LIBERTY UNIVERSITY JOHN W. RAWLINGS SCHOOL OF DIVINITY
How Has COVID-19 Impacted Religious Participation?
CLED 700
A Paper Submitted to
the Faculty of the School of Divinity
in Candidacy for the Degree of
Doctor of Ministry Department of Christian Leadership and Church Ministries
By
Henry Edwin Shikuku
Lynchburg, Virginia
10/2022
How Has COVID-19 Impacted Religious Participation?
How are congregations faring two years after the outbreak of the COVID pandemic in the
United States? Has the number of worshipers who attend services in their houses of worship
reached the level it was before the pandemic started? Is worshiping online still the “new
normal”? Starting in July 2020, Pew Research Center carried out a series of surveys of U.S.
adults who attend religious services to assess how COVID-19 has impacted worshipers’ modes
of religious participation. Here is what we can glean from these surveys, the most recent of
which was conducted in March 2022:
1. Ninety percent of congregations have resumed in-person worship.
The share of congregations that hold in-person worship services increased substantially
between the spring and fall of 2021 but plateaued between fall of 2021 and spring of 2022. The
percentage of congregations that opened their doors to hold services in person increased from
76% in March 2021 to 88% in September 2021. During the six-month period between
September 2021 and March 2022, the share of congregations holding in-person services
increased by only 3 percentage points to reach 90%.
2. Forty-three percent of religious participants said their congregations are holding
services the same way they did before the pandemic.
Compared to surveys six months and a year earlier, more religious participants surveyed in
March 2022 reported that their houses of worship have returned to operating the same way
they normally did before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Forty-three percent of U.S. adults
who said they participate in religious services (regularly or otherwise) said their congregations
now hold religious services in the same way as before the beginning of the pandemic, up from
29% six months earlier and only 12% in March 2021. The share of individuals who said their
congregations have in-person services with modifications for COVID declined steadily from 64%
in March 2021 to 47% in March 2022.
Congregations belonging to different religious traditions have responded to the outbreak
and waning of the COVID-19 pandemic in different ways. In March 2022, 60% of evangelical
Protestants who reported that they were regular attenders stated that their congregations
were currently holding services in person with no modifications for COVID, while less than half
of Catholics (43%) and a third of mainline Protestants said this was true of their congregations.
Only about one-fifth (21%) of those who regularly attend historically Black Protestant
congregations stated that their churches were operating the same as they had before the start
of the pandemic.
3. Sixty-seven percent of typical worship attenders have attended in-person services.
Among those who said they typically attend worship services once a month, the share who
attended a worship service in person in the last month also increased substantially during the
six-month period between the spring and fall of 2021, but it remained almost the same
between the fall of 2021 and spring of 2022. Forty-two percent said they attended an in-person
service in March of 2021, but this increased to almost two-thirds (64%) by September 2021. Six
months later, the share of worshipers who attended an in-person service increased by only
three percentage points to reach 67%.
It is interesting to note that the share of worship attenders who attended an in-person
service in the last month is much lower than the share of congregations that have opened their
doors to in-person worship services. For instance, while three-quarters of congregations held
services in person in March 2021, fewer than half of worshipers reported that they attended a
service in person. And a year later, 90% of congregations held in-person worship services, but
only two-thirds of worshipers attended a service in person.
4. Over half of those who attended services in person also watched services online or on
TV in March 2022.
An almost equal share of regular attenders reported that they had only attended services in
person (31%) as those who stated that they attended services both in person and online (36%).
About one-fifth (21%) said they only watched services on TV or online.
The share of regular attenders who attended services in person, online, or both in person
and online in March 2022 varied by religious tradition. Among Catholics, the largest share (45%)
only attended services in person while the largest share of Protestants (43%) attended services
both in person and watched services on TV or online. Among those who regularly attend
historically Black Protestant congregations, an almost equal share only watched services on TV
or online (35%) as those who both attended in person and watched on TV or online (38%).
About three in ten evangelical Protestant worshipers (29%) and mainline Protestant worshipers
(30%) attended services both in person and watched services online or on TV. While the share
of mainline Protestants who attended a service in person in the past month increased
substantially between September 2021 and March 2022, rising from 56% in September 2021 to
68% in March 2022, the share of historically Black Protestants and evangelical Protestants who
attended a service in person remained almost the same during this six-month period.
It is still difficult to know how much the pandemic has really altered how people worship
for the long haul — either by watching services online or TV or attending services in person.
This is because, in their surveys of religiosity and worship attendance in the United States prior
to the pandemic, Pew Research Center did not ask respondents to distinguish between whether
they physically attended their congregations’ services or whether they watched services on TV
or online.
