Signs of Hope for Christianity in America, New Survey Reveals

There are plenty of surveys swirling about faith — or lack thereof — in America, but there are some encouraging new statistics offering rays of hope.

A recently released survey from Barna Group found a majority of adults disagree with the claim the “church is not relevant in today’s world,” with 41% stating they “definitely disagree” with the sentiment and 24% saying they “somewhat disagree” with it.

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It’s worth noting the remainder either “somewhat” (22%) or “definitely” (13%) agreed with the claim.

The statistics came from the latest edition of the Barna Group’s State of the Church report. The data, compiled by Barna in conjunction with Gloo, was based on interviews with 1,532 American adults between Feb. 4-26.

Among practicing Christians, the vast majority (79%) “definitely disagree” with the belief the church has become irrelevant. To the contrary, a plurality of non-Christians “somewhat agree” (32%) the church has become irrelevant while 26% “definitely agree.”

While church attendance has been steadily declining for years, preliminary data from the Barna Group’s survey suggests that trend could be reversing course.

The report stated, “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.”

It continued, “[P]reliminary data from 2025 suggests a potential uptick in weekly church attendance to approximately 32 percent,” the report 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.”

Another survey from the Pew Research Center, the Religious Landscape Study, found Christianity, after years of decline, may finally be stabilizing in the United States.

The Pew survey found that, since 2019, the percentage of Christians in America has remained between 60% and 64%, which experts view as a stabilization after that number waned for decades.