CNN Reported 100,000 Churches Could Close in a Decade. One Problem: The Data Doesn’t Back That Up

A CNN report this week on church closings carried a stark number: 100,000 churches gone within a decade. The story ties to Christianity at a Crossroads, a four-part PBS series from Journey Films, and filmmaker Martin Doblmeier is quoted saying, “The tsunami is going to continue for a while.”

The 100,000 figure doesn’t come from CNN’s own counting. It traces to an analysis from the Center for the New University.

The best available tallies make that trajectory look far less certain. Lifeway Research found that in 2024 about 3,800 Protestant churches started and about 4,000 closed, a net loss of roughly 200. Four thousand closures is about 1.4% of an estimated 293,000 Protestant churches.

In 2019, Lifeway counted 4,500 closures against 3,000 openings. In 2014, more churches opened than closed. The gap has flipped, but the most recent count is considerably less dire than 2019. Lifeway built its estimate from data supplied by 35 denominations or faith groups representing 58% of U.S. Protestant churches.

The Southern Baptist Convention shows the same shape. In its latest numbers, 715 churches disbanded or closed and 188 disaffiliated, for a net loss of 183, taking the SBC from 49,380 churches to 49,197. Churches founded since 2000 grew 12% over five years, and Lifeway found 94% of pastors expect their church to exist in ten years.

Attendance numbers further dispute the dire projections. The Hartford Institute for Religion Research, drawing on surveys of 7,453 congregations in late 2025, found median weekly in-person attendance rose to 70, above the pre-pandemic figure of 65. It is the first increase in 25 years. “That hasn’t happened in my whole career as a researcher,” Hartford’s Scott Thumma told NPR.

The caveats are large. Nearly half of the congregations Hartford studied saw declines, and big congregations are growing while small ones shrink.

Put together, the data supports two statements at once: Protestant church closures currently outpace openings, while median in-person attendance across U.S. congregations has risen for the first time in 25 years. Neither finding makes 100,000 closures impossible. Neither makes it a count of what is actually happening now.