God's Comeback: Inside America's Unexpected Religious Revival
God’s Comeback: Inside America’s Unexpected Religious Revival
When the Rev. Fred Robinson first laid eyes on the small brick church he was asked to lead in suburban Atlanta, he had every reason to walk away. The parking lot was pockmarked with sinkholes. The bathroom flooring had rotted through. The basement was so thick with mold that he needed gloves and goggles just to step inside. Nine members remained. The bank account held $450. The doors were weeks from closing forever.
Covid-19 had hit Mt. Gilead Missionary Baptist Church like a meteorite. In-person worship stopped. Members drifted away. With no staff and no congregation to maintain it, the building itself began to die.
But where others saw a corpse, Robinson saw a pulse.
“New people came. People started coming back,” says Robinson, now senior pastor. “And they embraced the vision of rebuilding the physical sanctuary and doing theology differently.”
Four years later, the sinkholes are filled, the sanctuary has been renovated, and membership has climbed to 45 — modest on paper, but remarkable when you consider that 70% of American churches have 100 or fewer weekly participants. The annual budget has surged to $90,000. A congregation that was “morally just defeated” is, in Robinson’s words, excited about the future.
A Surprising Statistical Rebound
Robinson’s story isn’t an outlier. It’s part of a broader pattern that has researchers scratching their heads.
For the first time in 25 years, in-person worship attendance in the United States has increased. According to a new study from the Hartford Institute for Religion Research, the median in-person worship attendance has risen from 45 in 2021 to 70 today. The study surveyed leaders at 7,453 congregations across Christian denominations, as well as synagogues, mosques and Hindu temples.
Scott Thumma, director of the Hartford Institute, was stunned by the results. “In my entire career … the size of congregations, the membership numbers, worship attendance — everything has trended downward for the last 40 years,” he tells CNN. “To have this not only rebound from pandemic lows, but actually to go above where congregations were in 2020 before the pandemic, was really surprising to me.”
The findings were so unexpected that researchers spent weeks rechecking the data. Beyond attendance, congregations reported increased giving, more volunteering and greater openness to change. Clergy also reported improved physical and mental health.
Some six years after communities of worship faced what looked like an extinction-level event, the study’s authors say religion is “back in fashion” in America.
The Pandemic as Forced Innovation
The comeback wasn’t evenly distributed. Theologically conservative congregations in Republican-majority areas experienced greater growth. Researchers point to several factors, including the appeal of leaders like President Donald Trump and the late conservative speaker Charlie Kirk among white evangelicals.
But there’s a more practical explanation, too. Many evangelical churches stayed open during the pandemic, attracting new members who still wanted in-person worship.
“A congregation that was less cautious and more willing to stay open or open quicker — those congregations grew faster than the congregations that were playing it safe and were listening to the CDC and stayed closed longer,” Thumma says.
For congregations that did close, survival meant adaptation. Churches expanded online giving, livestreamed services and boosted social media engagement. Robinson himself attracted new members after posting sermons on Facebook.
He rejects the idea that virtual ministry is somehow less authentic. “Virtual churches are not new,” he says. “Paul’s letters to the church were ministry from a distance.”
Politics Stay Mostly Outside the Pulpit
Sunday’s “Rededicate 250: A National Jubilee of Prayer, Praise & Thanksgiving” gathering on the National Mall will present a very different vision of American Christianity — one framed by white Christian nationalism and featuring Republican figures like House Speaker Mike Johnson and Secretary of State Marco Rubio alongside evangelical pastors.
But the Hartford study suggests that most congregations don’t operate that way. About 23% describe themselves as politically active, while 45% do not. Two-thirds of Americans say churches should keep out of political matters, according to a separate Pew Research Center poll.
“The stories we tend to hear are of congregations that are either highly active politically or fighting over politics, but that is really a very small minority,” Thumma says. “For the far majority of congregations, they don’t want politics and religion to mix.”
During the pandemic, most congregations were preoccupied with a more urgent matter: survival.
The Long Road Ahead
Despite the encouraging numbers, the broader picture remains complicated. Nearly half of congregations still report declining attendance. The long-term trend of fewer Americans attending in-person worship hasn’t reversed — it’s only paused.
“There’s a lot of hopefulness and that’s great,” Thumma says. “But if you compare what we have now with what we had even just two decades ago, and not five decades ago, it’s still a significant decline.”
Most American churches are small, and they’ve gotten smaller over the past six years. In congregations where volunteers perform critical tasks, every departure leaves a wound. Robinson knows this intimately.
“We had a member who was very active and very effective, and she got a new job,” he says. “She had to leave, and that was deeply felt.”
Yet there’s a balm in Gilead. On a recent Sunday, the goateed pastor in his preacher’s robe led his congregation in reciting the church’s mission statement with palpable energy and pride. The pandemic, Robinson says, was a catalyst for change that might never have happened otherwise.
“When you go into a more established church, where you have a deacon’s board, they are more protective of their theology,” he says. “But when you have a smaller setting, it feels like there’s more possibility. And, in fact, there was here. That part was exciting to me. And we got right to work.”
The work continues. More renovations are planned. Robinson’s church, like many other communities of worship across America, is no longer chained to the past.
What about yours? Whether you lead a congregation, attend one, or haven’t stepped inside a sanctuary in years, the data suggests something is shifting. The question is whether that shift reaches you — or whether you’ll be part of it.
Autorius
Mike Brown
Mike Brown – One of those authors who helps readers not get lost in today's news flow. He dives into political affairs as well as world events, social trends, and everyday stories that matter to everyone. The main focus of his work is fact-checking, clear language, and the ability to lay out the key points so that the reader gets a comprehensive and reliable picture of the topic in just a few minutes.
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