{"id":846456,"date":"2025-03-06T05:00:02","date_gmt":"2025-03-06T11:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/?p=846456"},"modified":"2025-03-04T16:30:48","modified_gmt":"2025-03-04T22:30:48","slug":"the-long-term-impact-of-covid-19-on-worship-attendance-the-real-numbers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/the-long-term-impact-of-covid-19-on-worship-attendance-the-real-numbers\/","title":{"rendered":"The Long-Term Impact of COVID-19 on Worship Attendance (The Real Numbers!)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\t<div class=\"content-restriction-preview\"><p>It\u2019s staggering to consider, but it has been five years since COVID-19 became a global pandemic. The virus was first identified in the United States in late January 2020, and by March of that same year, every state had implemented some measures to restrict gatherings in person. Easter Sunday fell on April 20th of that year, and it\u2019s fair to say that fewer people were in church that day than on Easter in the last hundred years.<\/p> <p>Pastors and churches were divided over a wide variety of approaches to the pandemic. Some were very public in defiance of government rules and continued to meet without interruption, even in the first half of 2020. Others ceased meeting in person for months or even years after the onset of the pandemic. However, many churches did something in between\u2014requiring masks, limiting total attendance to allow for social distancing, or adding an online component<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t<div class=\"content-restriction-block\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"content-restriction-block-login login-toggle\">Already a member? <a href=\"#\">Log in<\/a><\/div>\n\t\t\t<div class=\"content-restriction-block-content\">\n\t\t\t\t<h2>Unlock premium content!<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\t<p>Get access to all Church Answers premium content from our expert contributors plus many other membership benefits.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<h3>$9.97 per month<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t<p>Unlimited access<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/join\/\" class=\"button\">Join Now<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\n\t\t<div class=\"content-restriction-preview\"><p>It\u2019s staggering to consider, but it has been five years since COVID-19 became a global pandemic. The virus was first identified in the United States in late January 2020, and by March of that same year, every state had implemented some measures to restrict gatherings in person. Easter Sunday fell on April 20th of that year, and it\u2019s fair to say that fewer people were in church that day than on Easter in the last hundred years.<\/p> <p>Pastors and churches were divided over a wide variety of approaches to the pandemic. Some were very public in defiance of government rules and continued to meet without interruption, even in the first half of 2020. Others ceased meeting in person for months or even years after the onset of the pandemic. However, many churches did something in between\u2014requiring masks, limiting total attendance to allow for social distancing, or adding an online component<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t<div class=\"content-restriction-block\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"content-restriction-block-login login-toggle\">Already a member? <a href=\"#\">Log in<\/a><\/div>\n\t\t\t<div class=\"content-restriction-block-content\">\n\t\t\t\t<h2>Unlock premium content!<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\t<p>Get access to all Church Answers premium content from our expert contributors plus many other membership benefits.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<h3>$9.97 per month<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t<p>Unlimited access<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/join\/\" class=\"button\">Join Now<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t","protected":false},"author":17635,"featured_media":846459,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"publish_to_discourse":"0","publish_post_category":"1","wpdc_auto_publish_overridden":"","wpdc_topic_tags":"","wpdc_pin_topic":"","wpdc_pin_until":"","discourse_post_id":"","discourse_permalink":"","wpdc_publishing_response":"","wpdc_publishing_error":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[193,1,183,184,182,190,179,175,186,192,177,178,14796,180,194,18058,176,187,185],"tags":[20301,20300,20303,20302,20304,20299,19026],"class_list":["post-846456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-administration-and-finance","category-church-answers","category-communications","category-discipleship","category-facilities","category-family","category-first-impressions","category-grow","category-health-and-metrics","category-how-to","category-lead","category-membership-and-assimilation","category-monday-wednesday-featured","category-outreach-and-evangelism","category-preaching","category-premium","category-revitalize","category-smaller-churches-and-communities","category-worship","tag-assemblies-of-god","tag-covid-19","tag-evangelical-lutheran-church-of-america","tag-southern-baptist-convention","tag-the-episcopal-church","tag-the-long-term-impact-of-covid-19-on-worship-attendance","tag-worship-attendance","membership-content","access-restricted"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Long-Term Impact of COVID-19 on Worship Attendance (The Real Numbers!) | Church Answers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It\u2019s staggering to consider, but it has been five years since COVID-19 became a global pandemic. The virus was first identified in the United States in late January 2020, and by March of that same year, every state had implemented some measures to restrict gatherings in person. Easter Sunday fell on April 20th of that year, and it\u2019s fair to say that fewer people were in church that day than on Easter in the last hundred years. Pastors and churches were divided over a