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Article: Church attendance on the decline.
- Article from:
- The Christian Century
- Article date:
- September 11, 1996
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1996 The Christian Century Foundation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Church attendance across denominational lines has suffered a five-year decline and has sunk to its lowest level in two decades, according to research by the Barna Research Group of Glendale, California. "From the early '80s to the early '90s, there has been a definite change," said Bruce Hose, who was director of Sunday school programs for the 1-million-member Alabama Baptist Convention from 1985 to 1995. "Not only has attendance gone down but it is a graying culture, a graying congregation."
Hose said the Assemblies of God, the Southern Baptist Convention and some other denominations have continued to make membership gains, but much of the growth has taken ...