Nearly three years after the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns forced churches across the United States to shut their doors, many attendees have yet to return, even as the vast majority of churches have resumed in-person services.
The findings from a Lifeway Research phone survey revealed that while churches are resuming the majority of their in-person services, on average, pastors say attendance in August was 85% of their Sunday attendance levels in January 2020.
Still, those attendance levels mark the highest in over two years.
The average church reported 63% of its pre-pandemic in-person attendance in September 2020. By August that number climbed to 73% and jumped another 12 points in 2022, according to the study.
Lifeway Research Executive Director Scott McConnell said in a statement, “While there are a handful of exceptions, we can definitively say that churches in the U.S. have reopened….(but) churchgoers have not reappeared quite as fast.”
A Lifeway study conducted earlier this year found 34% of Christians said they went to church at least four times a month before the pandemic, compared with only 26% in April 2022.
McConnell added, “While some pre-COVID churchgoers have not returned to church at all, much of the decline in attendance is from people who are attending less often.”
Thom S. Rainer, founder and CEO of Church Answers pointed out, “The pandemic accelerated the pace for many to become a church dropout.”