New study reveals why post-pandemic worship attendance struggles to rebound
News story by G. Jeffrey MacDonald | Exploring the Pandemic Impact on Congregations
A new study is helping explain why worship attendance levels haven’t bounced back to pre-pandemic levels — and what might help regather the faithful. It turns out there’s more going on than just a disruption of routines.
The study, titled “See You Sunday,” was published June 30 in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion and explores who reaps the many wellbeing benefits associated with attending religious services and who doesn’t. Feeling blessed, supported and full of gratitude after a worship event is much easier when you regularly attend that group’s gatherings.
Conversely, those who’ve lost the worship habit since COVID are apt to find worship feels less familiar now. They’re more likely struggle to access worship’s benefits, from feelings of gratitude to connectedness, even when they make the effort to go on occasion.
“The study shows that people who attend regularly, and attend a particular weekend service, see a gain in positive emotions and a decrease in negative emotions as functions of worship attendance,” said Blake Victor Kent, a sociologist at Westmont College and lead author of the study.
“For a society that’s pretty attuned to mental wellbeing and mental health, that should be a significant story,” Kent added. “We have to lean into Sabbath and rhythm as fundamental aspects of our created nature.”
Worship attendance shrinking last 20 years
Median worship attendance in the U.S. has been declining for more than two decades, according to Faith Communities Today (FACT) surveys. They found 137 worshippers in a typical service in 2000. In Spring 2023, median attendance was 60. That was up from 45 in summer and winter 2021, but still below the 65 seen in Spring 2020 before COVID hit, according to data from the Hartford Institute for Religion Research’s Exploring the Pandemic Impact on Congregations project.
The JSSR study, based on an analysis of two daily cellphone surveys, helps explain why some who were comfortable attending worship pre-pandemic might be less so now. Someone who attends only occasionally doesn’t feel the same sense of belonging as a regular worshipper. The same worship service that leaves regulars feeling positive and empowered can cause very different feelings among those who don’t attend often enough to feel part the community. The latter group might leave church feeling more stressed or detached than when they arrived.
“We observed that positive and negative emotions appeared to be optimized… when the respondent had attended church during the past weekend and had a routine of regularly attending religious services,” the 20-page JSSR article says. “This result lends support to the spiritual capital thesis, which suggests that only those who have capital built up (e.g., know how to use or get the most out of religious practices) will gain the most benefit from participation.”
Getting more out of worship
“See You Sunday?” cites what prior research had already uncovered: that attending worship at least once a month is correlated with increased feelings of happiness, gratitude and life satisfaction.
However, now we know it’s not solely because people disposed to such feelings might also be drawn to worshipping God in groups. Positive feelings, it turns out, can be enhanced by the worship experience, though not equally for every type of worshipper.
Simply put, habitual attenders get more out of worship. A closer look shows why. They know how to appreciate and engage any number of beneficial features on a given day in the sacred space. They’re able, for instance, to ask for prayer support while going through hard times, sing a familiar hymn, hug a friend, be surprised by an announcement or delight in cheery altar flowers that they know came from a friend’s beloved garden.
Those best able to access the wellbeing effects of worship are the ones who already find the event familiar, according to Laurence Iannacone’s research cited in “See You Sunday?”
But how does worship go from feeling foreign to feeling familiar? Four small Episcopal congregations in Southwestern Virginia have figured out a way. They’re using online worship to get newcomers comfortable with high church liturgy before they show up in person.
Online worship breeds familiarity
Known collectively as The Appalachian Alliance of Episcopal Parishes, the four congregations share one priest who visits each church twice a month. That priest, the Rev. John Church, also hosts as many as three online services a day, five days a week on Facebook Live: Morning Prayer, Noonday Prayer and Compline. Facebook viewers follow along using an online version of the Book of Common Prayer that they can download on the spot.
What began as a means to keep local Episcopalians connected during COVID has become a mode for helping newcomers get comfortable with Episcopal worship. That makes newbies more likely to feel they’ve benefitted from church if and when they decide to show up in person. And if they feel they were blessed, they’re apt to keep coming back.
“It’s a great way to get people involved in the Episcopal Church and just to understand what our service looks like,” Church said. “There is such a learning curve… The Episcopal service is very structured, so if you’re not used to a service like that, you’re totally lost. So that’s why it’s so important to plant these seeds: ‘Our service is going to look like this. It’s a little different than what you’re used to. If nothing else, just sit back and listen’.”
The young tend to lose the worship habit
Much hangs in the balance of whether worship becomes a regular habit, especially for rising generations, according to Kent.
“One of the things that people overlook is really how formative these habits are for people when they are younger,” said Kent, a former pastor himself. “There are probably a lot of parents of younger kids that are finding it easier to not participate [in worship]. Maybe they pray at home, or they do some different things at home. But they underestimate the potential ramifications of not helping their kids form routines when they are at a younger age.”
Kent believes social structures can help restore both the worship habit and its wellbeing benefits, but people might need to create their own.
Among his suggestions:
- Give congregants permission to not have to “perform” at church; show people it’s OK to just come as you are and be yourself
- Convene friends to brainstorm what’s needed in order to make regular attendance feasible
- Examine why families’ lives are so exhausting that they have no energy or time for weekend worship; then see if what’s draining can be changed and try to make worship a restorative priority
- Have discussions about what religious institutions are for; then consider whether participating regularly would be a way to reinforce and live out your family’s values
G. Jeffrey MacDonald is a freelance religion reporter, UCC pastor, church educator and author. His reporting clients include the Hartford Institute for Religion Research, which runs the EPIC project.
This content was originally published by Hartford Institute for Religion Research and Exploring the Pandemic Impact on Congregations at https://www.covidreligionresearch.org/.
