Easter remains a high attendance day for most churches

BRENTWOOD, Tenn.—Most pastors expect one of their largest crowds of the year at church on Easter, but those expectations have tempered some in the past decade.

The three highest-attendance Sundays for pastors—Easter, Christmas and Mother’s Day—have remained the same since 2011, but each is now less likely to be among the top days, according to a Lifeway Research study of U.S. Protestant pastors.

“While many churches consider high attendance as something from their pre-pandemic past, seasonal changes have resumed,” said Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research. “Church attendance is predictable again with periods of consistency in the fall and early spring, as well as holiday crowds at Christmas and Easter.”

Today, 90 percent of pastors identify Easter as the day their church has its highest, second-highest or third-highest attendance for worship service. Four in 5 (81 percent) say the same for Christmas, and 51 percent identify Mother’s Day.

But fewer pastors point to high attendance on those three days compared to 2011. Easter, down from 93 percent to 90 percent, and Christmas, down from 84 percent to 81 percent, dropped three percentage points, while Mother’s Day fell eight points from 59 percent to 51 percent.

A day the church designates to invite friends is the only day to have a statistically significant increase in the past decade, climbing from 14 percent in 2011 to 20 percent in 2024.

 

An additional study finds several of the top days for church attendance are among U.S. Protestant churchgoers’ favorite holidays to celebrate.

More than half of U.S. Protestant pastors (52 percent) identify Easter as the day their church typically has its highest attendance for worship services, statistically unchanged from the 55 percent who said the same in 2011.

Another 30 percent say Easter is the second most attended day at their congregation, while 8 percent identify it as the third-highest-attendance worship service.

 “On any given Sunday, a large minority of a congregation may not be present for worship,” McConnell said. “Easter is the day when the most church members get to church—and for a good reason: No other theme is as profound to a Christian than celebrating that they died with Christ and as Jesus was raised to life, so too Christians are now alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

Pastors of churches that top 100 attendees are more likely than small church pastors to say Easter is one of the highest attended services, if not the highest, at their churches.

Those at churches with 250 or more for an average weekend worship service (67 percent) and those with 100 to 249 (60 percent) are more likely than pastors at churches with 50 to 99 on average (51 percent) and those with fewer than 50 (44 percent) to say Easter is their highest-attendance service of the year.

Additionally, those at churches that average 100-249 for worship services (93 percent) and those at churches with 250 or more (98 percent) are more likely than pastors of churches with attendance of less than 50 (87 percent) to rank Easter in their top three high-attendance days.

Nondenominational pastors are more likely than Presbyterian/Reformed pastors to have their largest crowds on Easter (64 percent v. 45 percent). Also, Lutherans (98 percent) and Methodists (95 percent) are more likely to have Easter near the top than Presbyterian/Reformed (87 percent), Pentecostal (84) or Restorationist Movement pastors (78 percent).

Churchgoers identify favorite holidays

Among churchgoers, Easter ranks third among their favorite holidays to celebrate (10 percent). Those who attend worship services at least four times a month are more likely than those who attend one to three times a month to pick Easter (14 percent v. 5 percent). Also, churchgoers with evangelical beliefs are more likely than those without to choose the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection (13 percent v. 6 percent).

Perhaps unsurprisingly, U.S. Protestant pastors say Christmas is also one of their most well-attended services.

More than a quarter (28 percent) say they typically have their highest attendance for worship services as they celebrate the birth of Jesus, statistically unchanged from 29 percent in 2011. Around 2 in 5 (39 percent) point to Christmas as the second in their attendance rankings, while 14 percent place it third.

“Pastors may have been thinking of different types of worship services for Christmas since the question did not specify a Sunday morning or weekend worship service,” McConnell said. “Different churches have different traditional Christmas celebrations that may not land on December 25. The largest attendance may be on Christmas Eve, the nearest Sunday or the day of a concert.”

Mainline pastors are more likely than their evangelical counterparts to identify Christmas as their best-attended service (35 percent v. 26 percent). Protestant pastors in the Northeast also are more likely than those in the South to have Christmas at the top of their attendance rankings (33 percent v. 24 percent).

