2024 Church and Missions Stats
To be clear, the stats below should prompt urgent and strategic action and a reevaluation of what we as the church have done, are doing, and where God is inviting us to shift.
Global Unreached Population:
- 40% of the world is unreached with limited or no access to Jesus and the Gospel.
- Approximately 3.2 billion people lack access to the Gospel.
- Only 3% of missionaries and 1% of missions funds are directed towards these unreached groups.
Challenges in U.S. Churches:
- Fewer than 5% of U.S. churches have a reproducing disciple-making culture.
- No U.S. churches show characteristics of viral-like disciple-making movements.
- There is a lack of standardized definitions for key terms like discipleship, making assessment difficult.
- Pastors often overestimate the effectiveness of their disciple-making efforts.
-Only 17% of the church knows what The Great Commission is and what it means.
Generational Christian Affiliation:
- **Builder Generation (born before 1946):** ~65% Christian
- **Boomers (1946-1964):** ~35% Christian
- **Gen X (1965-1979):** ~24% Christian
- **Millennials (1980-2000):** ~15% Christian
Current Trends:
-Three out of four churches are currently dying.
-In the next 10 years, there will be a massive shortage of pastors available for rural churches.
- 42% of pastors considered quitting their jobs in 2022.
- The current wave of de-churching in America exceeds past revivals and crusades, with 40 million Americans leaving the church in the last 25-30 years.
- Fewer than 5% of U.S. churches have a reproducing disciple-making culture.
- Christianity in the U.S. has declined by 12% in the last decade, from 90% in the 1970s to just over 60% today, projected to fall below 40% by 2070.
- The growth rate for U.S. Evangelical churches is only 0.8%.
- Up to 75% of U.S. churches are declining, with 73% experiencing a decline.
- Church closures outpace new openings: 4,500 closed vs. 3,000 opened in 2019.
- Churches need to replace 32% of their attendance annually to maintain current levels.
- The average cost to baptize one believer in the U.S. is $1.5 million.
- Church congregations are aging, with the average pastor now 57 years old.
- Every year, about 4,000 churches are planted in the U.S. And every year, about 3,700 churches close.
Currently, we are only adding about 300 churches per year. This is not enough to keep up with population growth, much less the growing needs of the unaffiliated.
We need to triple church planting within the next five years. It’s that urgent.
For church planting to double or triple in the next thirty years, the American church as a whole—Evangelicals, mainline denominations, the Catholic Church, African American churches, charismatics, and others—needs to plant between 8,000 and 11,000 churches per year.
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For those interested in digging into the numbers, here is a closer look at each of the three factors that will require a doubling of the annual church planting rate per year over the next 30 years:
1. To counteract an upcoming wave of older church closures:
Last year 3,700 churches closed permanently. We anticipate that number will grow to at least 5,500 per year over the next 30 years. In total we anticipate 176,000 churches will close between today and 2050. This forecast is based on a few forces at work. First, the best research available indicates that the average lifespan of a church is 80 to 120 years from founding to closure. The churches that survive and thrive over 100 years are the exception rather than the norm. Second, 50 to 70 years ago there was a significant wave of church planting that took place post World War II. From 1940 to 1970 there was a 100 percent increase in the number of new church plants compared to the previous 30-year span, 1910 to 1940. Churches on the front end of that wave of planting in the ‘40s are now approaching 80 years old. Today, the average evangelical congregation is 64 years old and the average mainline congregation is 105 years old. Due to the predictable average church life cycle, the church closure rate can be expected to increase by an average of at least 50 percent for the next 30 years, to an overall average over the next 30 years of 5,500 per year. That is an increase of almost 2,000 closures per year above the current rate.
Why are new churches important?
1. New church plants are usually more effective at reaching the lost: 42% of members at successful church plants were previously unchurched.
2. Church plants that launch daughter churches within their first five years average twice as many weekly attenders as churches that do not replicate.
(source: https://www.greatopportunity.org/)
-Here's the base (neither worse or best) case scenario for the Church in the USA by the year 2050.
35 million
Youth raised in Christian homes will disaffiliate from Christianity, which is over one million per year.
73% to 59%
The overall Christian percentage of the population will drop to 59 percent, from today’s 73 percent.
50 million
The unaffiliated population will nearly double as a percentage of the U.S. population, from 17 percent today to 30 percent in 2050, an increase of more than 50 million people.
It could get worse if we don't course correct.
But it could also be avoided, yet this requires a major shift in our approach to following Jesus, discipleship, and church models.
