1. Evangelical Mainline & Catholic
Changes in the American Church from

2. How has the Pie Changed?
These 3 slides show the attendance slice of the American Church Pie that Evangelical Protestant, Mainline Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox Churches have had from 1990 – They are best viewed by going back and forth between the 3 slides.
© 2006 by David T. Olson

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6. The Next Chart
Shows the percentage of total attendance by the size of the churches. Mainline churches have more small churches (pink sectors), while evangelical churches are comprised of more large churches (yellow sectors).
© 2006 by David T. Olson

7. © 2006 by David T. Olson

8. The Next Map
shows the group (Evangelical Protestant, Mainline Protestant, Catholic or Orthodox) with the largest worship attendance in each county of the country in 2000.
© 2006 by David T. Olson

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10. The Next Map
shows whether each county grew or declined between 1990 and 2000 in the percentage of the population that attended an Evangelical Church counties declined and 1280 increased.
© 2006 by David T. Olson

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12. The Next Map
shows whether each county grew or declined between 1990 and 2000 in the percentage of the population that attended a Mainline Church counties declined and 419 increased.
© 2006 by David T. Olson

13. © 2006 by David T. Olson

14. The Next Map
shows whether each county grew or declined between 1990 and 2000 in the percentage of the population that attended a Catholic Church counties declined and 1114 increased.
© 2006 by David T. Olson

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16. The Next Map
shows whether each state grew or declined between 1990 and 2000 in the percentage of the population that attended an Evangelical Church. 34 states declined and 16 increased.
© 2006 by David T. Olson

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18. The Next Map
shows whether each state grew or declined between 1990 and 2000 in the percentage of the population that attended a Mainline Church. 50 states declined and 0 increased.
© 2006 by David T. Olson

19. © 2006 by David T. Olson

20. The Next Map
shows whether each state grew or declined between 1990 and 2000 in the percentage of the population that attended a Catholic Church. 34 states declined and 16 increased.
© 2006 by David T. Olson

21. © 2006 by David T. Olson

22. The Next Map
shows the percentage of the population that attended an Evangelical churches on any given weekend in 2000.
© 2006 by David T. Olson

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24. The Next Map
shows the percentage of the population that attended a Mainline churches on any given weekend in 2000.
© 2006 by David T. Olson

25. © 2006 by David T. Olson

26. The Next Map
shows the percentage of the population that attended a Catholic churches on any given weekend in 2000.
© 2006 by David T. Olson

27. © 2006 by David T. Olson

28. The Next 3 Graphs
show how Evangelical, Mainline and Catholic churches grew or declined in ‘market share’ in the 5 types of counties.
© 2006 by David T. Olson

29. Evangelical Attendance
is growing faster than population growth in large metropolitan areas, and almost holding their own in small metropolitan areas and ‘city’ counties. Mainline churches are declining quite significantly in all areas. Catholic churches are declining the most in large metropolitan areas.
© 2006 by David T. Olson

30. © 2006 by David T. Olson

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33. The Next Graph
looks only at metropolitan counties, and divides them into predominantly urban or suburban counties.
© 2006 by David T. Olson

34. Evangelical Churches
are the only grouping that is doing well in metropolitan areas. Evangelical and Catholic churches are doing significantly better in suburban counties than urban counties. Mainline churches are doing substantially worse in suburban counties.
© 2006 by David T. Olson

35. © 2006 by David T. Olson

36. The Next 2 Graphs
show the growth rates for different sizes of evangelical churches and mainline churches.
© 2006 by David T. Olson

37. In Mainline Churches
those under 150 are seeing the greatest decline. Churches over 400 are doing almost as well as evangelical churches of the same size.
Evangelical churches have a different size profile than mainline churches. Those in the middle (100 – 399) are essentially plateauing. Small and large churches are doing much better, with small churches actually doing the best!
© 2006 by David T. Olson

