Recent reports show a slight increase in church attendance, but is this true growth or simply a plateau after decline?



There are usually three ways to talk about the state of a church: growing, plateaued, or in decline.

Researchers from the Hartford Institute for Religion Research have found that the median congregation grew from 65 in 2020 to about 70 today. Headline from various news organizations? “Worship attendance at church up for first time in decades.”

Yes, but....

That doesn’t seem like a growing situation as much as one that ended in decline and has stabilized into something of a plateau. I’m not trying to be curmudgeonly about it; it’s just that a six-year change of an average of five people isn’t exactly a growth spurt. It barely moves the dial.

I don’t take pleasure in this—I mourn it. But I don’t jump on the celebration bandwagon for the uptick because it doesn’t deserve it. And telling ourselves that somehow the tide is turning would be a false narrative that could lead to complacency.

In truth, these are serious times for the Church. And serious times call for serious measures. I keep waiting for churches and denominations to commit to true methodological change, to cast vision for the evangelistic need, to turn outward instead of inward, to match the intensity of Jesus on the cross by picking up our own.

Instead, it seems like far too many churches are just waiting for the tide to turn, and for somehow, someway, that tide to float the Church back up to where she was.

That’s not how this works, and it’s not how it’s going to work. To use a tired but true analogy, that would be akin to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

It’s good that there is a (hopeful) stop to the hemorrhaging. It’s good that the average church has five more people in attendance now than it did six years ago.

But my goodness, five people over six years?

We’ve got to do better than that.

The Bible says that “victory rests with the Lord,” and that is true. But we often forget the first part of that verse: “The horse is made ready for battle” (Proverbs 21:31, NIV). Yes, victory rests with God, but we are to make ready for the contest in every way we can, else we presume upon God in a passive way that has little biblical merit.

It’s time to saddle up.

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