Churches & Religious Organizations NAICS 813110
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Industry Summary
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.
Recent Developments
May 2, 2025 - Religious Preferences Stablize in US
- Americans’ religious preferences have generally held steady in the past five years, according to research organization Gallup. The stability comes after a sharp increase over the prior two decades in the percentage of Americans with no religious affiliation and concurrent decreases in Protestant and Catholic identification. About 45% of Americans identified as Protestant or nondenominational Christian in 2024, 21% as Catholic, and 10% as another religion, with 22% not identifying with any religion. Those figures are each within one percentage point of their 2018-2020 levels.
- Christianity has experienced an overall or ‘net’ loss in adherents in many countries due at least in part to religious switching, according to Pew Research. “In many countries surveyed, more people were raised as Christians and have left Christianity than have become Christians after being raised in some other tradition or without a religious affiliation,” according to a March 2025 Pew report. Pew researchers added that net loss for Christianity “is especially strong in many high-income countries.”
- 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.
- 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.
Industry Revenue
Churches & Religious Organizations
Industry Structure
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 (53 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 (6.9 million).
Industry Forecast
Industry Forecast
Churches & Religious Organizations Industry Growth
Source: Vertical IQ and Inforum
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