Church Attendance

“This year, the majority of pastors (80%) [are] excited to celebrate Easter with congregants inside their church buildings with COVID-19 precautions in place. Another one in five (22%) [are] meeting outdoors to accommodate social distancing during the worship service.” - Barna

“More than half of evangelicals will be back in person, but most Catholics and black and mainline Protestants are still waiting to return.” - C.Today

Related: Pew Research report

“As we walked through the doors of various new churches, struck up conversations with believers, and sat under preaching from different teachers, we wrestled with the line between preference and belief, between well-meaning mediocrity and maturing faithfulness to the Word of God.

“If you want people who are concerned about COVID-19 to return, do everything in your power to make your church as safe as you can.” - F&T

“TGC asked five pastors how they’ve been using the relative safety of outdoors, how the weather is a challenge, and how they’re thinking creatively about the changing seasons.” - TGC

“Data show that, as of September 2020, about one in five of those who would normally be defined as churchgoers (22% churched adults, 19% practicing Christians) says they have “never” attended a service during the pandemic, either in person or digitally.

“Like millennia of Christians before them, CHBC believes (as do I) that something that never assembles, such as separate services or sites, is not actually a church.” - Jonathan Leeman

“Speaking on NPR’s ‘Here & Now,’ Barna president David Kinnaman said that based on trends both before and after the COVID-19 outbreak, American churches will look significantly different after the pandemic—and a fifth of them could close.” - C. Leaders

“More than half of the group, 54%, indicated that they were ‘very’ satisfied while 37% said they were ‘somewhat’ satisfied….

“It’s good to have a more accurate membership roll. But it’s best to pursue these non-attenders toward a specific end: removal if they’re attending another gospel-preaching church, restoration if they’re happy to return, and excommunication if they’re either unwilling to attend church anywhere or unable to be found.” - 9 Marks