wide variety of approaches to the pandemic. Some were very public in defiance of government rules and continued to meet without interruption, even in the first half of 2020. Others ceased meeting in person for months or even years after the onset of the pandemic. However, many churches did something in between\u2014requiring masks, limiting total attendance to allow for social distancing, or adding an online component to worship that was not high on the priority list before 2020. Now that we are five years past the pandemic, social science can start to answer some questions about the long-term effects the lockdowns had on religion in the United States. In this instance, I gathered some church attendance data from four of the larger Protestant denominations. Within the evangelical tradition, I examined the records of the Southern Baptist Convention and the Assemblies of God. For mainline denominations, I retrieved the files for the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. These findings greatly enhance our understanding of how COVID-19 transformed the American religious landscape.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/the-long-term-impact-of-covid-19-on-worship-attendance-the-real-numbers\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Long-Term Impact of COVID-19 on Worship Attendance (The Real Numbers!) | Church Answers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It\u2019s staggering to consider, but it has been five years since COVID-19 became a global pandemic. The virus was first identified in the United States in late January 2020, and by March of that same year, every state had implemented some measures to restrict gatherings in person. Easter Sunday fell on April 20th of that year, and it\u2019s fair to say that fewer people were in church that day than on Easter in the last hundred years. Pastors and churches were divided over a wide variety of approaches to the pandemic. Some were very public in defiance of government rules and continued to meet without interruption, even in the first half of 2020. Others ceased meeting in person for months or even years after the onset of the pandemic. However, many churches did something in between\u2014requiring masks, limiting total attendance to allow for social distancing, or adding an online component to worship that was not high on the priority list before 2020. Now that we are five years past the pandemic, social science can start to answer some questions about the long-term effects the lockdowns had on religion in the United States. In this instance, I gathered some church attendance data from four of the larger Protestant denominations. Within the evangelical tradition, I examined the records of the Southern Baptist Convention and the Assemblies of God. For mainline denominations, I retrieved the files for the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. These findings greatly enhance our understanding of how COVID-19 transformed the American religious landscape.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/the-long-term-impact-of-covid-19-on-worship-attendance-the-real-numbers\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Church Answers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-03-06T11:00:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/People-attending-church.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ryan Burge\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Ryan Burge\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/the-long-term-impact-of-covid-19-on-worship-attendance-the-real-numbers\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/the-long-term-impact-of-covid-19-on-worship-attendance-the-real-numbers\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Ryan Burge\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/#\/schema\/person\/d5a336fe7fb2e2336148e844c396558a\"},\"headline\":\"The Long-Term Impact of COVID-19 on Worship Attendance (The Real Numbers!)\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-03-06T11:00:02+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/the-long-term-impact-of-covid-19-on-worship-attendance-the-real-numbers\/\"},\"wordCount\":1284,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/the-long-term-impact-of-covid-19-on-worship-attendance-the-real-numbers\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/People-attending-church.png\",\"keywords\":[\"Assemblies of God\",\"COVID-19\",\"Evangelical Lutheran Church of America\",\"Southern Baptist Convention\",\"The Episcopal Church\",\"The Long-Term Impact of COVID-19 on Worship Attendance\",\"worship attendance\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Administration &amp; Finance\",\"Church Answers\",\"Communications\",\"Discipleship\",\"Facilities\",\"Family\",\"First Impressions\",\"Grow\",\"Health &amp; Metrics\",\"How To\",\"Lead\",\"Membership &amp; Assimilation\",\"Monday\/Wednesday Featured\",\"Outreach &amp; Evangelism\",\"Preaching\",\"Premium\",\"Revitalize\",\"Smaller Churches &amp; Communities\",\"Worship\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/the-long-term-impact-of-covid-19-on-worship-attendance-the-real-numbers\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/the-long-term-impact-of-covid-19-on-worship-attendance-the-real-numbers\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/the-long-term-impact-of-covid-19-on-worship-attendance-the-real-numbers\/\",\"name\":\"The Long-Term Impact of COVID-19 on Worship Attendance (The Real Numbers!) | Church Answers\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/the-long-term-impact-of-covid-19-on-worship-attendance-the-real-numbers\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/the-long-term-impact-of-covid-19-on-worship-attendance-the-real-numbers\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/People-attending-church.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-03-06T11:00:02+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/#\/schema\/person\/d5a336fe7fb2e2336148e844c396558a\"},\"description\":\"It\u2019s staggering to consider, but it has been five years since COVID-19 became a global pandemic. 