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40. The Final 2 Graphs
show the growth rates from 2003 to 2004 for Evangelical churches and Mainline churches, based on the affluence of the church’s zip code.
© 2006 by David T. Olson

41. In Both Mainline and Evangelical churches, those in more affluent zip codes are growing the faster.
© 2006 by David T. Olson

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44. Information on the Information
The spiritual health of churches is multifaceted, and is obviously much more complex than an attendance trend can portray. However, following the example of St. Luke in the Book of Acts, who used the number of people who showed up at various events as a sign documenting the health and growth of the early church, I would suggest that attendance is the single most helpful indicator of health, growth and decline.
Information has been compiled only for orthodox Christian groups – Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox. The Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses, Unitarian-Universalists and the International Churches of Christ have not been included. In addition, information about non-Christian groups has not been compiled.
African American denominations publish very little that is statistical – often not even a list of current churches. This study used data from the 1990 Glenmary study on Black Baptist estimates and AME Zion churches, the average African American worship attendance (from the Barna Research Group), and a statistical model based on the population of African Americans in each county in 1990 and These were combined to come up with as accurate an estimate as possible.
Independent church data is almost impossible to obtain. (There are actually fewer totally independent churches than is assumed. Most are part of some voluntary association, which typically keeps some records.) Data from the 1990 & 2000 Glenmary study on larger Independent churches (limited to over 300 in attendance) was used along with a statistical model to estimate the attendance at smaller independent churches.
In Catholic churches, the definition of what constitutes membership varies with diocese and church, making numbers sometimes inconsistent from state to state and county to county. In addition to actual mass counts from 1/3rd of Catholic parishes, membership information has been merged with attendance patterns from similar dioceses based on the size of the diocese and the region in which it is located.
Orthodox Churches are included in Totals, but not included as a separate group because of smallness of size nationwide. Division into Evangelical and Mainline categories is based on the division by the Glenmary Study.
This study only looks at how many people attend a Christian church on any given Sunday. The term ‘regular attender’ can be designated to mean someone who attends a Christian church on a consistent basis. Using a simple definition for ‘regular attender’ (attends at least 3 out of every 8 Sundays), between 23% and 25% of Americans would fit this category. Adding ‘regular attenders’ of non-orthodox christian churches and other religions to the totals would increase the percentage to 26% – 28%.
© 2006 by David T. Olson

45. Denominational Codes AG = Assemblies of God EC Episcopal Church ECC
Evangelical Covenant Church
COTN
Church of the Nazarene
LCMS
Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod FM
Free Methodist
SBC
Southern Baptist Convention
UMC
United Methodist Church
ELCA
Evangelical Lutheran Church of America
COGCL
Church of God (Cleveland, TN)
PCA
Presbyterian Church of America
PCUSA
Presbyterian Church - USA
© 2006 by David T. Olson

46. This Presentation
is based on a nationwide study of American Christian church attendance, as reported by churches and denominations. The database currently has average worship attendances for each of the last 10 years for over 200,000 individual churches throughout the country.
It also uses supplementary information (such as actual membership numbers extrapolated with membership to attendance ratios) to accurately project the attendances of other denominational and independent churches. All told, accurate information is provided for all 300,000 Christian churches.
Division into Evangelical and Mainline Protestant is taken from the Glenmary decadal study of church membership.
A list of evangelical denominations can be found at
A list of mainline denominations are at
This study does not include non-orthodox Christian groups or non-Christian religions in America. Those ‘houses of worship’ would add another 35,000 churches in the United States.
© 2006 by David T. Olson

47. For More Information . . .
Presentations such as this are available for the largest 100 metropolitan areas, for each state and for the nation as a whole, as well as other presentations to show what is happening in the American church. Presentations are available either by direct download, CD or print. Please go to for ordering information.
Dave Olson is the Director of The American Church Research Project as well as the Director of Church Planting for the Evangelical Covenant Church. He has been collecting research information on American Churches for the last 17 years. For more information, please go to or contact Dave at
© 2006 by David T. Olson