Mississippians Go to Church the Most; Vermonters, Least
Released February 2010:
Overall, 42% of Americans attend church weekly or almost weekly
“Church attendance levels are widely dispersed across the states, with the highest levels generally occurring in the South and the Midwest, and the lowest in the Northeast and the West.”
Gallup’s compilation of church attendance data is based on more than 350,000 interviews conducted among national adults, aged 18 and older, across all 50 states and the District of Columbia in 2009. Gallup began tracking state-level church attendance on a daily basis in 2008, asking respondents how often they “attend church, synagogue, or mosque — at least once a week, almost every week, about once a month, seldom, or never.” Frequent church attendance for the purpose of this analysis is defined as those who report attending at least once a week or almost every week. Nationally, 41.6% of all Americans in 2009 said they attended church this often.
Church attendance levels are widely dispersed across the states, with the highest levels generally occurring in the South and the Midwest, and the lowest in the Northeast and the West.
Nine of the top 10 states in church attendance — Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, Louisiana, Tennessee, Arkansas, North Carolina, Georgia, and Texas — are in the South. Utah, with its high concentration of churchgoing Mormons, provides a Western exception. Six of the lowest church-attending states are in New England — Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut — while the others are in the West: Nevada, Hawaii, Oregon, Alaska, and Washington.
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Tell us what you think - Does this reflect your community? Your church?
What do these results say about our church communities?
Al Winseman in Growing an Engaged Chruch says:
Whenever people evaluate whether they want to belong to – or deepen their involvement in – an organization, they ask two questions: “Am I valued?” and “Do I make a meaningful contribution?” (Winseman, 2007, p. 24)
Do the numerical decline in church going numbers show church communities are doing not effectively answering these questions as in the past?
I suspect the short answer they are not. I think With cultural shifts church communities are not as effective as they were in the past communicating the answers to these questions in spiritual terms.