The Modern Congregation
Church attendance in America tends to fall into two camps, either a “smallish” congregation of about 75-100 people, or a more regional “mega-church” congregation of 350 or more. Since Baptists focus their efforts on the “local church” as the center of worship, Baptist congregations would more likely be part of the first group. There have not been, as far as I can tell, any studies specifically about the numbers of families per congregation. If we assume a “traditional” nuclear family set-up for most member families (two parents, 2.5 kids, maybe a grandparent), that would be 15-20 families in a congregation.
According to the National Congregations Study, a survey conducted periodically between 1998 and 2012, the percentage of racially integrated churches has been rising steadily, with African Americans found to be the “most likely group to worship with whites.” In 2012, 12% of all congregations in the U.S. were integrated, an increase from 6% in 1998; and only one-third were monoracial, a decrease from about 50% in earlier surveys. Approximately one in five American worshippers attended a church that is racially integrated (meaning less than 80% of the congregation is the same race). The majority of multiracial churches are led by white head ministers, but the percentage of black head ministers had risen from 5% in 1998 to 17% in 2012.
The NCS also reports that acceptance of gay and lesbian membership increased over the reporting period from 37% to 48%; acceptance of gays and lesbians in “volunteer leadership positions” increased from 18% to 27%. These increases varied among denominations, with Evangelical Protestant churches “least likely to accept,” and Catholic churches actually showing a decrease in acceptance between 2006 and 2012. Mainline Protestant churches showed higher acceptance as both members and volunteer leadership from 67% and 54% in 2006 to 76% and 63% in 2012, respectively.
While the NCS reports that black Protestant churches experienced a sizable increase in the acceptance LGBT members, the National Baptist Convention, representing the majority of black Baptist churches, contends that an informal poll among church leadership would find that most of them would disagree with the practice of homosexuality itself, whether or not gay or lesbian individuals were accepted into the church, and definitely against positioning them in leadership roles.
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