Dave Olson, the director of church planting for the Evangelical Covenant Church, has done some intriguing research into the church attendance patterns of Americans. His findings contain quite a bit of bad news. For starters, his research found that the percentage of Americans regularly attending church is 18.7%.Olson has compiled his research findings in an eye opening slideshow entitled "Twelve Surprising Facts about the US Church". Here is some of the things that he found:
The percentage of people who actually attend a Christian church each week is far below what pollsters report.
The percentage of people attending a Christian church each week decreased significantly between 1990 and 2000.
Only one state, Hawaii, actually saw an increase in the percentage attending church between 1990 and 2000. All other states saw a decrease in church attendance.
Evangelicals, mainline Protestants, and Catholics are each strong in very different regions of the country.
The church planting rate has been declining throughout the history of the United States.
If current trends continue, the percentage of the population that attends church each week in 2050 will be about half of what it is today.
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