Top Ten Church Trends in 2026

I always feel a bit like Punxsutawney Phil when I start to predict future trends. I rely on the experts in the field and try to put my finger in the air to see which way the wind is blowing when they disagree, which they often do. So, with that said let me share some things that are trends as we move into this new year.

Let us start with the good news:

#1 Americans trust in church has rebounded…slightly.

For the past three years, the percentage of adults who said they had a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in the church or organized religion has hovered around record lows. Gallup has reported 31-32% trust for several years. But for the first time since 2020 the number has jumped to 36%. A small but significant increase in trust.

#2 Americans grow more positive toward the Bible.

Bible sales are up 41.6% since 2022. A Lifeway Research Study found that 44% say the Bible is a book to read over and over again, a 4-point improvement from their previous study. However, only 9% say they have read it all more than once…unchanged since 2016.

#3 Christianity is no longer in decline in the U.S. – sort of

According to Barna, the number of Americans who say they have a personal commitment to Jesus that is meaningful in their lives rose twelve percentage points between 2022 and 2025. It appears the religiously unaffiliated have plateaued, according to recent studies from Pew Research and Gallup. Spiritual app downloads rose 79.5% since 2019, and Christian music streams are up 50% over the same time.

All of which sounds great. Maybe we are seeing the beginning of a revival? But there is also the other side which is less encouraging.

#4 America continues to become less Christian.

Fresh data from Barna shows that Christianity is less important to Americans than in years past. And more Christians than ever do not practice their faith. For example, in 2000, 74% of Christians said faith was central to their lives. Today, it is 54%. Similarly, half of all adults (48%) now qualify as non-practicing Christians. In fact, a mere 24% of Christians actively pursue their faith. Perhaps one reason for this is that just over half of churches (52%) have an intentional discipleship and spiritual formation process in their church according to Lifeway Research on the State of Discipleship.

Even when we have good news it has a flip side. For example,

#5 Young men are coming back to church but women are leaving.

Young men have historically been the hardest group to get to attend church but that trend seems to be changing. For 25 years the percent of men attending church weekly has dropped but now has reached an all-time high of 45%. At the same time weekly female attendance has fallen from 47% two decades ago to 36% today. The last year saw a slight uptick so perhaps it has bottomed out and will continue to rise.

#6 Gen Z is leading the surge in church attendance but older adults are attending less frequently.

Gen Z and Millennials are now the most frequent church attenders. They show up on average 1.8 and 1.9 times a month. On the flip side Boomers and Elders’ attendance has dropped to 1.4 times. You can look at one of my earlier blog posts for more on this trend.

#7 Churchgoers are increasingly attending larger churches, while the average church grows smaller.

The most recent Faith Communities Today (FACT) study revealed 7 in 10 U.S. congregations have 100 or fewer weekly service attendees. The average U.S. congregation sees sixty-five people gather each week. Similarly, the most recent National Congregations Study (NCS) found the median congregation in the U.S. welcomes 70 regular participants, including adults and children, and has an annual budget of $100,000. But the average churchgoer worships in a congregation with 360 regular attendees and a $450,000 budget according to NCS.

The largest 9% of congregations now contain about half of all American churchgoers, according to the National Survey of Religious Leaders. You can check out a previous blog to explore the implications of this trend.

#8 Pastor’s influence is in decline.

Discipleship is now largely controlled by algorithms and not by the church. According to Gallop fewer Americans than ever before say they trust pastors. Only 30% of adults say clergy members have high or very high levels of honest and ethics. Talk to any pastor and they’ll tell you that no matter what they do, it’s increasingly impossible to say anything on key cultural or theological issues that doesn’t generate a slew of negative responses, online and in person with people in your church. 

As the culture wars rage on, almost any move you make as a church will be labeled “too something.”  Too liberal. Too conservative. Too partisan. Not partisan enough…and so on. You cannot get it right because they have, on average, spent 49 hours of screen time being formed by algorithms. Each click reinforcing whatever caught their attention.

One side effect of this phenomenon is that senior pastors are aging out, and few are replacing them. The average age of senior pastors in America is hovering around fifty-eight. In 1992 it was forty-four. One must wonder if the prevalence of older pastors will make it more difficult to reach Gen Z at the very time that they seem most open to the Church.

#9 Economic uncertainty is negatively affecting the local church.

Giving at local churches is not keeping up with inflation, but pastors feel better about the economy than they did.

Half of U.S. Protestant pastors (49%) say the current economy is negatively impacting their churches, according to the latest tracking survey from Lifeway Research. Other congregational research organizations have also found church income has increased, but it is not keeping up with inflation.

Churches looking to increase giving may want to explore two tech changes—online giving and hybrid worship services that are in-person and broadcast online. Congregations that utilize these tools have higher levels of giving than those that don’t.

#10 The Church will struggle with the coming AI revolution.

Well, not only will AI be the biggest revolution humanity has ever seen, but it will also be the biggest disruption we have experienced in our lifetimes, and perhaps in human history. We can predict with some certainty that it will bring on a white-collar bloodbath which will be felt in every church. Deepfakes are going to erode the line between truth and fiction even more than “alternative facts” already have. Will AI help or hurt mental challenges? I suspect it will do both. Seventy-two percent of teens use AI companions and 31% of them say they prefer their AI companions to humans. How will AI affect our ability to connect with one another in life-changing ways? AI is coming to a church near you and we need to decide how it will be used in the church itself.

Well, as you can see it is a mixed bag as we move into 2026. Hopefully, this overview will give us a bit of a 10,000-foot view into the year ahead.