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Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University in St. Louis. Before that he was an associate professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University, and was also the graduate coordinator. He has authored over thirty peer-reviewed articles and book chapters alongside six books (including The Vanishing Church, The Nones, and The Great Dechurching) about religion and politics in the United States. He served as a pastor in the American Baptist Church for over twenty years, leading First Baptist Church of Mount Vernon, IL for 17.5 years until its closure in July 2024.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/author\/ryanburge\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Long-Term Impact of COVID-19 on Worship Attendance (The Real Numbers!) | Church Answers","description":"It\u2019s staggering to consider, but it has been five years since COVID-19 became a global pandemic. 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Now that we are five years past the pandemic, social science can start to answer some questions about the long-term effects the lockdowns had on religion in the United States. In this instance, I gathered some church attendance data from four of the larger Protestant denominations. Within the evangelical tradition, I examined the records of the Southern Baptist Convention and the Assemblies of God. For mainline denominations, I retrieved the files for the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. 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Within the evangelical tradition, I examined the records of the Southern Baptist Convention and the Assemblies of God. For mainline denominations, I retrieved the files for the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. 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The virus was first identified in the United States in late January 2020, and by March of that same year, every state had implemented some measures to restrict gatherings in person. Easter Sunday fell on April 20th of that year, and it\u2019s fair to say that fewer people were in church that day than on Easter in the last hundred years. Pastors and churches were divided over a wide variety of approaches to the pandemic. Some were very public in defiance of government rules and continued to meet without interruption, even in the first half of 2020. Others ceased meeting in person for months or even years after the onset of the pandemic. However, many churches did something in between\u2014requiring masks, limiting total attendance to allow for social distancing, or adding an online component to worship that was not high on the priority list before 2020. Now that we are five years past the pandemic, social science can start to answer some questions about the long-term effects the lockdowns had on religion in the United States. In this instance, I gathered some church attendance data from four of the larger Protestant denominations. Within the evangelical tradition, I examined the records of the Southern Baptist Convention and the Assemblies of God. For mainline denominations, I retrieved the files for the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. These findings greatly enhance our understanding of how COVID-19 transformed the American religious landscape.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/the-long-term-impact-of-covid-19-on-worship-attendance-the-real-numbers\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/the-long-term-impact-of-covid-19-on-worship-attendance-the-real-numbers\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/the-long-term-impact-of-covid-19-on-worship-attendance-the-real-numbers\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/People-attending-church.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/People-attending-church.png","width":1200,"height":628,"caption":"People attending church"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/the-long-term-impact-of-covid-19-on-worship-attendance-the-real-numbers\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Long-Term Impact of COVID-19 on Worship Attendance (The Real Numbers!)"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/","name":"Church Answers","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/#\/schema\/person\/d5a336fe7fb2e2336148e844c396558a","name":"Ryan Burge","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/56879a20cb590828ec05138ab0896cecf173024f2bf472bb1fb8dd0ad8f13fe0?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/56879a20cb590828ec05138ab0896cecf173024f2bf472bb1fb8dd0ad8f13fe0?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Ryan Burge"},"description":"Dr. Ryan Burge is professor of practice at the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University in St. Louis. Before that he was an associate professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University, and was also the graduate coordinator. He has authored over thirty peer-reviewed articles and book chapters alongside six books (including The Vanishing Church, The Nones, and The Great Dechurching) about religion and politics in the United States. He served as a pastor in the American Baptist Church for over twenty years, leading First Baptist Church of Mount Vernon, IL for 17.5 years until its closure in July 2024.","url":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/author\/ryanburge\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17635"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=846456"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846456\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":846466,"href":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846456\/revisions\/846466"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/846459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=846456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=846456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=846456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}