Editor’s note: U.S. church attendance has significantly declined, dropping from over 40 percent of adults attending weekly in the early 2000s to roughly 30 percent today, according to the Pew Research Center.
If you haven’t read the post that describes the research that proves the factors of church decline, then please read it first. Then return here to read the good news! The good news is there are eight ways to adapt to grow!
By Rev. Sheree Taylor-Jones
Let’s look at ways to jumpstart your ministry that are backed by years of scientific research. Based on 2025 and 2026 research from Pew Research, Hartford Institute, and The Barna Group, eight factors have been identified as significant for church growth. I’ve created a visual representation to support you in getting clarity on what’s vital for your community’s growth.
We will discuss each of these drivers of church growth, starting at the top and moving clockwise on the diagram. It’s no accident that we are starting with sacred leadership. Pastoral leadership is the strongest predictor of congregational vitality.
1. Strong, Stable Leadership
- Long-tenured pastors (5+ years): Supports community stability and allows members to go through the cycles of building relationships (honeymoon, disillusionment, adaptability, commitment, and co-creation). Stability honors the sacredness of divine leadership.
- Leaders who communicate vision clearly: Attracts members who resonate with messaging and intention. This builds greater energy to move forward.
- Leaders who empower lay participation: This is about tapping into members’ talents and gifts to uplift the entire community. This is not about supporting separate ministries that feed off of members for their own growth, but give nothing back to the church. For example, if ACIM/Seth/Hicks etc. groups are formed, be clear in boundaries. If they are not operating as a part of the overall church, then they should be treated as renters, not given access to church members for their cause.
- Leaders who adapt to change rather than protect old structures: Evolution of consciousness requires navigating change. Operating from “This is how we’ve done it for the last 20 years” doesn’t support 21st-Century living.
- Emotional health: Leaders must do their own emotional/spiritual work to get past egoic thinking, old paradigms, and belief systems that no longer work.
Why it matters: Leadership stability creates trust. Trust creates participation. Participation creates growth.
2. Relational Community
- Strong small-group systems: Are vital in creating lasting bonds and relationships. These systems move the church from a systemic structure to an emotional community.
- High volunteer engagement: Allows people to feel that their talents and passions are being valued.
- Programs that meet real local community needs (food insecurity, youth support, mental health): Gives members a sense of making a difference in people’s lives. If you think this box is checked because you provide backpacks for kids going back to school or gifts to kids for Christmas, that was true 30 years ago… but today that is simply tradition.
- Intergenerational connection: Do you have programs in place that support wisdom being exchanged with future visioning? There are so many opportunities to fill the void of family connections.
- Speaking and taking action regarding economic instability: People who are struggling financially increase spiritual seeking. The focus isn’t about rolling out a prosperity program in which the church benefits from tithes. Action on economic instability means practical, spiritual, and emotional aid to members without a transactional motive for the church… knowing the spiritual law of reciprocity doesn’t need to be manufactured.
Why it matters: Churches grow or decline within larger cultural currents.
3. Meaningful Worship
- Services that feel spiritually meaningful: Are you creating a spiritual frequency that if a service is missed, people feel they might miss something significant if they don’t attend service?
- Clear preaching with practical application: What are you teaching that members can use in their lived experiences to make lives better?
- High-quality music (traditional or contemporary): This is often the misguided place where budget cuts are seen as an easy fix. There are so many wonderful and talented artists that are willing to collaborate in new ways. Ask!
- Predictable structure with room for creativity: Yes, structure is needed for services, yet humans need the vibration of change to experience the divine. How can you keep the loved functions, while innovating to lift the frequency?
- Emotional resonance: This is the space where God has its being and power.
Why it matters: Music and frequency is the emotional component that allows conversions.
4. Demographic Alignment
- Churches located in growing population areas: Are you a part of the neighborhood? Do you know the pulse of the people that live there? Is there a need you can fill?
- Congregations that reflect the racial/ethnic makeup of their neighborhood grow: Do your church members reflect the diversity of your area? If not, who can you collaborate with to come in and hold workshops, music/poetry/art engagements? Does the platform reflect the diverse neighborhood?
- Ministries that engage children, teens, and young adults: This becomes an easily attained by-product of a church that is meeting the needs of those in their district.
Why it matters: Churches must be convenient, easily accessible, and MEMBERS need to see themselves.
5. Digital Competence – churches with strong hybrid worship grew at 2–3 times the rate of those without it.
- Livestreaming that is high-quality and consistent: Technology has improved significantly since everyone was forced in 2020 to get their services online. Low-cost and low-tech knowledge devices are making livestreaming an easy part of services. Objectively look at what ways you can update this process. Invest in music copyright, to include the musical portion of your service.
