By Deborah Bruce
One critical change we found: Worshipers are older. In 2001, the median age of U.S. worshipers was 50. Today it’s 54. In contrast, the median age of the U.S. population is just 44. So worshipers today are—on average—10 years older than the general population in this country.
But the aging of U.S. worshipers didn’t happen evenly across all congregations. The figure compares the percentage of worshipers who are age 65 or older in Catholic parishes, mainline Protestant congregations, and conservative Protestant congregations in 2001 and 2008. Two things jump out at you: (1) Mainline Protestant congregations and Catholic parishes have more worshipers who are 65 or older than do conservative Protestant congregations. (2) The increase in older worshipers is largest in mainline Protestant and Catholic congregations.
These changes might not look very big, but they are meaningful. With information about 300,000 worshipers in 2001 and almost 200,000 in 2008, we’re pretty confident that these are real changes. They also confirm findings from other recent research projects conducted by the National Congregations Study and Faith Communities Today.
Is this trend influencing your congregation? How will your congregation look 10 years from now?
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