As the decline of Christianity continues ever onward, let’s visit some beloved evangelical myths about how and why a small church grows—or withers on the vine. This goes far past what we talked about recently regarding church economics! The reality is far more pedestrian, of course, but it’s also something evangelicals are increasingly reluctant to hear. Today, we’ll tackle both the real truths and the imaginary notions about small church success.
(This post and its audio ‘cast first went live on Patreon on 4/14/2026. They’re both available there now. Please support my work—see the end of this writeup for options, and thank you for whatever you decide to do!)
SITUATION REPORT: Evangelicals ringing alarm bells over looming church closures
In the past six months, one headline has loomed above all others when it comes to church health in the United States: 15,000 churches were rumored to close in the US by the end of 2025. It is eclipsed only by a prediction from the National Council of Churches about 100,000 churches closing over “the next several years“. Indeed, since about 2019, more Protestant churches have closed than opened, according to a Lifeway report from January 2026.
For the leaders and congregants of small churches, meaning those with fewer than 100 attendees weekly, that number sounds especially dire.
According to a Faith Community survey from 2020 (p. 5), about 70% of church congregations fell below that number. More telling perhaps, a solid third of attendees in that study were senior citizens (aged 65+; the figure’s on p. 7). These churches are hanging on by a shoestring and sheer hope. If they lose even a couple of adults, then it makes a huge difference to the church’s bottom line. And if, like most of its kind, a small church depends on one or two high-giving families for most of its support, it’ll likely go underwater immediately if one of those families withdraws that support. (See also this Ryan Burge tweet about the demographic crisis about to hit American churches.)
Over the past year, the decline has slowed somewhat, so these figures might not be accurate. We’re still waiting for more data. (Oddly, the National Council of Churches hasn’t released the source of its own data for that 100k prediction. Nor has the 15k-by-2025 figure been substantiated.) Still, the predictions have caused a stir in evangelicalism.
Evangelicals are responding in completely predictable ways: Drilling down on authoritarian control-grabs, demands for more intense indoctrination, and insisting that evangelicals please become completely different (and markedly better!) people than who they actually are.
Today, we’ll be looking at those responses. But first, let’s look at the simple costs of running churches these days, with a focus on newer, smaller churches.
Megachurch aspirations, small church budget
In a lot of ways, megachurches have advantages that are completely closed off to the leader of a small church. They have a lot more room to try new ideas. An October 2025 story out of Houston details how Lakewood Church uses arena-rock tricks like flashing lights, giant screens, and more to hold the attention of its thousands of attendees. The article contextualizes this style of worship as a means of adapting to changing societal needs—and to the material reality of how far away some attendees are from the stage:
“We realized in the Compaq Center, the farthest person away is 100 yards,” Osteen said. “And so, immediately we knew we got to have good screens, we have to have excellent sound and lighting to communicate with somebody that far away. That’s always been a big part of what we do is — how do we enhance it through video, lighting, proper sound and things like that?”
According to one source, TopDanceLED, those giant screens can cost anywhere between “$20,000 to $100,000 and beyond.” (Another site suggests $66k-$281k!) Though a much smaller church has far less need for such screens, they’d struggle to come up with even a couple thousand dollars to run a decent Vacation Bible School. The difference in their budgets and wiggle room are just too enormous to compare.
In a low cost of living (LCOL) area, a small church of about 100 attendees needs somewhere between $120k-180k just to stay afloat. A small church needs at least $120k. That is a barebones figure. Though budget sites often suggest setting aside funds for major repair bills, most simply don’t, and indeed can’t. In 2023, Thom Rainer called this situation “the looming deferred maintenance crisis.” So it’s possible that tens of thousands of small churches in America are one roof or water-heater replacement away from closing.
So unsurprisingly, it’s the megachurch that tends to grow, not the small church. Few new small churches make it past about five years, even with significant but temporary aid from church-planting organizations like Acts 29. They simply can’t attract enough dues-paying members to maintain their own operational costs. That’s likely why very few church-planting effectiveness surveys release data for church plants past about four years. Older small churches might limp along longer, of course.
And by “very few,” I mean “none,” of course. Nobody in the Christ-o-sphere wants to talk about longer-term success than that. Church-planting organizations might crow about their success rates, like the North American Mission Board (NAMB) did in 2023, but they also don’t release any data to confirm what they’re claiming. In a Carey Nieuwhof post, he revealed only about a third of new churches are self-supporting at four years, meaning longer-term survival is much lower even than that.
