On any given Sunday across the Episcopal Church in 2024, more than 120,000 individuals accessed a service through livestream. The statistic is one of the new data points in the recently released 2024 Parochial Report. Of the 6,707 open parishes and missions, 94.1 percent provided information about their congregations.
“In-person ASA [average Sunday attendance] continues to rebound after the dip it took during the pandemic. However, the recovery is only back to the previous point of decline,” the report said. As with the 2023 data, analysis for this year was provided by Hartford Institute for Religion Research experts Dr. Charissa Mikoski and Dr. B. Clarvon Watts.
A graph depicting attendance trends show a consecutive decline beginning in 2014 until 2021, with a consistent uptick starting in 2022. The ASA for 2014 was 634,348.
Last year, average in-person Sunday attendance across the church increased slightly to 413,034. When those who attended a service virtually on a Sunday are factored in, the average number of Sunday worshipers per congregation rises from 38 to 46.
Mikoski and Watts said the 2024 data is a significant departure from previous annual publications, as the content of the report form has changed. “This means that certain data points collected in previous years may not be directly comparable to this year’s findings,” they wrote.
Aside from online engagement, two additional questions were included in the report form:
- How is your parish reducing your carbon footprint?
- What is one program or initiative at your church that represents your hope for the future of your congregation or the greater Episcopal Church?
The Parochial Report, an annual data submission by all congregations dating back to 1804, is formally received and approved each year by the Executive Council. The Office of General Convention oversees the report, though its contents are determined by the House of Deputies’ Committee on the State of the Church.
During the 2024 fall meeting of the council, the Rev. Molly James, interim executive officer and secretary of General Convention, said that counting online worship participants has been a challenge, but future reports will provide a specific metric. She also said there will be more focus on congregational vitality beyond average Sunday attendance in forthcoming publications.
This year’s data did not provide a total membership count for the whole church.
A story by David Paulsen of the Episcopal News Service said attempts to expand approaches to counting church membership have led to confusion, with even those familiar with church statistics perplexed about the changes in data-gathering.
A former bishop told ENS that information requested for 2024 was not reflective of what is happening in congregations. Presiding officers, said the press release accompanying the report, “are collaborating to devise a process that provides clearer data on total membership in future years.”
The additional questions yielded insights on churches’ commitment to the environment and social concerns.
More than 1,800 congregations consider themselves energy efficient, meaning they have taken steps to reduce energy use by upgrading to LED lighting, balancing thermostats, updating HVAC systems, adding insulation, and replacing windows.
Overwhelmingly, 2,345 congregations cited social justice initiatives as a source of hope for their parish and the Episcopal Church as a whole.
These initiatives include food pantries, clothing exchanges, offering meals and showers to the unhoused, and providing Narcan training, which equips individuals to recognize the signs of an opioid overdose.
Languages used in church services offer diversity. The five most commonly used non-English languages are Spanish, French, Haitian Creole, and Lakota and Dakota Native American languages. The Diocese of Haiti is the largest in the Episcopal Church in baptized members. It has 98,403 members, according to the 2023 Parochial Report.
On finances, the average pledge decreased from $3,650 to $3,093. Total income stood at $2.517 billion, with expenses totaling $2.545 billion. This is the first time in the last decade that expenses exceeded income.
Roughly one of four congregations has an average debt of $55,000, often due to infrastructure maintenance, mortgages, and capital improvement projects. Three of four congregations have an endowment or investment account, reflecting a total of $5.2 billion in endowments and $1.6 billion in investments.
Congregations that submitted data employ a total of 9,717 clergy and 27,360 lay staff members; the majority of the latter are working for the church as part-time employees.
Caleb Maglaya Galaraga is The Living Church’s Episcopal Church reporter. His work has also appeared in Christianity Today, Broadview Magazine, and Presbyterian Outlook, among other publications.
