“Come, all you who are thirsty. Give ear and come to me; listen, that you may live.”
[Nov.14.2021]Most Protestant churches are now open for in-person services, but congregants have been slow to return to the pews, Christian Post recently reported citing a new survey result of Lifeway Research.
According to the report, Lifeway surveyed changes in service opening and attendance rate of 1,000 Protestant pastors in the U.S. from 1st-29th September, this year.
The survey shows that 98% of all Protestant churches are now open for in-person worship services, nearly matching pre-pandemic levels when compared to figures from January 2020.
Meanwhile, in August of this year and in January 2020, there was a large gap in worship attendance. Some 35% of pastors reported attendance levels between “50%-70%” for the period, while another 30% reported attendance levels between “70%-90%”. 13% of churches were attracting less than 50% of their pre-Covid-19 attendance.
About one in eight of all churches said they were at attendance levels of between 90% and 100%, while 9% said they had more people in August than they did before the pandemic.
The survey showed that black pastors were 12.5 times more likely than white pastors to say that their in-person attendance is less than 30% what it was before the pandemic.
“Many pastors and church leaders are anxious for the whole congregation to gather physically together,” Scott McConnell executive director of Lifeway Research said. Worship attendance is improving, but there is still a large gap between today’s in-person attendance and pre-Covid levels.
“Every church’s path has been different during the pandemic and each stage of resuming specific aspects of ministry is significant, “he said, “As the coronavirus pandemic ravaged the country in the early months, black and brown communities were disproportionately impacted.”
“For example, data released by New York City showed how the coronavirus killed black and Latino people at twice the rate it killed white people. Nationwide data reflected a similar trend. This disparity could explain the slower return of black congregants to in-person services,” he added.
Some 73% of pastors in the survey said their in-person attendance levels in August were fewer than “100 people”, with 40% of that group reporting less than 50 people attending services each Sunday. Less than 6% of pastors reported reaching in-person church attendance levels of 250 or more.
Lifeway analyzes the result of the survey shows that smaller churches appeared to have an advantage in recovering in-person worshipers over larger churches, and it is because most protestants in the U.S. are still concerned about the pandemic.
“Most small churches are still not back to pre-pandemic attendance, but far more of them are reaching this point,” McConnell said, “Small churches may be aided by perceived safety of a naturally smaller gathering, and the strength of relational connections. But regardless of the reasons why, in-person worship attendance trends currently look promising for small churches.” (Source: Christian Today edited, Christian post).
Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters, and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Give ear and come to me; listen, that you may live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love promised to David. (Isaiah 55:1,3)
Dear God, now that post-pandemic in-person church services have reopened, let the believers in the U.S hear the Lord’s voice saying, ’come to me’. Let those who have been stray losing their faith realize the current state of their wrecked faith and come before the gospel. We pray that the pastors in this world may not be discouraged by the visible situation but serve people until the end so that the abundant grace of God will be revealed through the recovery of the lost souls as well as through the recovery of church attendances.
Prayer 24·365
prayer@prayer24365.org
