Barna Group President: One-fifth of All Churches Could Close Over Next 18 Months Due to COVID
In an interview on NPR’s Here & Now earlier this week, David Kinnaman, the president of the research and polling company Barna Group, said that based on trends both before and after the COVID-19 outbreak, American churches will look a lot different after the crisis has passed, and one in five of them could close for good.
Said Kinnaman:
In the long run, I think we’ll look back at this pandemic as a fundamental change to the way Americans … attend church. You know, obviously, there’ll be a lot more online attendance than ever before, even after all churches reopen. I think the digital church is here to stay.
And I think it’s also going to really change the way people think about their donation relationship with local churches....
