Dearly Departed: How Often Do Congregations Close?

Abstract

We establish for the first time a national mortality rate for religious congregations by determining the 2005 status of congregations in the 1998 National Congregations Study sample. The annual mortality rate for religious congregations is 1 percent, which is among the lowest mortality rates ever observed for any type of organization. This unusually low mortality rate probably indicates an organizational population whose weakest members live on in a weakened state rather than an organizational population that is unusually robust all the way down to its most vulnerable members.

How Many Congregations Are There? Updating a Survey‐Based Estimate

“…Further, nondenominational Protestant congregations are adopting websites at a much lower rate than other groups (Anderson et al. ), which explains some of the difference between my estimate and Thumma's () estimate of 35,000.…”

“…If the average annual death rate is 1 percent (Anderson et al. ), then new congregations opened from 1998 to 2006 at 3.9 percent annually. This aligns with Day's (Day :16) finding that the number of congregations on one Philadelphia street increased from 83 in 2004 to 93 in 2009, an increase of 2.3 percent each year.…”

“…Further, congregations are surprisingly resilient to closure and have one of the lowest death rates of any organizational category (Anderson et al. ). Because congregations are voluntary organizations with very flexible goals, they can draw on considerable resources and services from their members and downsize operations instead of close, which may not be feasible for organizations in other sectors.…”

“…However, the disaffiliation rates among mainline Protestants and Roman Catholics are imprecise indicators of congregational closure. Anderson and colleagues () estimate the average annual death rate of congregations between 1998 and 2005 to be only 1 percent, one of the lowest among any type of organization. In other words, the rate of religious disaffiliation was not associated with an equivalent rate of congregational closure.…”

“…Two likely contributors to this trend include growth in the nondenominational Protestant and non‐Christian sectors and the surprisingly low death rate of congregations (Anderson et al. ).…”