(source: https://www.greatopportunity.org/)
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Missions Stats:
1. General Decline in Christianity:
- Forbes article on decreasing Christianity: [https://www.forbes.com/sites/marisadellatto/2021/12/14/christians-decreasing-as-more-us-adults-not-affiliated-with-any-religion-study-shows/?sh=7b252f4d4b3c](https://www.forbes.com/sites/marisadellatto/2021/12/14/christians-decreasing-as-more-us-adults-not-affiliated-with-any-religion-study-shows/?sh=7b252f4d4b3c)
- Christianity Today on Christian decline: [https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2022/september/christian-decline-inexorable-nones-rise-pew-study.html](https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2022/september/christian-decline-inexorable-nones-rise-pew-study.html)
- NPR article on religion trends: [https://www.npr.org/2022/09/17/1123508069/religion-christianity-muslim-atheist-agnostic-church-lds-pew](https://www.npr.org/2022/09/17/1123508069/religion-christianity-muslim-atheist-agnostic-church-lds-pew)
2. Evangelical Church Growth and Decline:
Three out of four churches are currently dying, according to Thom Rainer's keynote at Discipleship.org. Potomac CMN reported that in the next 10 years, there will be a shortage of 30,000 pastors in rural churches.
- Joshua Project on US evangelical church growth rate: [https://joshuaproject.net/countries/us](https://joshuaproject.net/countries/us)
- 73% of churches in the USA are declining: [https://churchleaderinsights.com/73-of-american-churches-are-declining-by-thom-rainer/](https://churchleaderinsights.com/73-of-american-churches-are-declining-by-thom-rainer/)
- American churches closing faster than opening: [https://www.foxnews.com/us/american-churches-closing-faster-new-ones-open](https://www.foxnews.com/us/american-churches-closing-faster-new-ones-open)
- More churches closing than opening: [https://religionnews.com/2021/05/26/study-more-churches-closing-than-opening/](https://religionnews.com/2021/05/26/study-more-churches-closing-than-opening/)
- Average church attendance replacement: [https://www.christianpost.com/voices/why-your-church-has-to-replace-32-of-its-attendance-every-year.html](https://www.christianpost.com/voices/why-your-church-has-to-replace-32-of-its-attendance-every-year.html)
3. Pastor Statistics and Costs:
- 42% of pastors considered quitting in 2022: [https://www.barna.com/research/pastors-quitting-ministry](https://www.barna.com/research/pastors-quitting-ministry)
- Average cost to baptize one believer: [https://www.premierchristianity.com/interviews/francis-chan-why-i-quit-my-megachurch-and-started-again/1183.article](https://www.premierchristianity.com/interviews/francis-chan-why-i-quit-my-megachurch-and-started-again/1183.article)
- Median age of senior pastors has increased: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nR_gBg7NA-k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nR_gBg7NA-k)
4. Church Knowledge and Discipleship:
- Only 17% of the church knows the Great Commission: [https://www.barna.com/research/half-churchgoers-not-heard-great-commission/](https://www.barna.com/research/half-churchgoers-not-heard-great-commission/)
- Fewer than 5% of churches have a reproducing disciple-making model: [https://theordinarymen.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Discipleship-Making-in-the-US-Churches.pdf](https://theordinarymen.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Discipleship-Making-in-the-US-Churches.pdf)
- State of the Church Report https://www.greatopportunity.org/)
5. Other Sources:
- Sheep Among Wolves:
-Disciple Making Trends:
- Lifeway research on aging pastors and churchgoers: [https://research.lifeway.com/2021/11/01/americas-pastors-and-churchgoers-are-getting-older/](https://research.lifeway.com/2021/11/01/americas-pastors-and-churchgoers-are-getting-older/)
- Importance of planting new churches: [https://redeemercitytocity.com/articles-stories/why-plant-churches](https://redeemercitytocity.com/articles-stories/why-plant-churches)
- Patheos blog on declining Christianity: [https://www.patheos.com/blogs/modernfaith/2022/10/is-christianity-declining/](https://www.patheos.com/blogs/modernfaith/2022/10/is-christianity-declining/)
- Joshua Project on Iran: [https://joshuaproject.net/countries/IR](https://joshuaproject.net/countries/IR)
6. Additional Sources:
- Movements blog on countries where Christianity is growing fastest: [https://www.movements.net/blog/2015/06/10/the-top-20-countries-where-christianity-is-growing-the-fastest.html](https://www.movements.net/blog/2015/06/10/the-top-20-countries-where-christianity-is-growing-the-fastest.html)