{"id":198610,"date":"2025-02-26T06:09:14","date_gmt":"2025-02-26T11:09:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/?p=198610"},"modified":"2026-06-10T09:03:48","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T13:03:48","slug":"religious-attendance-and-congregational-involvement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/religion\/2025\/02\/26\/religious-attendance-and-congregational-involvement\/","title":{"rendered":"8. Religious attendance and congregational involvement"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

One-third of U.S. adults say they attend religious services in person at least once a month, including 25% who report going at least once a week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Chart<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Far more Americans (67%) say they attend religious services in person a few times a year or less often. This includes about half of U.S. adults who seldom or never attend services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Chart<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In response to a separate question, the new survey finds that 23% of Americans watch religious services online or on TV at least once a month, while the majority (76%) do so a few times a year or less often.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Chart<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Looking at these two questions together allows us to see, more broadly, how many Americans participate in religious services. The 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study (RLS) finds that 40% of U.S. adults say they do so at least once a month, either in person or online, or both ways: 16% say they participate both ways, 17% attend only in person, and 8% watch only online or on TV.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why we don\u2019t compare these findings with 2014<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

In 2014, the last time we conducted a Religious Landscape Study<\/a>, we asked a single question about religious participation \u2013 \u201cHow often do you attend religious services?\u201d \u2013 without asking separately about in-person attendance and virtual participation. We did not begin asking respondents whether they watch religious services online\/on TV until 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic<\/a> caused many congregations to restrict in-person attendance and begin livestreaming their services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another difference between this survey and the previous RLS is that the 2014 study was conducted entirely by telephone, while the new survey was conducted mainly online and on paper.[50. numoffset=”50″ The new survey offered respondents the option of participating online, on paper or by calling a toll-free number and participating by phone. Overall, 60% of respondents completed the survey online, 37% on paper and 3% by phone. Complete details are available in the Methodology<\/a>.] Research shows<\/a> that telephone surveys tend to produce higher estimates of religious attendance than web\/paper surveys do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because of these changes, the results of the two surveys on religious service attendance are not directly comparable. What might appear<\/em> to be a sharp drop from 50% of U.S. adults describing themselves as regular (at least monthly) attenders in 2014 to 33% describing themselves that way in 2023-24 does not necessarily reflect a real change<\/em> in behavior. The difference between the two surveys is caused, at least in part, by changes in the ways the surveys were conducted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That said, the Center\u2019s telephone surveys were picking up a decline in religious attendance<\/a> in the years before we switched over to online\/paper surveys. The share of Americans who reported attending religious services at least monthly dropped from 54% in 2007 to 50% in the 2014 RLS and had fallen to 45% by the time the Center transitioned away from phone surveys in 2018-19<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This chapter covers the new RLS findings about:<\/h4>\n\n\n\n