Most Americans reject claim that church is irrelevant: survey

March 24, 2025

The Barna Group has released a new survey that shows wide generational differences in churchgoer socialization patterns as a majority of Americans reject the claim that church has become irrelevant.

The Christian Post reports that the findings were included in the State of the Church report released on March 13, based on interviews with 1,532 U.S. adults between Feb. 4-26.

A majority of adults surveyed said that they do not agree that “Church is not relevant in today’s world,” with 41% saying they “strongly disagreed” and 24% indicated that they “somewhat disagree” with the statement.

Among practicing Christians, 79% said they “definitely disagree” with the idea that the church has become irrelevant, with 9% saying they “somewhat disagree” and another 9% who say they “definitely agree.”

According to the Christian Post, the survey found that among non-practicing Christians, 39% said they “definitely disagree” with another 28% saying they “somewhat disagree” with the notion that the church has become irrelevant.

The report also included data regarding estimated church attendance in the U.S. and compared that data with responses collected from 126,450 adults between 2000 and 2024.

The report states: “Weekly church attendance has experienced a gradual decline over the past two decades, but recent Barna data tracking shows signs of hope. Attendance peaked at 48 percent of U.S. adults in 2009, declined to 27 percent by 2017 and stood at 28 percent by 2024.”

Researchers added, “Since 2022, men have consistently shown higher weekly attendance rates than women, reversing a long-established pattern (30% of men vs. 27% of women attending weekly as of 2024). From 2000 to 2015, women attended church at higher rates than men, then from 2016 to 2021, men and women attended at about the same rate.” 

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