Worship attendance at churches up for the first time in decades, according to new report

ATLANTA (RNS) — The past 25 years have been rough for American churches and other houses of worship.

The median worship attendance dropped by more than half. Church closures and the rise of the nones — those who claim no religion — have grabbed all the headlines. And faith in institutions like organized religion has plummeted.

Yet a new report from the Hartford Institute for Religion Research shows signs of a shift — for the first time in two decades, attendance is up. More people are volunteering, and there also seems to be a renewed sense of optimism among pastors and other clergy.

“The headline finding is cautious optimism,” Alison Norton, co-director of the Hartford Institute for Religion Research, told reporters at the annual conference of the Religion News Association, meeting in Atlanta. She added that the data showed a story of resilience and recalibration.

“Across a range of indicators, there are signs of recovery and, in some cases, renewal,” the study’s authors wrote in a report released Friday (April 24), which surveyed a representative sample of leaders at 7,453 congregations between September and December of 2025.

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