(Related: Don’t miss this December 2025 story about a Tennessee pastor. He unilaterally shut down his church with next to no notice and despite a wedding planned there that very next weekend. The sheer SEETHE in his quotes makes this a must-see. He was clearly furious about a big drop in donations.)
What’s a small church to do in the face of such long odds?
Nobody in the Christ-o-sphere really wants to talk about reality in church operations. Instead, they try to put the blame (and occasional accolades) on the people leading small churches.
Speaking of Acts 29, here’s their “simple recipe for planting churches,” written back in 2013:
- Take one faithful man, with the kind of faith which uniting a man to Christ sets him on fire.
- One faithful, biblical gospel.
- One small, or large, community committed to faithful Christ-like discipleship.
- Mix in to a local community (tribe, nation, language, socio-economic status irrelevant).
- Pray hard and wait patiently. [. . .]
- Add a large spoon of sovereign grace: expansive. [This is because Acts 29 is very Calvinist, so the recipe obviously must involve at least one Calvinist-specific belief.]
- When another man is set on fire, repeat process.
We see a similar swing from John Thomas. He wrote a popular post some years back (probably around 2012) about why he thinks his church failed. First on the list is his failure to pray enough. He mentions some reality-adjacent concerns amid blaming himself for not Jesusing hard enough, demonstrating that overall, he still doesn’t understand why his church failed. He’s grasping at straws.
Nothing has changed, either. In 2025, Joe McKeever wrote about the topic in a sermon he shared online. He blamed several factors for a small church’s lack of growth. His essay focuses on unfriendly congregations, church politics, building maintenance not getting done, and—of course!—a lack of sufficient prayer. It’s a weird ping-pong back and forth between real and imaginary factors. Still, it’s much like the Acts 29 list.
Other evangelicals are focusing harder on discipleship than ever. In Christianese, discipleship is thorough training of younger Christians by older ones. It’s touted as the surefire means of keeping converts for life. Those pushing the idea also think it helps transform heathens into obedient, rules-following church members. However, discipleship can easily become oppressive and abusive, particularly if the newer Christians bristle at the control-grabs that often come with the process.
It’s like they’re forgetting that the first wave of deconversions happened almost exclusively to people who grew up heavily indoctrinated! (Ask me how I know.)
How to actually grow a small church into a bigger one
All in all, church growth is far less about Jesus’ approval than it is about numbers and demographics.
I’m with Ryan Burge on this one: Population growth drives a church’s destiny. In January 2025, he revealed that most growing churches are just in areas with generally high population growth.
Given what I know of megachurches, I’d also reckon that growing churches avoid politics, recruit leaders at all levels who have good soft skills, avoid interpersonal drama and jockeying for favor, focus on diversity and outreach to different groups of people, and offer lots of programs and perks for members. They acquire a meeting space inexpensively. And somehow, they start with a core group of 100-120ish adults from a sponsoring church.
Speaking of sponsoring, successful small churches often get ample support to start off with as well—often with a high level of launch funding, meaning at least $135k according to Cary Nieuwhof. At the same time, they’re looking to create multiple income streams rather than getting all of their money directly through donations made on Sunday: fundraisers, gifts in wills, etc.
Reality drives small church success or failure
Not one bit of what I just shared here depends on anything supernatural to happen.
In the end, no data points to prayer being all that important to a church’s chances of success. Nor do any specific doctrinal stances (though high-control groups, like hard-right evangelicals, can fare better with retention in some ways). Instead, creating good groups that people want to join and support is what matters.
So church growth depends on the same factors that someone opening any business must take into account: Offering something that people will meaningfully support at the level the owners need to stay operational.
Evangelicals, more than any other type of Christian, have never had to reckon with the earthly quality of their groups or programs as factors in recruiting. All too many of them still want to believe that “preaching the Word” and gaining Jesus’ approval will keep their churches solvent. That may be why even more reality-based evangelical essays eventually start speculating about supernatural causes behind church failures.
But reality doesn’t stop being true just because someone dislikes it. So for a while longer, we can expect them to cope the best they can to avoid confronting the need for change—and to reach for high-control tactics to stem churn as best they can.
NEXT UP: The ERLC got a new president, and this change indicates that Southern Baptists’ faction warfare is far from concluded. We’ll cover this change in command next time. See you soon! <3
Please support my work!
Thanks for reading, and thanks for being part of our community! Here are some ways you can support my work:
0 Comments