- Digital small groups: If you aren’t creating groups from online attendees, you are missing out on growing your membership.
- Online giving = financial stability: Make it easy for people to give online with one simple click or QR code. If your online giving isn’t significant, then it reflects a lack of engagement. Use your young people to spearhead digital group membership.
Why it matters: Livestreaming is now the norm; people feel safe when they can see what’s happening before committing to being in person. Livestreaming also provides accessibility.
6. Cultural Warmth
- Warm, authentic hospitality: Greeter programs that reflect diversity, emotional intelligence, and spiritual intelligence are vital to creating a safe and welcoming space.
- Clear pathways for newcomers: How do you find out who your newcomers are? What’s their need, gifts, pain? Only from this knowledge can you create a meaningful way to keep new members.
- Culture of joy, hope, and emotional safety: Religious organizations have caused much harm in the past. As an awakened spiritual community, it is our responsibility to put in boundaries and best practices to ensure we uplift each divine being.
- Psychological safety: Ensure key positions are filled with people who are doing their own emotional/spiritual work to ensure they do not harm others.
Why it matters: Churches grow when they are relationally strong, spiritually meaningful, and organizationally healthy.
7. Theological and Mission Clarity
- Clear identity: Are you still using the same mission and vision from 10, 20, 30 years ago? It’s time to take a look at the reason your church exists and what it wants to be in the world.
- Community impact: What good are you bringing to your surrounding area? Proven studies show that young people are drawn to communities that help others.
- Spiritual purpose: Is God the beacon for loving action or has egoic drive supplanted truth?
- Clear theological identity: Are you chasing new fads to be trendy? The world is hungry for spiritual truth spoken to life in the frequency of 21st-Century living.
Why it matters: Young people are seeing beyond the man-made systems and structures. They are saying no to those old constructs and are ready to embrace oneness.
8. Adaptive Flexibility
- Willingness to change: We all make mistakes. These lessons are necessary for our growth. Our spiritual power grows through our willingness to change when needed.
- Innovation: Look outside of the norms. What are thriving communities doing? How can you put your own spin and pivot?
- Learning posture: This attitude keeps us open to the possibilities and our greatest good.
- Openness to questions, diversity, and complexity: Surround yourself with people who are comfortable being in the question. Being in the question allows the fullness of God to have its way.
Why it matters: Honesty and authenticity are attractive to those who have been jaded by our secular world.
Use the above eight factors to analyze your spiritual community.
Focus on the most important factor that needs to be addressed and create a strategy to support your community in blooming.
Don’t take all of them on simultaneously; focus on one area at a time.
Also, as you strategize be aware the younger generations need a different approach. Non-churchgoing Gen Z and Millennials are interested in the following:
• Authenticity
• Flexible participation
• Churches that help the poor: 77.7%
• Churches that address mental health: 73.6%
• Churches that are involved in the community: 71.5%
• Churches that provide opportunities to help others: 69.2%
What This Means for 2026
Churches grow when they are relationally strong, missionally clear, spiritually meaningful, and organizationally healthy. This is not random. It is measurable, predictable, and for leaders: actionable! I look forward to hearing how this model supports renewal.
Rev. Sheree Taylor-Jones
Rev. Sheree Taylor-Jones is a minister, consultant, speaker, and author. Her passion is to assist people in questioning their personal beliefs, assessing and analyzing if those beliefs are valuable or need to be changed, giving them permission to release beliefs which no longer serve them, and supporting them in creating new empowering ones. She believes it’s in our ability to question our convictions that we are able to create personal transformation, which leads to a collective shift in consciousness.
Through her passions she has published a book, via Amazon.com, titled Turn Your Why? Into Why Not! This book gives practical applications in changing erroneous thinking.
Rev. Sheree has created a new spiritual community that is non-denomination New Thought, Celebration of Spirit. Its purpose is to put practical application of spiritual principles into the world.
Sheree is also the host of a podcast called Belief Busters (beliefbusterspodcast.org) that supports transformation of consciousness. You can reach Rev. Sheree at her website, PreachItSister.com and her Facebook page is Preach It Sister.
Amazon book link: https://amzn.to/2MX5SuJ
Rev Sheree YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNskyJvjdo6rAjZL1l4xEOA
This is the second in a two-part series. Part 1 examines factors in declining churches. Subscribe to our Ministry Marketing Advisor if you would like to be notified when new posts about churches are published.
