Churches & Religious Organizations
Industry Profile Report
Dive Deep into the industry with a 25+ page industry report (pdf format) including the following chapters
Industry Overview Current Conditions, Industry Structure, How Firms Operate, Industry Trends, Credit Underwriting & Risks, and Industry Forecast.
Call Preparation Call Prep Questions, Industry Terms, and Weblinks.
Financial Insights Working Capital, Capital Financing, Business Valuation, and Financial Benchmarks.
Industry Profile Excerpts
Industry Overview
The 184,700 churches and religious organizations in the US provide spiritual worship, guidance, and education. Some organizations operate hospitals or schools. While such ancillary programs are generally managed separately from their associated organization, churches often provide financial support.
Slow-growing Membership
Church membership among major denominations has been flat or declining in recent years, challenging organizations to discover innovative ways to attract new members.
Ideological Conflict
Disagreements over controversial issues can cause congregations to split, significantly reducing revenue for the original organization.
Industry size & Structure
A typical church or religious organization operates out of a single location, employs fewer than 10 workers and generates about $956,000 million annually.
- Churches and religious organizations consist of about 184,700 organizations, which employ nearly 1.7 million workers and generate $174 billion in annual revenue.
- Religious organizations include temples, synagogues, mosques, and shrines.
- Church size can be classified by average weekly attendance: Small (less than 200 people), medium (200 to 400), large (400 to 2,000), and megachurch (2,000+).
- About 20% of Americans claim to attend weekly, and about 11% claim to attend nearly weekly or monthly, according to Gallup.
- Large religious organizations include the Catholic Church (52 million members), the Southern Baptist Convention (12.9 million), the United Methodist Church (5.4 million), and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (6.8 million).
Industry Forecast
Churches & Religious Organizations Industry Growth
Recent Developments
Feb 10, 2025 - President Trump Signs Executive Orders Prioritizing School Choice
- President Trump issued an executive order making school choice a major priority for the US Department of Education and other federal agencies involved in K-12 education. The order instructs the Education Department to prepare guidance for states within 60 days on how they can tap into federal funding formulas to bolster K-12 education choice programs. Trump also directed the US Department of Health and Human Services to issue guidance within 90 days on how states can use HHS block grants, including the Child Care and Development Block Grant, to expand school choice for families who want options including “private and faith-based options.”
- Some religious leaders experimenting with AI, according to the New York Times. Interest in AI among religious organizations is increasing demand for AI tools from assistants that can do theological research to chatbots that can help write sermons. Experiments with AI are similar to efforts by prior generations to take advantage of technology like radio, television, and the internet, according to the New York Times. AI is being used to translate livestreamed sermons into different languages in real time for international audiences. Chatbots trained on tens of thousands of pages of Scripture have been compared to a fleet of newly trained seminary students, able to pull excerpts about certain topics nearly instantaneously.
- Young men are increasingly gravitating toward Orthodox churches, according to the Orthodox Studies Institute. Orthodox parishes saw a 78% increase in converts in 2022 compared to pre-pandemic levels in 2019. Men and women previously converted in equal numbers, but vastly more men have joined Orthodox churches since 2020. The majority of converts (62%) since 2013 are under 40 at the time of their conversion. About 73% of converts are joining the faith without minor children. The majority of converts (65%) come from a Protestant background prior to becoming Orthodox. Some 60% have studied the Orthodox faith and have theological reasons for converting.
- Small church communities are increasingly threatened by decreasing membership and the greater popularity of ‘megachurches’, according to the authors of The Great Dechurching: Who’s Leaving, Why Are They Going, and What Will It Take to Bring Them Back? The authors point out that only 10% of America’s faith communities currently have more than 250 people at weekly services, yet around 70% of churchgoers attend such churches. The authors also note that once vibrant churches are slowly closing their doors. About 3,000 Protestant churches were officially opened in 2019 while 4,5000 closed. About 4,000 Protestant churches were officially opened in 2014 while 3,700 closed.
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