More Protestant churches closing than opening in America

By Leonardo Blair, Senior Reporter Sunday, January 18, 2026

More Protestant churches are being closed in America than are being planted, and older congregations appear to be bearing the brunt of the contraction, according to data from a new Lifeway Research study.

The study published Tuesday used data collected from 35 denominational groups that represent 58% of U.S. Protestant churches. The Tennessee-based research arm of Lifeway Christian Resources also cited information from the Annual Church Profile for 2023 and 2024 of the Southern Baptist Convention — America’s largest Protestant denomination.

While 4,000 Protestant churches were closed in 2024, Lifeway Research estimates that only 3,800 were started in that year. The estimated 4,000 churches shuttered in 2024 represent nearly 1.4% of the 293,000 Protestant churches highlighted in the U.S. Religion Census 2020.

The analysis also found that 1.4% of active Southern Baptist congregations disbanded or shuttered between 2023 and 2024, while some 0.4% left or were disaffiliated over the period.

“The immediate impact of COVID appears to have passed. Denominations have discovered those that closed during quarantine and never reopened. However, the typical church in America has fewer attendees than it did 20 years ago,” Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research, said in a statement on the research. “These assemblies are often weaker than prior generations. But at the same time, new churches are flourishing and a subset of churches are growing.”

While most Protestant pastors in the Lifeway study (94%) don’t believe their churches will be shuttered in the next decade, about 4% disagree with that outlook, and another 2% said they aren’t sure.

Pastors leading congregations with fewer than 50 people attending weekly services were the least likely to agree that their churches would endure another decade. The study also found that new congregations were more likely to be growing than older ones.

A review of SBC data showed that churches that began since 2000 grew by 12%, while membership in churches founded between 1950 and 1999 declined by 11%. Those that started between 1900 and 1949 declined by 13% while those that started before 1900 declined by 11%.

“While the American church landscape changes slowly, it is not standing still,” McConnel said. “The future of Protestant churches in America lies in reaching new people with the offer of salvation through Jesus Christ. Most growth in the U.S. happens in new communities. Church planting is vital to share the gospel in these new communities as well as communities in which the population is changing or previous churches have closed.”

Thom Rainer, a former president and CEO of Lifeway Christian Resources and the founding dean of the Billy Graham School of Missions and Evangelism at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, warned in January 2025 that about 15,000 churches would close last year and another 15,000 would shift from having full-time pastors to part-time pastors in America’s rapidly shifting religious landscape.

“For the first time in modern church history, 15,000 of the churches will cease to exist in a period of one year. Notice that we are projecting that 15,000 churches will close and that 15,000 will move from full-time pastors to part-time pastors,” Rainer wrote in op-e published by The Christian Post. “Those 30,000 churches represent about 1 out of 12 existing churches. The change is dramatic.”

Last November, Boston University theology, philosophy and ethics professor Wesley Wildman, who has researched the impact of secularization on religious groups, blamed the decline on America’s growing secularization as fewer people have a religious affiliation and are attending church services.

“The problem is that nobody knows how to confirm these numbers. We have to go by denominational numbers, which are difficult to collect and often not up-to-date,” Wildman told BU Today. “The 15,000 closures might be overblown. But there is no question that many more than that have closed, and will continue closing, over a period of years.”

Among the key conditions in society that drive religious decline, he contends, is a positive attitude to cultural pluralism that has enabled people to “vote with your feet and leave religious organizations without paying any costly social or family or economic penalty.” Other conditions he cited are “existential security,” “education,” and “freedom.”

“These four factors drive down supernaturalism, which in turn makes religious worldviews and lifeways less plausible for some people, some of whom remain spiritual,” Wildman wrote.