest percentage ever reported in this survey. Up until 2011, over 90 percent said they believed in God, but the number has continued to drop, now down eight points from the 89 percent who expressed belief in God in 2016. The previous low was set in 2014, when 86 percent said they believed in God,” the poll indicated.
