Lifeway Poll: More Protestant Pastors Say the Economy is Hurting Their Churches

The Banner has a subscription to republish articles from Religion News Service. This story by Yonat Shimron was published Oct. 11, 2022 on religionnews.com. 

A new survey of 1,000 U.S. Protestant pastors finds that half are concerned the economy is hurting their churches.

The survey from Lifeway, the publishing arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, also found that most pastors say congregational giving is in line with the previous year.

In the survey, 52% said the economy was having a negative impact on their churches, up 15 percentage points from a similar survey in 2021. Overall, 40% said the economy wasn’t having any effect and 7% said the economy is a positive factor for their churches.

The survey, taken in September, marks the first time since 2016 that more than half of pastors feel the economy is having a negative impact on their churches and the first time since 2012 that fewer than 10% of pastors see the economy as having a positive effect.

However, 46% of pastors said giving has been about what was budgeted and 23% said it’s higher.

“The souring of pastor attitudes towards the economy is more about rising expenses than declining income,” said Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research. “Declining year-over-year giving is a factor for almost a quarter of churches, but this is a similar rate to what churches have averaged for over a decade.”

Small-church pastors, those with congregations of fewer than 50 attendees, were the most likely to say the economy was negatively affecting their churches. Pastors at the largest churches, those with 250 or more, are the most likely to say offerings so far this year are above last year’s levels.

The survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.

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