Additionally, pastors in the Midwest are more likely than those in the South to have Christmas in their top three (84 percent vs. 78 percent). The largest churches, those 250 or more, are more likely than the smallest churches, fewer than 50 in attendance, to say Christmas is one of their three most well-attended services (89 percent v. 79 percent).

Christmas is by far the favorite holiday of Protestant churchgoers (63 percent), but those at the smallest churches are least likely to agree. Those attending churches with weekly worship services that average 500 or more (69 percent), 100 to 249 (69 percent) and 50 to 99 (63 percent) are more likely than those at churches with fewer than 50 (53 percent) to say Christmas is their favorite holiday to celebrate.

Mother’s Day still a big day, just not as big

While pastors identify Christmas and Easter as far and away their highest-attendance seasons, Mother’s Day remains the clear third, despite dropping in popularity in the past decade.

Few Protestant pastors say Mother’s Day is their highest (6 percent) or second-highest attendance day (14 percent), but a plurality (31 percent) point to the holiday as their third highest.

African American pastors are more likely than white pastors to say they have their highest attendance for a Mother’s Day service (12 percent v. 5 percent). They are also more likely than white pastors to rank the holiday in their top three (66 percent v. 49 percent).

Additionally, pastors 65 and older (55 percent) are among the most likely to say Mother’s Day is one of their three highest attendance services.

Nondenominational pastors (64 percent), Baptists (59 percent), Restorationist Movement pastors (59 percent) and Pentecostals (54 percent) are more likely than Presbyterian/Reformed (39 percent) and Lutheran pastors (30 percent) to place Mother’s Day in their top three.

U.S. Protestant pastors say the other days that make their three highest-attendance services include a day the church designates to invite friends (20 percent), homecoming or anniversary of the church’s founding (18 percent), Fourth of July (3 percent) and Father’s Day (3 percent). Around 1 in 8 say part of their top three includes no particular Sunday (12 percent).

Around a quarter of pastors (22 percent) said another specific day. The top choices offered among those included Thanksgiving, Palm Sunday, a baptism service, Reformation Day, Confirmation Sunday, Christmas Eve and All Saints Day. Each of those had fewer than 3 percent mention them.

Personal invitations matter

The special day to invite friends is the only day that saw significant growth since 2011, with 20 percent of pastors now including it in their top three, compared to 14 percent in 2011. The special friend day is more popular in the Northeast (29 percent) than the Midwest (18 percent) and South (17 percent).

Pentecostals (32 percent) are among the most likely to include this as part of their three highest-attended services. Pastors at churches with an average attendance of 250 or more are among the least likely (11 percent).

“Only the most visible church in the community is likely to get visitors who simply appear at church on Christian holidays,” McConnell said. “People who don’t think of themselves as Christians or who do not have a church typically need a personal invitation before they will show up at a church. Many are open to these invitations, as evidenced by higher attendance when they are emphasized.”

Large churches are also among the least likely to say homecoming or the anniversary of the church’s founding is one of their most popular services (8 percent). For African American (33 percent) and Baptist pastors (28 percent), however, this is more likely to be among their top three attended services.

U.S. Protestant churchgoers also have clear favorite holidays to celebrate, whether that includes a visit to church or not. Christmas (63 percent) and Easter (10 percent), along with Thanksgiving (14 percent) are the most popular holidays among churchgoers, followed by Halloween (4 percent), New Year’s Eve and Day (3 percent) and Independence Day (3 percent).

Fewer choose Memorial Day (1 percent), Labor Day (1 percent), Juneteenth (1 percent), Columbus Day (less than 1 percent) and Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (less than 1 percent), while 2 percent say they’re not sure.

The phone survey of Protestant pastors regarding high attendance days was conducted Aug. 29, 2023, to Sept. 20, 2023. Analysts weighted responses by region and church size to reflect the population more accurately. The completed sample is 1,004 surveys, providing 95 percent confidence that the sampling error does not exceed plus or minus 3.2 percent.

The online survey of American Protestant churchgoers regarding favorite holidays was conducted Sept. 19 to 29, 2023, using a national pre-recruited panel. Quotas and slight weights were used to balance gender, age, region, ethnicity, education and religion to reflect the population more accurately. The completed sample is 1,008 surveys, providing 95 percent confidence that the sampling error from the panel does not exceed plus or minus 3.2 percent.