Most pastors lead small churches but more attend big churches

Small church pastors are encouraged to leverage their strengths to avoid permanently closing their doors, according to a Christian research group’s analysis of multiple surveys related to church leadership and attendance.

Lifeway Research, which conducts research and gathers data to provide ministry leaders with insights about their churches and congregations, highlighted a trend that appears to be impacting small and large parishes.  

“The large churches are growing larger and the smaller ones keep getting smaller,” a June 3 Lifeway report states. 

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While smaller congregations do face challenges, such as a smaller staff size and budget, they do hold certain advantages, as Lifeway Research Senior Writer Aaron Earls acknowledges. For example, smaller congregations tend to have higher shares of churchgoers committed to attending weekly worship and higher rates of volunteering among church members. Additionally, small churches have more per capita giving and more giving toward missions and charity. 

The smaller congregations do, however, face less certain financial futures and aging congregations. 

“To avoid joining the growing number of church closures, small church pastors will need to find ways to leverage their strengths and overcome their challenges,” Earls notes. 

A 2020 Faith Communities Today study found that seven in 10 U.S. congregations have 100 or fewer weekly service attendees. The average U.S. congregation sees 65 people gather each week.

The 2025 National Survey of Religious Leaders (NSRL) report was also cited, which drew from two surveys: the 2018-19 National Congregations Study (NCS) and the 2001 Pulpit & Pew Survey (P&P).

The NSRL stressed that congregation size is “one of the most important features of a religious leader’s work situation” and reported that “the largest 9% of congregations contain about half of all churchgoers.”

Citing data from the NCS report, NSRL stated the median congregation in the United States has 70 regular participants, including adults and children, and has an annual budget of $100,000. 

At the same time, the NCS found the average church attendee worshiped in a congregation with 360 regular attendees and a $450,000 budget.

NSRL speculated that the reason for what it described as a “paradox” is that there are few large congregations with a sizeable staff and budget but these large congregations are “big enough” to contain most churchgoers. Large congregations tend to have most of the money and staff members, according to NSRL.

Most clergymen appear to be impacted by the same trend, NSRL stated.

“The median clergy person leads a congregation with only about 50 regularly participating adults, while, at the same time, the clergy person serving the median attendee leads a congregation with about 245 regularly participating adults,” the NSRL report said. 

Researchers said Catholic parishes are a “significant religious variation” because they tend to be “much larger, on average, than other kinds of congregations.” The median parish priest serves a congregation with about 400 regularly participating adults. 

“Overall, although the proliferation of very large congregations may create the impression that the typical clergyperson leads a large congregation, the reality is that most lead small congregations,” the survey stated. 

Earls suggests this trend is unlikely to change soon, citing a Lifeway report of U.S. Protestant churches released in March. The organization found that around half of congregations increased their worship service attendance by at least 4% in the past two years. However, another 48% of churches remained within plus or minus 4% since 2022 or declined by at least 4%.

In addition, Lifeway found that “congregations with more than 250 in attendance (62%) and those with 100 to 250 (59%) are more likely than churches with 50 to 99 in attendance (45%) and those with fewer than 50 (23%) to be growing.”