By Michael Gryboski, Editor Friday, October 24, 2025

About half of American pastors say the current economy is negatively affecting their congregations, a noticeable drop from the previous year when around two-thirds said the same, according to a recent survey by Lifeway Research.

The Christian research firm released data from a phone survey of over 1,003 Protestant pastors conducted from Sept. 2 to Sept. 24. With a margin of error of roughly 3.3 percentage points, around half (49%) of the pastors questioned believed that the economy "is negatively impacting their churches." Meanwhile, 41% said they "don't feel any economic impact."

The 49% who said the economy was hurting their church represents a sharp decline from last year, when 66% of respondents said that the current economy was negatively affecting them.

"Pastors' general impressions of the impact of the economy on their churches have noticeably improved since a year ago, but pastors are still five times more likely to be seeing negative effects as positive," Lifeway Research Executive Director Scott McConnell said in a statement. 

The data also suggests that just over a third (37%) of Protestant churches reported an increase in giving over last year, while 39% said their levels are the same as last year and 20% said offerings were down.

"The percentage of churches seeing growth in offerings matches the average of all the years surveyed, but it has been seven years (2017) since the percentage of churches with declining offerings was at 20% or less," McConnell added. "One in five churches contracting financially is still a large number who are facing difficult financial decisions."

In 2023, Lifeway Research found that 50% of surveyed pastors believed the economy was negatively affecting their congregations, while 40% said it was having no impact, and 8% said it was positively affecting their congregations.

Last year, the share of surveyed clergy who believed that the economy was negatively impacting their churches shot up to 66%, while 7% reported a positive economic impact.

"National trends of a favorable stock market along with unfavorable inflation and interest can influence a local congregation's finances, but so do more local factors that contribute to economic problems or prosperity in the church's community," McConnell stated at the time.

"In general, pastors have turned a little more negative in describing economic forces impacting their church this year."

McConnell also floated the possibility that 2024 being an election year was a factor in the results, stating that "pastors' perceptions of the economy's impact on their churches are statistically related to the pastor's own politics."

"Since both politics and economics are external factors to a local church, it is not surprising that the influences become combined for some," he added.

News Source : https://www.christianpost.com/news/fewer-pastors-say-economy-is-negatively-impacting-their-churches.html