Pew: People are not returning to church as they reopen: “in-person attendance is unchanged since fall”

… is this a trend?

Most churches have now returned to their pre-Pandemic schedule of services, but that has not increased the numbers of people who are attending them. 

Some churches still have some restrictions in place, but that does not appear to be a factor in this. 

The survey from the Pew Foundation reveals that while attendance increase somewhat into last fall, those numbers have not continued. Part of that could be because members are now used to and comfortable with remote services instead of having to attend in-person. 

Church authorities, though, hope that this will change as Covid-19 numbers subside. 

As COVID-19 cases continue to decline and pandemic restrictions are eased across the United States, churches and other houses of worship increasingly are holding services the way they did before the outbreak began, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. But there has not been a corresponding rise over the past six months in the share of Americans who are attending in-person services.

Among U.S. adults who say they attend religious services, 43% now report that their house of worship is currently open and holding services the same way it did before the COVID-19 outbreak – up 14 percentage points in the last six months and 31 points since last March. Meanwhile, 47% say their congregation is open but with modifications still in place due to the pandemic, such as mask requirements or social distancing.

Justin Nortey, “More houses of worship are returning to normal operations, but in-person attendance in unchanged since fall,” Pew Research Center, March 22, 2022

What does this mean?

The Pew story notes that ascertaining what this means is difficult at present. Many factors could occur in the next six months to a year that many affect church attendance. 

Assessing the impact of the pandemic on religious service attendance remains difficult for two main reasons. One is that the ultimate course of the pandemic is still unclear. What appears, at this moment, to be a plateau in religious service attendance could be followed by a rise if the pandemic gradually recedes, or by a drop if a new, highly infectious coronavirus variant emerges.

The second reason for uncertainty is that, prior to the pandemic, Pew Research Center surveys did not clearly distinguish between physical attendance at religious services and virtual attendance. While religious congregations as a whole may have experienced a large drop in physical attendance during the pandemic, there’s good reason to believe that virtual attendance is much higher today than it was before the coronavirus outbreak began in early 2020. One piece of evidence is that, in a July 2020 survey, 18% of U.S. adults said that since the pandemic began, they had watched religious services online or on TV for the first time. 

Combining both forms of attendance, nearly nine-in-ten people who say they are regular attenders (88%) report that they have participated one way or the other in religious services in the past month.

Justin Nortey, Pew Research Center, March 22, 2022

The question is now how many who were regular attendees prior to the pandemic now remain as members of the congregation. 

That is the question that churches and denominations must face as they move forward into the future. With Millennials and those under 40 moving away from organized religion in droves, those numbers are not likely to return.