Attendance Fact File--Center for Missional Research

According to Barna Research, the percentage of adults who have steered clear of churches for at least the past six months has remained stable since 1994.
An estimated 73 million adults are presently unchurched
- When teens and children are added, the total swells to roughly 100 million Americans.
If the unchurched population of the United States were a nation of its own, that group would be the eleventh most populated nation on earth (trailing only China, India, the churched portion of the United States, Brazil, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Russia, Japan and Mexico).
The survey reveals that one out of every three adults (33%) is classified as unchurched - meaning they have not attended a religious service of any type during the past six months.

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Date: 3/19/2007

A LifeWay Research study found only 22 out of 43,000 SBC (Southern Baptist Convention) churches met the criteria of baptizing at least 26 people per year, overall attendance growth and a membership-to-baptism ratio of no more than 20 to 1 over the last 10 years.
The study further noted that the average tenure of the pastors is 15 years.
Across the 22 churches, pastors also stress the importance of preaching the gospel and providing opportunities for lost people to respond.
- More than two-thirds say they make an altar call at the end of every service while others have people fill out a decision card.
One-third of the pastors indicate they preach topically and almost half use expositional or textual preaching.
Most pastors say their worship style is "contemporary," "informal," and "casual."
- Others say theirs is blended in terms of music and only one pastor described his church's worship as "traditional."
- Four of the churches consider their worship services to be “seeker- driven” or “seeker-targeted."
Eleven churches use on-campus Sunday school as their primary fellowship groups, while six meet in off-campus small groups, and two have a mix of on and off-campus groups.

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Date: 1/30/2007

Downtown and central city congregations are more likely to decline than all other areas (26% are declining), followed by towns and small cities (23%) and rural areas (21%).
Least likely to grow rapidly are predominantly white, non-Hispanic congregations.
- Among these congregations, only 31% experienced the highest level of growth from 2000 to 2005.
Congregations where older adults (over age 60) comprise 20% or less of active adult participants are most likely to grow.
- Congregations in which more than 40% of their regular participants are over 60 are very unlikely to grow.
18% of mainline churches claim to be liberal, 25% are right in the middle, 32% are somewhat conservative and 25% are predominantly conservative.
12% of congregations have three services and 11% have four or more on a typical weekend.

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Date: 1/8/2007